The anonymous tipster, whom many people initially assumed had “hacked” into the computers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (repeatedly called the “Hadley CRU,” by mistake), might in fact be a CRU insider who released the files for his own reasons.

The user, known only as “FOIA” (which now appears to be a reference to the British equivalent of the US Freedom of Information Act), left only one comment on The Air Vent to announce his release of his 61-MB ZIP archive. He has never been heard from since, nor has anyone stepped forward claiming to be that person since the story became widely known.

Persons knowledgeable in information security hold that this is not the behavior of a hacker. A hacker normally boasts of his act, even if he were hired or otherwise suborned to commit his act by someone else. These two reports provide illustrations of such behavior.

Other commenters have observed that the very form and organization of the archive, which expands to 168 MB of text files, word-processing documents, PDF files, raw data, and even program code, indicate that someone already having access to the system logged in through his usual channels, made the archive, and then logged out. The user’s choice of words indicate someone having a motive to disclose to the world certain activities and mindsets that the user found distasteful, at least.

This Examiner has been able to reconstruct a timeline of the story

Read the original article to see the timeline, it is quite damning evidence that this was no hacker, but an insider and it all boils down to:

Mr. Stephen McIntyre at Climate Audit has made no secret of his repeated attempts to demand, under Britain’s Freedom of Information Act, that Phil Jones and his team yield up the data that are the basis of their claims for anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and its effects. Preliminary analysis of the archived e-mails also indicates that Jones knew of McIntyre’s efforts and was taking steps to stall and thwart them, in violation of the law. Perhaps, then, someone at CRU decided to take the law into his own hands.

Doesn’t surprise me one bit that they would resort to violate the law….all in the name of “science”

I’m currently traveling and writing this from an airport, but here is what I know so far:

An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today:

We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.

We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents

The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files.

It contained data, code, and emails from Phil Jones at CRU to and from many people.

I’ve seen the file, it appears to be genuine and from CRU. Others who have seen it concur- it appears genuine. There are so many files it appears unlikely that it is a hoax. The effort would be too great.

Watts has the text of some of the huge file’s emails posted on his website. Saunter over to the first link above to read at his site.

Of special note is CRU’s Prof. Phil Jones’ admission of fudging the numbers to hide the temperature decline.

[Emphasis added by Mata]I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 or NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Another email was from another associate, Jonathan Overpeck, discussing a proposed letter to the Senate to combat the “continued assault on the science of climate change by some on Capitol Hill”. Overpeck is less than thrilled at being part of alterating data to comply with political aims, suggesting that such nefarious deeds were best left to other organizations.

Hi all – I’m not too comfortable with this, and would rather not sign – at least not without some real time to think it through and debate the issue. [Emphasis added by Mata] It is unprecedented and political, and that worries me.

My vote would be that we don’t do this without a careful discussion first.

I think it would be more appropriate for the AGU or some other scientific org to do this – e.g., in reaffirmation of the AGU statement (or whatever it’s called) on global climate change.

Think about the next step – someone sends another letter to the Senators, then we respond, then…

I’m not sure we want to go down this path. It would be much better for the AGU etc to do it.

What are the precedents and outcomes of similar actions? I can imagine a special-interest org or group doing this like all sorts of other political actions, but is it something for scientists to do as individuals?

Just seems strange, and for that reason I’d advise against doing anything with out real thought, and certainly a strong majority of co-authors in support.

Dissention in the CRU ranks over a scientific “concensus” has been growing, noted by Watts in his May 2009 post, where Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia (aka CRU), Mike Hulme, shed his closet AGW proponent sheeps clothing, and actively started speaking out against the science behind the UN’s IPCC paper. In an interview with UK’s The Register, he is quoted as saying:

“To hide behind the dubious precision of scientific numbers, and not actually expose one’s own ideologies or beliefs or values and judgements is undermining both politics and science”

Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit – currently overloaded with cyber traffic – posted that CRU cancelled all existing passwords… saying “actions speak loudly”. McIntyre – a veteran in the mineral exploration business – focuses on analyzing “peer reviewed publications” that purport the AGW theory.

Stay tuned… Anthony and crew are atop this story.

I saw irrational fear years ago with a friend, his name was Johnny or Barb Wire Johnny. He was one of the best horsemen, I’ve ever known. Johnny lived in the bush country of Northern British Columbia, he was an outfitter, trapper, and horse trainer. A small man with long black flowing hair that the most beautiful women in the world can only dream about.

With a gentle heart and calm steady hands he could make the best ranch horses, mountain horses, pack horses, and driving horses I have ever seen. For all his abilities, Johnny had his personal demons; like many in the North he was part native and possessed a weakness for alcohol, a common affliction in the North. He also had a taste for high venison, most of us ate moose and moose hardly ever spoils, but Johnny liked to hang his venison until it started to spoil. It caused him to have a permanent case of dysentery and Johnny never quite made the connection. Like many of the old timers, Johnny wore moose hide moccasins and leggins, in the winter he also wore a union suit beneath his moose hide clothes. That’s a pair of woolen long johns with a flap in the back for life’s necessaries.

Unfortunately, Johnny might be overtaken by his dietary problems at any moment, so he liked to stuff straw or hay in the back door of his union suit, just in case. Moose hide stretches and Johnny was always stretching his leather leggins from riding horses and stuffing the hind end with straw. It was funny to watch a little man with an oversized and sagging butt walking away, but I never said anything.

I was Johnny’s connection to the outside world, I would bring the whiskey, horses for training, and cash paying hunters. I lived on a ranch with a phone, a real advantage for a business man. There was usually at least a dozen people listening to every conversation, but it was a phone none the less. I helped him with the hooves, shoes, and teeth and he taught me of the mystical world of man and horse or the science of turning two critters into one, many of these lessons I use in my business to this day.

Johnny struggled for a long time trying to make spurs out of barb wire that would work with moccasins, no matter what he did he couldn’t get them to stay in place. I finally made a pair of spurs in the forge that would work for tiny moccasin’ed feet, he was so grateful it was touching. Little did he know, I would use his knowledge and techniques to build a business that would take me all over the world.

On a cold October day, I was bringing in a couple of hunters from the States along with several green colts for Johnny to train, when darkness overtook us. Traveling in the dark is risky business, it’s easy to lose an eye or run a snag through yourself or your horse, so we made camp about twelve miles from Johnny’s cabin. The temperature dropped to 30 below, and the hunters suffered from the cold; but I didn’t want the hunters to ride in the dark, there are just too many accidents waiting to happen.

We rode into the yard in the grey light of a snowy morning and heard screaming like someone was torturing Johnny in the cabin. I drew my rifle from the scabbard and jumped off my horse and hit the ground on the run. The cabin door was latched from the inside, I kicked it open while listening to Johnny screaming in agony. I stepped into Johnny’s cabin expecting to put rounds through one or more bad guys.

Johnny saw me and yelled, “shoot him Skook! Shoot him!”

I surveyed the scene in front of me, propped my rifle against the cabin wall, drew my knife and walked towards Johnny‘s bunk.

During the night the fire had gone out and Johnny’s moisture laden breath froze his beautiful black locks to the iron bedstead. While trapped by his own hair, Johnny let his imagination run away with him, he dreamed or envisioned the devil holding him down by the hair; consequently, he promised to give up drinking when he saw his departed mother praying for him over the tongue of the wagon.

I drew my knife through Johnny’s hair next to the iron rail, he jumped up and ran outside to collapse on the ice and snow in front of the two hunters who probably thought they had entered into an asylum.

I walked outside, knelt down and consoled Johnny, who was in his sweat soaked union suit and barefoot. “Skook, Skook you are the bravest man in the world. You threw down your rifle and took on the devil with your knife. There has never been a braver man than you.”

I smiled, all I had to do is let Johnny carry on with his delusion and I would be a legend in the Omineca Peace Region for hundreds of years. “No Johnny, the devil wasn’t in the cabin. Your hair was frozen to the iron rail on your bed.”

Johnny looked at me as if I were crazy. “I, I saw my mother on the tongue of the wagon praying for me.”

I shook my head, “No Johnny, it’s impossible to see your mother on the tongue of the wagon from your bed, that was your imagination.”

Johnny was slowly regaining his grasp of reality. “I swore if I could get loose from the devil, I would give up whiskey, but the devil didn’t really have me.”

“No Johnny, the devil wasn’t there,” I told him.

“Then I don’t have to give up drinking!”

I could see an advantage disappearing, I tried another direction, “it depends on how you look at it Johnny.”

Suddenly with an inner calm, Johnny asked, “did you bring the whiskey?”

I couldn’t lie, “yes, I have whiskey.”

“Good, I need a drink, you talk to those hunters while I get ready and then we will take them out for a hunt.”

Johnny’s hysteria is not much different from the hysteria over H1N1 or the Global Warming Hoax; Johnny was duped by his own imagination and was on the verge of believing anything during his delusion, especially if I had taken sadistic pleasure in perpetuating the delusion.

Americans are proving to be a gullible people, following the pied piper-like images of Al Gore and Obama. Their delusion and vivid imagination is being used to ensnare them into the belief that the government will save them from destruction and death, if only they will trust the good intentions of the Socialist State. Thus our lemming like public is being duped by the Obama administration.

A basic difference between me and the Obama administration is that I didn’t want to use a delusion to advance my own agenda.

On the same tangent today is Jeffrey T. Kuhner of the Washington Times, with his column today, Obama’s New World Order: Redistributionist revolution vs. sovereignty.

President Obama is on a path toward establishing a one-world government. This is the warning of Christopher Monckton, a former major policy adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

In December, world leaders will descend upon Copenhagen to sign a United Nations climate change treaty that will succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which is aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and set to expire in 2012. An agreement has been drafted.

The goal of the Copenhagen treaty is to erect an international cap-and-trade regime to curb carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, said to be responsible for man-made global warming. Recently, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned of a “climate catastrophe” – a rising wave of floods, droughts and shrinking food crops – unless the treaty is signed. Mr. Brown even said global warming would inflict more damage than both world wars and the Great Depression combined; the world has only several weeks to save itself from impending doom.

~~~

The Copenhagen treaty must still be negotiated. Final agreement is far from certain, especially from emerging industrial powers like China, India and Brazil. Yet the draft version is clear about the treaty’s essential elements.

It calls for a massive transfer of wealth from the developed world to the developing world. The United States would be forced to spend billions of dollars a year in foreign aid to pay for a so-called “climate debt” – a provision to punish wealthy countries for having historically emitted large amounts of CO2, while compensating poor ones for not contributing to greenhouse gases.

Lord Monckton, who has read the treaty preliminary draft language, states emphatically that a “world government”, with power to enforce and control the global economy via emissions, would be created.

After the March 2009 summit meeting, six key objectives as “the message” were defined.

Key Message 1: Climatic Trends
Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

Key Message 2: Social disruption
The research community is providing much more information to support discussions on “dangerous climate change”. Recent observations show that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2 degrees C (*) will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and will increase the level of climate disruption through the rest of the century. [*This is 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above the globe's average temperature around 1850, the organizers say. Translated, that would be about 61.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Today's global average temperature is estimated at around 59 degrees. (This was updated after a couple of comment posters noted my funky conversion effort. Europe set its 2-degree limit from pre-industrial temperatures, making this a complicated calculation, and a source of much ongoing confusion.]

Key Message 3: Long-Term Strategy
Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid “dangerous climate change” regardless of how it is defined. Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of crossing tipping points and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult. Delay in initiating effective mitigation actions increases significantly the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation.

Key Message 4: Equity Dimensions
Climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential effects on people within and between countries and regions, on this generation and future generations, and on human societies and the natural world. An effective, well-funded adaptation safety net is required for those people least capable of coping with climate change impacts, and a common but differentiated mitigation strategy is needed to protect the poor and most vulnerable.

Key Message 5: Inaction is Inexcusable
There is no excuse for inaction. We already have many tools and approaches – economic, technological, behavioural, management – to deal effectively with the climate change challenge. But they must be vigorously and widely implemented to achieve the societal transformation required to decarbonise economies. A wide range of benefits will flow from a concerted effort to alter our energy economy now, including sustainable energy job growth, reductions in the health and economic costs of climate change, and the restoration of ecosystems and revitalisation of ecosystem services.

Key Message 6: Meeting the Challenge
To achieve the societal transformation required to meet the climate change challenge, we must overcome a number of significant constraints and seize critical opportunities. These include reducing inertia in social and economic systems; building on a growing public desire for governments to act on climate change; removing implicit and explicit subsidies; reducing the influence of vested interests that increase emissions and reduce resilience; enabling the shifts from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society; and engaging society in the transition to norms and practices that foster sustainability.

So where does Obama fit in, you may ask? Expectations… Expectations from the Copenhagen Climate Council that started within hours (Nov 5th, 2008) after the election of “the won”.

The election of Senator Barack Obama as president of the United States on November 4 will change the strategic situation for the international climate negotiations leading up to COP15. It will also give the U.S. a leading international role in the negotiations, and it can change the way it historically has addressed – or so far largely not addressed – the climate crisis.

~~~

Kammen’s optimism is founded in the energy plan put forward during the election campaign by then-Senator Obama. Under the plan, Obama aims to create a clean energy sector which will create 5 million new “cleantech” jobs, 1 million hybrid cars, and an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050.

Implementation of the Obama’s plan should help the U.S. play a more central role in the international climate negotiations, argues Kammen. “A new president has to push for the U.S. entering in a new and more leading international role when it comes to the climate negotiations.”

Domestic policy will lead the way

A change in the U.S. administration should pave the way for a sharp change in its domestic climate policies. Interest in climate change issues has clearly evolved and deepened over the last couple of years. Members of the U. S. House of Representatives and Senate, for instance, are now much more engaged with issues of energy security and climate than just a few years before.

Indeed, while the nation is focusing on family battles over health care, the media and nation seem to have little time to devote to cap and trade that has already passed the House in June to cut U.S. carbon emissions from utilities, manufacturers and others 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Reporter Kuhner says the US Senate stands as the barrier to this world government creation. Geeez… feel better already. (sarcasm button off…) So the burning question becomes… will they?

The little noticed article excerpted above cited two top Obama officials, emphasizing the need that the US needed some climate legislation to become law *prior* to December and the Copenhagen conference. Conveniently, and quietly, John Kerry’s sister bill S1733 to Henry Waxman’s to HR 2454 is scheduled for hearings Tuesday, Oct 27th, in front the Senate Environment and Public Works committee. This coming down while the nation battles over the WH and Fox, frets about Afghanistan, and is distracted by a multitude of media and WH generated beefs.

A quiet, unheralded passage of Kerry’s bill thru the Senate, the needed reconciliation, and that “US climate law” is in place… just in time for Copenhagen.

What has been eagerly anticipated out of the December conference was a legally enforceable, concrete treaty. But there is a light ray of hope on the horizon as Danish PM, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, hints at the prospect that he’ll even be happy with a “political declaration” out of the conference.

Downgrading from a treaty to a political declaration would be a bitterly disappointing result for those pinning their hopes on Copenhagen, despite all the warning signs that a meaningful deal looks perilously close to impossible.

Yet, a political declaration may still be worth having, if the detail is right.

If it includes a line committing countries to agreeing emissions cuts say by the middle of next year, then it may still be effective.

If not, then the politicians risk going home thinking they have achieved a deal, but one that proves empty and undermines the carbon price.

~~~

President Barack Obama is struggling with his climate bill at home. This is in second place to getting healthcare reforms passed. And even if health goes well, and earns Obama political capital from unexpected success, hopes of formulating a meaningful US offer in time for Copenhagen – with real figures on emissions cuts – will remain on a knife-edge.

The problem is that all this “high-level” political activity has a downside as well as an upside.

If prime ministers and presidents get involved, then they can at least negotiate with real authority – without having to constantly “phone home”. But they also bring their own staff, with the risk that they edge to one side the climate negotiators with knowledge of the detail that is needed for a deal to have an impact in the real world.

No need to “phone home”? That’s smacks of that of which Lord Monckton speaks.

All the above may shed a bit more light on Obama’s remarks prior to meeting with the Danish PM Oct 2nd during his round robin Euro visit (yes, the same where he devoted about 25 minutes to McChrystal aboard AF One after public criticism of his single meeting since appointing him as the US-NATO commander). Needless to say, what can we draw from the fact that Obama spends more time chatting up climate change with the Danish PM… willing to potentially accept a lesser mandate from the COP15 in December… than his NATO top commander in the battlefield?

All that said, let’s go back to Lord Monckton… perhaps one of the lone voices crying in the dark, sounding the alarm.

The Copenhagen treaty seeks to implement a bureaucratic redistributionist agenda; it is a way for Third World kleptocracies to extort enormous sums of money from America and other rich nations.

Moreover, Mr. Monckton points out that, in paragraph 38, Annex 1, the Copenhagen draft calls for a U.N.-created “government” responsible for taxation, enforcement and redistribution. In other words, the draft treaty explicitly demands that the world body erect an international mechanism with the power to impose emission-reduction targets for each country, determine acceptable levels of CO2 and levy global taxes.

The United States would lose control over its environmental policy. Also, it would sign its death warrant as a functioning democracy, enabling the United Nations to administer a fledgling world government possessing the authority to regulate and tax the American economy. The treaty is a sword aimed at the heart of our national sovereignty.

If Mr. Obama signs the Copenhagen treaty, he “will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your prosperity away forever,” Mr. Monckton recently told an audience in Minnesota. “I read that treaty and what it says is this: that a world government is going to be created.”

If it does create a government that wields the power to control the world’s economy, it will again be done without full transparency of the US citizens, and in the dark of night. While we tilt at windmills over health care and other sundry issues, the Senate will pass the climate change legislation, and lay the groundword for the US “leading” the way to int’l government… just as Lord Monckton states.

What does man-made CO₂ have to do with global warming? Apparently, nothing (Except maybe lining the pockets of the climate change profiteers).

When Obama stole Chrysler from its stockholders and gave it to his union cronies, we knew he would take every opportunity to waste taxpayer dollars trying to keep this lead balloon afloat. The Cash for Clunkers subsidy is just particularly egregious, since it works by subsidizing the last people in the world who need a subsidy: those who are well off enough to buy new cars in the midst of a deep recession. Talk about a middle class welfare program!

Crime 2: Eliminating Government Motors’ competition by gratuitously slagging an expected 750,000 perfectly good used cars in the sub-$4500 price range.

The Obamacrats aren’t just subsidizing cars for the well-to-do. They are destroying the cars that the less well-off are in the market for, driving up used car prices as part of their effort to make new cars more attractive:

Some parts may be kept but the engine and drive-train must be destroyed. Specifically the engine will be injected with a liquid glass solution to permanently disable the engine and it will be the responsibility of the dealer to make sure this is done to the engine.

Injected with liquid glass? Sounds like a Quentin Tarentino murder fantasy, and the reality isn’t any prettier. Witness Obama’s procedure for destroying the would-be cars of the non-wealthy:

Here is another one, a spiffy-looking Volvo that holds out for 4-plus minutes. Some clunker, and check out the row of semi-new cars lined up to go next:

Take THAT all you graduate students, newlyweds, store clerks, aspiring actors, single moms, non-deadbeat dads, warehouse workers, journalists, hippies, and other assorted poor relations. You want a car, you can scrape together your savings for a down payment on the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars a month to Government Motors for FIVE YEARS, just like everybody else.

How big is this crime?

A very substantial portion of the population NEVER buys a new car. I, for instance, have never bought a new car, and I never expect to. Why would I, when California has the best used car market in the world? In the last 10 years I have bought two 1984 Toyota Vans, one with 45,000 miles, one with 115,000 miles, each for $1500. Both still run great. One is set up as a work vehicle. One converts from passenger van to camper. No new vehicles would serve as well, or look as sharp.

My two uber-vans, one extra-dirty from its recent 2000 mile trek to Seattle and back. (Shasta, Crater Lake, Boeing Museum of Flight, Blue Angels, Olympic Peninsula, Fort Stevens, Oregon Dunes, North Coast, and back across the Golden Gate. Ain’t that America?)

The vehicles that are being gratuitously destroyed are newer than my two vans (which are just outside the 25 year age limit) and they are up to three times the price. For instance, the immensely popular Toyota Previa vans (1990-96) all qualify.

A good California Previa with a hundred thousand miles left on it sells for two to three thousand dollars. The government’s offer of 35-45 hundred is outbidding the market even on these top quality used vehicles. Cash for Clunkers is a misnomer. Some bottom-of-the-barrel cars will be turned in, but the rules insure that most will not be these “clunkers.”

To qualify, a car must have been registered in the name of the new car buyer for the last 12 months and it must have been insured for the last 12 months. These actively-used cars of people who buy new cars are the quality core of the used car market. Most “clunkers” will be perfectly good cars that would be prize possessions for a half million less well-off Americans, wantonly destroyed only because the Obamacrats prefer that they be destroyed. Dollar for dollar, this is the equivalent of trying to solve the glut of housing foreclosures by purchasing the houses with taxpayer money then burning them down.

Any Obama supporter who claims to be motivated by distributional justice, go soak your head. You want to subsidize the better off? Be as stupid as you want. But don’t go destroying en masse what the less well-off need to survive.

All justified by a lie

Obama’s excuse for decimating the last two generations of used vans, SUV’s, pick-up trucks and full size cars is the global warming hoax. The ascendancy of Obama was, in his own narcissistic words:

…the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

Energy consumption must be curtailed in the extreme:

…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

It is all about CO2 and the phony global warming industry that Vice President Al Gore created with $10b of seed money when he pioneered and administered the executive branch’s global warming portfolio (now called “climate change,” since the earth stopped warming 10 years ago). Gore’s appointees have directed almost all of the full $79b that the U.S. has spent on climate science since 1989, and they don’t care at all whether CO2 is actually warming the planet. Their real motivation is an eco-religious belief that economic activity is gobbling up the natural world, so that for the natural world to survive, economic activity must contract.

To these high priests of green religion, CO2 is the perfect fall guy, no matter how insignificant its actual impact on climate. If the CO2 released by fossil fuel burning can be framed as a threat to the planet, that provides a rationale for drastically curtailing human economic activity, thereby stopping economic activity from gobbling up the natural world, whether or not CO2 itself actually has any harmful effects.

CO2 alarmists reject the scientific method

We can say with nearly complete certainty that the bulk of 20th century warming was NOT caused by CO2. This is because we know what DID cause the warming: the “grand maximum” levels of solar-magnetic activity that obtained for most solar cycles between 1930 and 2003.

Numerous studies have found a high degree of correlation (.6 to .8) between solar-magnetic activity and global temperature. That is, solar-magnetic activity “explains” statistically 60-80% of global temperature change on all time scales. That degree of correlation, observed over thousands and millions of years, HAS to be causal, and the causation can only go one way. It is not the temperature of the earth that is causing sunspots.

What is not well understood is HOW solar-magnetic activity drives global temperature. We just know that it does, just as before Einstein we did not know what mechanism causes massive objects to fall towards each other, we just knew that they do.

We actually have some pretty good theories of how solar-magnetic activity drives global temperature but set that aside. The eco-religionists, who thanks to Al Gore control ALL of the research funds for the “climate change” industry, use uncertainty about HOW solar-magnetic activity drives global temperature as an excuse for completely omitting the solar-magnetic variable from their models. They explicitly put theory over data, exactly the opposite of the scientific method, which says that data is always supposed to trump theory.

This anti-scientific method misattributes to CO2 the warming caused by high 20th century levels of solar-magnetic activity. Put solar-magnetic activity back into the equation, attributing to it what warming has historically been correlated with high levels of solar-magnetic activity, and the levels of warming that could possibly be attributable to CO2 become small. In particular, they become benign.

Warming in general is good. When Greenland was green, civilization prospered, as did plants and other living things. Nothing gobbles up the natural world like ice. It is only by claiming that CO2 could cause some unprecedented “runaway warming” that the alarmists have been able to present CO2 as dangerous. Stop misattributing solar-magnetic warming to CO2 and that possibility is off the table.

The dominant driver of global climate is solar-magnetic activity and any modicum of warming we can get out CO2 is all to the good. If our fossil fuel burning has the side effect of making our warm times a little warmer and our cold times a little less cold, that is a happy bit of luck for a world that ALWAYS seems to be colder than the optimum, with the next glacial period due any millennium.

Proof that the IPCC completely omits the solar-magnetic variable

Just look at any of the IPCC assessment reports. They all include the following graphic (slightly updated over the years):

From the 4th Assessment Report (figure 2.4 on page 39 of the Synthesis Report).

The only “natural” climate influence accounted by the IPCC is “solar irradiance,” which means visible light and other electro-magnetic radiation. It does not in any way include the solar-magnetic flux, which is completely omitted from all IPCC models, even though every climate scientists knows full well that, according to the raw data, magnetic effects are the primary driver of global temperature.

EVERY educated person who accepts CO2 alarmism on the authority of the global warming anti-scientists is failing the most basic due diligence.

Technically, the alarmists’ anti-scientific inversion of theory and evidence takes the form of what is called “omitted variable fraud,” where the omission of any important explanatory variable causes its explanatory effect to be misattributed to whatever correlated variables are included (in this case CO2 which, like solar activity, also went up in the 20th century). This is the most basic, the most common, the most familiar form of statistical fraud. Everyone who has ever studied not just any physical science but any social science at any moderately high level is fully competent recognize for themselves the statistical fraud that is being committed by the CO2 alarmists.

The educated Democrat-voting elites who are pushing to unplug industrial capitalism on the authority of alarmist anti-scientists have an obligation of due diligence to check for themselves whether the facts of the matter are beyond their own competence, and they are ALL failing this basic obligation. They are just assuming that they have to accept on authority that the survival of the planet requires the radical curtailment of CO2, when even a quick look at the facts reveals that the statistically most important variable is omitted from the alarmist models.

Why this willingness uncritically enlist as foot-soldiers for the destruction of modernity? Because like the CO2 anti-scientists themselves, these Democrat elites also don’t care whether CO2 is actually a threat. They too are eco-religionists who are glad for any excuse to curtail the economic growth that according to their presumptions is gobbling up the natural world.

Wrong about economics too

Of course the eco-religionists are also wrong about economic growth being bad for the environment. Economic growth creates and is created by technological advance, and it is technological advance that is allowing mankind and the natural world to both thrive at once. Economic activity is not the enemy of the natural world. It is the salvation of the natural world.

Having dedicated their intellectual resources to maintaining their religious presumptions instead of following reason and evidence, our Democrat elites have become pure political animals in the lowest sense, driven entirely by their lust for power. Every excuse, be it phony concern for distributive justice or phony concern for the environment, is wielded with complete dishonesty, utterly heedless of how distributive justice or the environment are actually affected, until all that is left is their ultimate presumption: that the one thing most necessary is that THEY have power.

This pathology finds its epitome in President Obama. Cash for Clunkers is just one paltry multi-billion dollar program, but the same coming-and-going perversity is manifest in Obama’s larger jihad against CO2—his push for cap and trade legislation. If we would uncork energy, the economy would rebound tomorrow, but Obama is determined to close the energy spigot down, not open it up.

Anybody who thinks this recession is ending is out of their minds. Obama is draining the oil and pouring in the silica slurry. If you want to hear where the economy is headed, listen to the “squirk” from the end of the Obama-car-death video, when the engine jerks at the end of the hangman’s rope.

This is the sound of a valuable helper being sacrificed by government to the false idols of green religion. It isn’t just barbarous. It is a clear violation of the establishment clause. Execute the worst human criminals, yes, but Mission Solano has it right: “No Death Penalty for Cars!”

From the pending takeover of 17% of  economy under the auspices of health care reform, to the government takeover and subsequent ownership of automobile companies, to the unconstitutional interference in the formerly private market under the rubric of stimulating the economy. Not to mention the proposed cap and trade legislation which would give the federal government unlimited powers of taxation and regulation under the guise of saving the planet.

Totally ignored by elected officials of both parties is the tenth amendment of the Constitution, which states very clearly, “The power not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Many Americans don’t agree with the left’s idea of a ‘living constitution’, arguing that the intent of the founders should govern the interpretation and application of the Constitution, not the whimsical and politically motivated present day politicians. And, largely unreported by the media, they are starting to stand up to the federal government.

To date, 37 states have introduced sovereignty resolutions, asserting their state’s sovereign rights under the tenth amendment.

Earlier this month, Louisiana became the seventh state, joining Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Idaho and Tennessee to officially adopt a resolution affirming their sovereignty. These states are putting the federal government on notice that politicians in Washington do not have the right, under the Constitution, to continue to impose their increasingly onerous federal mandates on sovereign states.

Some states, with Arizona leading the way, are going a step further.

Under Arizona’s Health Care Freedom Act, which was passed by the Arizona state legislature this month, a voting initiative will be placed on the 2010 ballot that, if passed, will allow Arizona to opt out of any federal health care plan.

Following Arizona’s lead, five other states — Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming — are considering similar initiatives to opt out of federal health care for their 2010 ballots This, even before Congress has created the program.

Arizona is also preparing for the misnamed ‘climate’ bill, that passed the House this month. (With eight Republican votes.) The Arizona state Senate voted 19-10 to approve a bill banning the Department of Environmental Quality from enacting or enforcing measures with language pertaining to climate change.

to climate change.
Other states are stepping up to the plate and asserting their state’s sovereign right under the second amendment – a right that guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

On July 6, Florida introduced the Firearms Freedom Act which seeks to provide “that specified firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition for personal use manufactured in state are not subject to federal law or regulation” in the State of Florida.

Increasingly, the representatives ‘we the people’ have elected to preserve and protect our rights, are ignoring the clear, unequivocal language of the Constitution. Our politicians seem unaware of the fact that the Constitution does not include  congressional power to override state laws.

In fact, the power our representatives are now accruing to the federal government was expressly voted down, not once, but several times.

During the Constitutional ratification process, James Madison drafted the ‘Virginia Plan’ which advocated a strong federal government. It proposed, among other things, giving Congress legislative authority, and a veto over state laws. Each of Madison’s proposals was soundly defeated. Our founders clear intent was vesting all powers in the states, with but a few, listed exceptions.

Ever since 1938, when FDR used the occasion of the great depression to drastically expand the scope of federal government (Wickard vs Filburn) using an absurd reading of the Commerce Clause, this unconstitutional taking of power by the central government has gone virtually unchallenged. Until now.

Though the media has ignored these efforts, ‘we the people’ are starting to fight back, via our state and local representatives.

Politicians need to be reminded that our Constitution is still in effect. And Americans need to be reminded that just because some believe the trendy notion that our Constitution is a ‘living, breathing’ document, doesn’t make it so.

Crossposted from Right Bias

For example, could you grasp the full impact of Nemo, Cars, Shrek etal by viewing merely a single cel (short for a single celluid frame of film) of the animation? Could you grasp the enormity of the ethics complaint assault on Palin by only learning about one or two of them?

But of course not. And much is the same with Obama’s cinemascope production to destroy the US economy… all using single cel trailers and razzle dazzling us with fuzzy math. And until those cells are edited together, the plot of this morbid “cartoon” does not become clear.

The O’faithful show you a single cel of his spending… ala the Stimulus/ARRA, the TARP bailout decisions, cap and trade, or health care, etc. By throwing out a number we are becoming far too comfortable hearing – a few trillion here and a few trillion there – Joe and Josephine Q. Public, as well as the partisan Congress members, merely shrug it off, assuming we’ll figure out a way to pay China back.

The problem is, until you start viewing all Obama and Congress’ spending in full wide screen version, you don’t feel the impact of the extremely flawed fuzzy math used to advance these programs in the media.

Case in point… let’s start with health care. Today the ever stellar Jake Tapper gives us the summary of the cost of health care to our individual pocketbooks. It’s easy to boggle the minds of the voter when you package “free” benefits and unprecedented spending in one national bill, then promise all those rich people and small businesses making over $350K (at least today…) will be paying for it. “Not I, said the Little Red Hen”. That couldn’t possibly affect me.

But first, take some time and absorb some personal realities about the tax rates Mr. Tapper lays out. I want you to close your eyes, and picture the this… taxpayers in the top 50% of tax brackets pay 94% of the nation’s tax bill. The top 1% earners pay 33.7 percent alone, and the top 5% pay 53.8%.

When you remove these “evil rich types” from the equation, there is a hefty amount of entrepreneurial small business types – who hire most of the US workers – that shoulder the current US tax bill for that 6% poverty group to which Obama caters.

Do you have that picture firmly in mind? That we’re not talking about the Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts only here? Okay…

The current buzz is that Obama’s “only” trying to take the tax rates up for group of Americans that support Congressional spending to 39%. After health care, that’s bogus, bupkis and a serious political whopper.

A study by the non-partisan Tax Foundation finds that the 5.4% surtax on top wage-earners proposed by House Democrats to help fund health care reform would push top tax rates over 50% in 39 states.

“That means government would be taking more than half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers,” said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. “The lowest top tax rate would be about 47% –and that’s in the nine states that don’t tax wages.”

~~~

The hardest-hit states in terms of the highest tax bracket would be Oregon (57.5%), Hawaii (57.2%), New Jersey (57.1%), New York (56.9%), California (56.8%), Rhode Island (56.2%), Vermont (55.8%), Maryland (55.6%), Minnesota (54.4%) and Idaho (54.3%).

In case you’ve forgotten what I said above, I’ll repeat it again. Small business owners employ the largest % of the American worker… not evil big business and corporations. And it is these employers who fall into these tax categories.

Now, let’s add another cel to the fantasy animation movie Obama is producing and directing… unemployment realities. Of those “hardest hit” states above, four of them are between 7.2 and 12.4 unemployment as of May 2009, and OR, CA and RI all between 11.5 to 12.4%. None of these are improving and, in fact, progressively worsening month to mone with little end in sight.

Needless to say, I’m quite curious as to how they intend to draw blood from the same turnip field they are eradicating by starving the crops for water.

Which then brings me to the Sarah Palin v John Kerry/MoveOn.org battles over Sarah’s op-ed in WaPo that Mike’s A posted in it’s entirety here a few days back. Aside from the irony that Palin’s perspective is printed in MSM’s WaPo, and Kerry finds himself tilting at enviro wind mills on Huffpo and via his own diary atDaily KOs, Kerry’s rhetoric is perpetuating the Obama “single cel” fuzzy math version of a fantasy animation film.

Note Kerry’s main beefs… that Palin doesn’t care about the health of the planet and doesn’t want “… to tackle global climate change which imperils everything from our economy to our national security”… and then refers to the PERI report from the self-described progressive think tank, Center for American Progress to dispute Palin’s claim about cap and trade being a prescription for job loss and economic disaster.

“Palin’s column ignored the entire problem and didn’t even get right the things it did cover,” he says. “For example, she said, ‘Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.’ ”

“This is wrong,” Kerry scolds. “The pieces of energy reform legislation are job-creation machines. A joint report by PERI Center for American Progress Report calculated that $150 billion in clean-energy investments would create upwards of 1.7 million jobs.

So how does Kerry and PERI come up with 1.7 jobs, and why doesn’t he mention that it’s $150 billion *annually*? They optimistically predict 2.5 million job creation (temporary and a few permanent), and contrast that with the same spending that would only create 800,000 jobs in fossil fuels.

As we see in Table 8, an annual $150 billion clean-energy investment level would generate a total of about 2.5 million jobs. By contrast, spending the same $150 billion within the fossil-fuel industry would produce about 800,000 jobs. This is a difference of roughly 1.7 million jobs. In Appendix 2, we break out these economy-wide estimates for net employment expansion through clean-energy investments on a state-by-state basis.

Of course what they forget to mention is that fossil fuel jobs are created at the cost of the oil and gas companies… not the taxpayers. So we could save that $150 ANNUAL billion (times ten or however many years) from the national debt. oops

Yet without clarifying, Obama and Kerry as his minion depend on a dumbed down, uncurious public to accept his word and the PERI report as God’s truth handed down on stone tablets. If that’s not enough, he then employs the Alinsky tact of putting them on watchdog alert against their fellow citizens.

“I’ll be back throughout the fall with specific things you can do to help, but for now — keep your eyes and ears open. When you see something in your local paper that’s wrong, let them know you notice. When your friends or family members say something that’s wrong, let them know the truth,” implores the Massachusetts Democrat who has made global warming a key issue as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Tell you what, Mr. Kerry… you set your prozac wolf hounds on the rest of the population, and those of us who question authority and have a healthy distrust of government and elected officials will keep biting at your ankles with some facts to combat your rhetoric and threats.

And now… a few ditties from Kerry’s “gospel”… i.e. the PERI report analyzing cap and trade. Because I have to say, I wanted to see just where those 1.7 mil jobs were coming from. So first, let me give you one of the pretty pictures and graphs to peruse. You can find the originals in the PERI report linked above.

The first below is PERI’s breakdown in how much of the $150 billion annually (for four? ten?? years) as it relates to job area creation. Note retrofitting taking up the bulk of the $150 bil annual cost. Pg 19 of the PDF report. Suggest you open the PDF and follow along… pics are small…

You do see where the bulk of the “job creation” lies? With mandated “building retrofitting”. This cap and trade is less legislation than it is regulatory changes and Congressional appropriation to implement those changes. And a huge part is brand new “green” building codes. Why how can that hurt, you say? Because all existing buildings must undergo “retrofitting” to meet current codes.

• The bill would implement new standards based on the International Energy Conservation Code for commercial buildings and the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers standards for residential buildings, with the two standards based on “each model code or standard released after the date of enactment of the Act.”3 The bill also requires the federal government to provide financial support for commercial and residential retrofits in order to achieve compliance with the standards.

~~~

Building retrofits
An average-sized single-family home in the United States would require an investment of as little as $2,500 in energy-efficiency retrofits to produce a cost savings in the range of 30 percent per year.7 This would involve caulking to plug air leaks in the house and adding insulation to attics and basement ceilings. For an additional $2,500, further energy savings are available through replacing windows with air leaks and installing energy effi cient appliances.

[Mata Musing: love to know where *they* shop for windows...]

Despite these potential savings, most homeowners have not retrofitted their homes because they are unaware of the costs savings available to them or they cannot afford the upfront expenses and time commitment involved. But these barriers to retrofit investments will come down through the specific government spending programs that finance retrofits, the building codes that establish higher efficiency standards in buildings, and the more general regulatory environment that raises the costs of burning conventional fossil fuels. As the market becomes more extensive and efficient, this will further encourage new investment in retrofits. In particular, banks, utility companies and various types of nonprofit groups will increasingly organize themselves to supply the upfront financing for these projects. [Mata Musing: In a credit crunch market with declining values? see more on this later...] In addition, construction crews will begin to organize their services to take advantage of the expanding opportunities.

The potential market for building retrofits is huge. There are roughly 110 million occupied housing units in the United States, including 80 million single-family detached homes, as well as smaller numbers of attached units, apartments, and trailers. As a rough approximation, assuming an average investment in retrofits would be around $4,000 per unit, implies an overall potential market of $400 billion. We would then add the corresponding market for non-residential structures. The U.S. Green Building Council surveyed the existing stock of these structures in 2008, including all educational buildings, hospitals, retail outlets, and office buildings of various sorts. They estimated the costs of retrofitting all of these buildings at $358 billion.8

It was, of course, this new regulatory “green” code that fueled the half-true rumors begat with a CNS article that said these mandates *may* require upgrades prior to the ability to sell. Media Matters further muddied the half truth when they labeled a FoxNation article (not to be confused with FOX News) saying this could require homes to be upgraded prior to sale as “distorting”.

Housingwire also chimes in presenting it as akin to harmless “labeling”.

A section in HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which narrowly passed a US House of Representatives vote Friday, falls short of mandating an energy audit on homes, according to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Section 204 of the cap-and-trade bill establishes a building energy performance labeling program for homes and commercial property. The section would provide potential buyers and investors in those properties a label explaining that property’s energy efficiency.

Much like a nutrition label on the back of a candy bar, the performance labeling program is a consumer right-to-know provision in the cap-and-trade bill, but it is not required, according to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Section 202 of the bill develops the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) program. If the owner of the building — residential or commercial — seeks financial assistance from REEP, the property must pass the energy audit.

Energy savings for residential properties are determined by the Home Energy Ratings System (HERS) Index, and the final score is selected by an objective third party, according to the bill.

After the audit is conducted, state and local REEP programs may grant funds to owners for retrofit improvements on energy efficiency.

But is it distortion, and how does this affect a future sale of an older home? As the bill states, the regulations create a new code and standard, and “… leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that.”

Have any of you ever tried to sell a home with outdated wiring and unpermitted improvements to buyers that were obtaining lender financing? The fact is, by creating a new “code” that homes will be required to meet, the government gets to step back and allow either the lender or state regulations to be the bad guy, and force the upgrades prior to transfer of vested ownership. Lenders will be the most likely culprit to assume this as a demand prior to funding. They will want to make sure that any home they pile cash into will not incur additional upgrade costs in the event of foreclosure and default.

And while we’re on that track of “sorta mandated” homeowner upgrades, exactly what will the expense of new appliances and weather proofing add to your homes value in a market where home values are anticipated to decline until 2011? [... told you I'd get to this...]

To sort that out, let’s look at the latest stats from the Cost vs Value annual report for 2008. And the ugly truth is, whether it’s a complete kitchen remodel or new windows, you only recoup a national average of 76%-77% of your cost outlay. Meaning that not only does it make your home NOT worth more to a lender or appraiser, but that you’ve just lost an extra 23-24% of the money you just spent to meet the new government codes.

Well ain’t that a pile of manure?

So let’s look at Kerry’s claim of jobs via the PERI report straight up… the single largest “investment/job creation” is manifested by forcing homeowners to spend money for mandated retrofits that will [in all probability] be required by any lender to bring a home up to current code.

And to pay for, or subsidize, those retrofits, they’re blood-sucking *every* taxpayer – homeowner of new homes, or even renters with no homes – to finance everyone’s mandated upgrade.

I swear I am living in a parallel universe.

Now… burning question… what happens to all those “retro fit” jobs when the 80 million homes are retrofitted?

These are not permanent jobs created. They are temporary jobs. Which brings me to the second of the pretty pictures and graphs in the PERI report. The job descriptions of those 1.7 million supposedly created jobs…. Pg 31 of the PERI report.

The “top three” investment categories that are supposed to translate into “job creation” are the retrofitting, building mass transit, and smart grid creation (which doesn’t include the anticipated lawsuit costs that enviros will be filing to prevent solar and wind grids crossing “protected” lands….)

Now look thru those, and how “permanent” are the other categories after retrofitting. Once the rails are laid, the civil engineers are done designing, the train/bus parts built and ordered, what do we have left but a shadow staff to maintain the (mostly rail) transit? After the smart grids are built, how many employees does it take to man those facilities? The same with wind and solar farms?

In short, we’re talking about spending beaucoup cash on infrastructure that in no way justifies it for permanent job creation… not to mention the larger expense of “clean energy” that puts a huge divot in our earning capacity.

But wait! There’s MORE! All these jobs are supposed to be “created” in an economic repression/depression/downturn… what ever you want to call it. And those jobs are supposed to be created by the very people that Obama is robbing more than 50% of their earnings.

And what are they supposed to use to “create” these jobs? Oh right… more taxpayer money. How silly of me. But why bother if they’re raped for half their earnings?

Since this conundrum of less entrepreneurs and new business creation doesn’t make much sense, PERI decides to spin that one too. They, in fact, say that the high unemployment and desperate economy is more fruitful for the job creation while, speaking off the other tongue’s fork, rely heavily on “self-reinforcing investment momentum”…. which I guess comes from someone who has enough left after creaming more than 50% off the top of their earnings.

Starting on pg 21 of the PERI report, they discuss their methodology used for estimating unemployment and GDP growth. And their first sentence is a disclaimer:

The consequences of public policies on U.S. economic growth and employment growth necessarily happen over time. That’s why we cannot know with certainty what the effects of policy will be. That’s also why we rely on economic models and various forecasting techniques to generate estimates of what future outcomes are likely to be.

If I remember rightly, wasn’t this the group who seriously “misread” the economic indicators right out of the gate? Isn’t this also the group who seems to have major discrepancies with CBO estimates? Pardon me if I’m not too impressed with the rosy “models” of the progressive mindset.

But the progressive think take continue the specifics of their model deductions and projections in the current economic decline on page 28. This is when they launch into the argument, “hey, the worse the economy is, the better chance this has to work” schpiel. Which may, in itself, explain Obama’s headstrong determination to destroy the US economy as fast as possible.

Induced job creation

It is more diffic ult to estimate the size of the induced employment effects—or what is commonly termed the “consumption multiplier” within standard macroeconomic models—than to estimate direct and indirect effects. There are still aspects of the induced effects we can estimate with a high degree of confidence.

In particular, we have a good sense of what is termed the “consumption function,” or what percentage of the additional money people receive from being newly employed will be spent. But it is more difficult to project accurately what the overall employment effects will always be of that extra spending. [Mata Musing: you mean like the employment you *don't* create because living expenses are higher for energy, inflating all end-user products? Or the deflated dollar that means higher costs overal? You mean that "induced effect" of non-employment??]

~~~

First, the magnitude of the induced effect will depend on existing conditions in the economy. If unemployment is high, then this will mean that there are a large number of people able and willing to take jobs if new job opportunities open up. But if unemployment is low, then there will be less room for employment to expand—even if newly employed people have more money to spend.

Similarly, if there is slack in the economy’s physical resources, then the capacity to expand employment will be greater—and the induced effects larger. If the economy is operating at a high level of activity, there is not likely to be a large employment gain beyond what resulted from the initial direct and indirect effects.

Given the rapid deterioration of economic conditions over the past 18 months—including rapidly rising rates of unemployment—the U.S. economy is not likely to bump up against this kind of capacity constraint in the near future. Thus we would expect the induced effects to be significant in the current climate. More generally, the U.S. economy has not come close to approximating a full employment economy since the late 1990s, and even then, the tight labor market conditions were sustained only briefly, until the dot.com… stock market bubble burst. Consequently, it is unlikely that the induced effects of a direct and indirect employment expansion will be diminished by excessively tight labor markets in the future.

What a bunch of hockey pucks… “not come close”. Here’s BLS unemploment stats back to the 40s. You can plainly see where it was between 5.4 to 6.9% in the mid 90s, when the dot.com… bubble came in to play… then burst followed by 911. The unemployment went up to a high of 6.0 before coming back down. “Not close” is a real stretch…

But back to this spin that if the economy is humming along, and unemployment is low, the “self-reinforcing investment” incentive is unlikely. Every bit of that belies market demand. If people demand electric cars, the private market provides electric cars. That just happens to be a very small percentile who only drive blocks at a time, and don’t haul critters, boats and toys for recreation.

What the “progressive” think tank relies upon is the Alinsky model of thought… the more desperate the population for jobs, and the less people that have a profitable business (thanks to highway robbery of taxes), the better chance Obama’s plan has of working.

Okay… can’t argue that.

This is the overview. We now know that Obama must sink the US economy to avail a government rescue of the economy. Cap and trade would do some serious damage on it’s own. But is it capable of tanking the economy single handed?

This is where “the full animated film” comes into play. Add the high tax rates for feel-good health care, add in the national debt from bailout after bailout…. the porkulus… the omnibus spending. Ignore the jobs cuts when you reduce military spending and shrink the national defense inventory. Borrow so much from foreign nations that the dollar is not worth toilet paper.

Welcome to the “cartoon” that is Obama’s economic plan. All cels together translate to the rock and hard place we need to be – desperate – for Obama’s “remaking” of America to be complete.

And like lemmings… we’re been led over the cliff because math is simply a lost art, and we are unable to recognize a single cel frame instead of envisioning the entire feature film.

You can imagine how irritating it gets when out trying to enjoy a beer and one of Al Gore’s cult followers begins proselytizing to the cause of Global Warming. But I’ve discovered that like the followers of any other religion, debating someone’s belief system is pointless. Pointing out how Climate Change is based more on belief than fact quickly sets them off, and they usually proceed to cite heavily flawed studies or quotes from an equally unreliable source. You could go back and forth all day, or you can end the conversation fairly quickly – simply state that you don’t debate religion, and if you’re to be expected to treat it like science, your green friend has to do so first. They can accomplish this by answering three simple questions:

1) Given the age of the planet and how widely the temperature has fluctuated over time, what is the ideal temperature that the Earth must be, and how will we maintain it over time?

2) One of the foundations of scientific theory is that it stands up to defeating theories that prove it wrong. We’ve heard how shrinking glaciers prove global warming, growing glaciers prove global warming, more storms prove global warming, and fewer storms prove global warming. What events prove their theories false?

3) Every few years a new threat comes along that threatens our very existence unless drastic action is taken yesterday. Of course, the media provides sensational screaming headlines backed up by irrefutable scientific evidence to promote these scares. Off of the top of my head here are a few from the last 40 years:

• Population would outgrow food supply causing mass starvation
• Oil reserves would be depleted by 1980
• Global Cooling
• Dioxin threatened us all (until it was discovered a pint of Ben & Jerry’s contains 3,000 times the “safe” level)
• Oil reserves would be depleted by 2000
• The hole in the ozone layer would continue to grow at an exponential rate

Since all of these crises turned out to be wrong, why is it that this time is different?

The followers of Al Gore don’t like having their views challenged, but if they want me to treat their beliefs like science they’re going to have to do it first. Not that these are necessary, but here are some bonus questions:

• Assuming we go completely green and rely only on renewable energy, how much will it cost? And how much of the countryside will have to be covered with windmills and solar panels?
• How come Iran is allowed to build nuclear power plants but we’re not?
• If we are truly in a crisis, why does the issue’s #1 advocate live in a hugely energy inefficient house while flying around the world in a private jet? Shouldn’t he live a more carbon neutral life like this great American?
• Given how incontrovertible he claims the evidence to be, why won’t Gore debate Bjorn Lomborg?

• Why did the nomenclature for this crisis have to change from Global Warming to CLimate Change?

To answer the obvious question, I haven’t made anyone see the light, and you probably won’t either. But at least your acquaintance will be irritated at you enough to shut up and let you enjoy your beer in peace.

And as Independence Day approaches, what could be more American than that?

Crossposted from Brother Bobs Blog

In April, Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (full disclosure: I worked for EPA in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s) signed a finding which declares that “greenhouse gases pose a threat to the health and welfare of current and future generations of Americans.”

It’s one of many steps to advance the political agenda of the global warming movement by giving the federal government more power to regulate and tax CO2 emissions in the lives of every day Americans by calling the gas a dangerous “pollutant.” Since each of us exhales CO2, that makes each of us polluters.

As support for the global warming agenda continues to melt faster than an iceberg in July, Democrats appear hell bent on ramming through the most massive and expensive restructuring of our way of life ever contemplated.

Yet, an internal Obama Administration memo from the Office of Management and Budget highlights the concerns from various federal agencies asked to respond to the proposed finding. It’s a bombshell document (PDF here) just waiting for someone to light the fuse.

Wyoming Senator John Barrasso(R) Rides to the Rescue

On Tuesday, Senator Barrasso lite that fuse. In another fine example of an elected GOP leader fighting back effectively against the leftwing moonbattery that is so in vogue in Washington these days, Senator John Brasso had this exchange with EPA Administrator Jackson:

“This is a smoking gun, saying that your findings were political, not scientific” - Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

BARRASSO: “I received a memo this morning, that’s marked ‘Deliberative: Attorney-Client Privilege’. In this memo Counsel for the White House repeatedly, repeatedly suggests a lack of scientific support for this proposed finding. This is a smoking gun, saying that your findings were political and not scientific.
…
This smoking gun memo is in stark contrast to the official position presented by the Administration and the EPA Administrator.”

The memo takes direct aim at EPA’s conclusion that “compelling evidence of human-induced climate change, and that serious risks and potential impacts to public health and welfare have been clearly identified.”

MEMO(page2):In the absence of a strong statement of the standards being applied in this decision, there is a concern that EPA is making a finding based on (1) “harm” from substances that have no demonstrated direct health effects, such as respiratory or toxic effects, (2) available scientific data that purports to conclusively establish the nature and extent of the adverse public health and welfare impacts are almost exclusively from non-EPA sources, and (3)applying a dramatically expanded precautionary principle. If EPA goes forward with a finding of endangerment for all GHGs, it could be establishing a relaxed and expansive new standard for endangerment. Subsequently, EPA would be petitioned to find endangerment and regulate many other “pollutants” for the sake of the precautionary principle (e.g., electromagnetic fields, perchlorates, endocrine disruptors, and noise).

The memo also notes, there are several areas where essential behaviors of greenhouse gases are “not well determined” and “not well understood.” That’s not news to most of us.

What is at stake here is Obama’s plan for “cap and trade” the goal of which is not to limit or reduce CO2 emissions but to enable a new set of taxes on the energy used by every American. It’s nothing but a funding mechanism for Obama’s ongoing socialist makeover masquerading as protection for the environment and public health.

An article about the exchange:

Blackburn noted Gore’s role as partner in Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm that invests in technology to address global warming.

Blackburn asked Gore if he stood to benefit financially from cap-and-trade legislation, which would force companies to reduce carbon emissions. Companies would likely turn to the kinds of technologies Kleiner Perkins helps develop.

“This bill is going to fundamentally change the way America works.” Given the magnitude of those changes, I think it’s really important that no suspicion or shadow fall on the foremost advocates of climate change legislation. So I wanted to give you the opportunity to kind of clear the air about your motives and maybe set the record straight.”

Here’s what followed:

BLACKBURN: I’ve got an article from October 8th, the New York Times Magazine about a firm called Kleiner Perkins. A capital firm called Kleiner Perkins. Are you aware of that company?

GORE: (LAUGHS) Well yes, I’m a partner at Kleiner Perkins.

BLACKBURN: So you’re a partner at Kleiner Perkins. OK. Now they have invested about a billion dollars in 40 companies that are going to benefit from cap and trade legislation. So is the legislation that we’re discussing here today, is that something you are going to personally benefit from?

GORE: I believe that the transition to a green economy is good for our economy and good for all of us. And I have invested in it. But every penny that I have made, I have put right into a non-profit, the Alliance for Climate Protection, to spread awareness about why we have to take on this challenge. And Congresswoman, if you’re, if you believe the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me.

BLACKBURN: I’m not making accusations. I’m asking questions that have been asked of me. And individuals, constituents that were seeking a point of clarity–

GORE: I understand exactly what you’re doing, Congresswoman. Everybody here does.

BLACKBURN: Well, are, you know, are you willing to divest yourself of any profit? Does all of it go to a not-for-profit that is an educational not-for-profit.

GORE: Every penny that I have made has gone to it. Every penny from the movie, from the book, from any investments in renewable energy. I’ve been willing to put my money where my mouth is. Do you think there’s something wrong with being active in business in this country?

Can you just imagine the outcry if a Republican was a major partner in a firm set to receive a major windfall from legislation?

It would be deafening.

But not now, not with Gore….I wonder why?

A good comment was left on Gateway Pundit that bears repeating on the topic of Gore’s assertion that every penny he has made has gone to the non-profit:

But a “non profit” is not under obligations to spend all its income (donations) nor all of its assets in every fiscal year. It can accumulate and accumulate donations. Non-profits don’t have customers, so you cannot boycott them. They only have self-appointed boards and donors.

In the case of Gore, it appears that the major donor is also on the Board, so it is a self-perpetuating way of funding propaganda, a tax-exempt pool of money from which he can get his expenses reimbursed and have staff members to help him.

So, there is indeed a benefit that Gore gets from these investments.

Indeed, because of the status of the NP, when he gets a distribution from his Kleiner Perkins partnership, because it is a “donation”, he gets the full economic benefit and use of all the money, rather than what would be left over after paying all the taxes on it!

He’s as slick as a snake oil salesman…..and the gullible left have fallen for it big time.

See if any of this sounds familiar to you.

Roll the tape:

Part of Obama’s bailout carrot for GM/Chrysler restructuring is revamping their production line to his satisfaction, manufacturing smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

The president’s auto task force said Chrysler needs to partner with the Italian car company Fiat, which has “committed to building new fuel-efficient cars and engines right here in the United States,” Obama said in a speech at the White House.

“Fiat is prepared to transfer its cutting-edge technology to Chrysler,” he said.

He gave Fiat and Chrysler 30 days to reach an agreement and said the government will provide Chrysler with “adequate capital” to operate in the meantime.

Obama and his omnipotent auto czars are not the only ones demanding changes in the production lines. Madame Speaker Pelosi, saying GM CEO Wagoner had to go, and she was shedding no tears, peppered her spewing criticism of Wagoner’s GM income in salary and pension as undeserved… accusing him of not “foreseeing” that America wanted for fuel efficient vehicles.

“The performance of some of the management of the companies is stunning to me, so I’m not shedding a tear for Mr. Wagoner’s departure,” she said.

“You lose billions of dollars a year. You get millions of dollars in salary and you get $20 million to leave. … Pay for performance is something we’d like to see here.”

Since 2004, GM has lost $82 billion.

Wagoner is due to receive a $22 million pension. GM has said he technically remains with the company while the company’s board of directors reviews his pension and remaining compensation.

“Do we just keep sending checks to people who are soon to retire with a $20 million golden parachute?” she asked, declining to call for the government to seize Wagoner’s pension.

GM said in a statement that Wagoner is not eligible for severance. “Specifics of what will actually be paid to Rick are still being reviewed,” spokesman Greg Martin said. “GM does not provide golden parachutes. Rick will receive the retirement benefits he accrued based on his nearly 32 years with GM.”

Pelosi questioned why Wagoner and other auto executives did not foresee “that they had to compete, that the world was changing, that people wanted a more fuel-efficient cars that were friendlier to the environment is so beyond me. I don’t know how some of these people have lasted so long.”

There’s certainly a lot of smug marketing analyses are coming from the beltway of late. And I notice there’s no media in sight questioning their assertations. So I decided to have a look at just what the Top Ten best selling vehicles were in America since 2003.

2003 – Top Ten

• Ford F-Series (includes F-150, F-150 Heritage, F-150 SVT Lightning, F-250 and F-350) — 845,586
• Chevrolet Silverado (includes 1500, 1500 SS, 2500, 2500HD and 3500) — 684,302
• Dodge Ram (includes 1500, 1500 SRT-10, 2500 and 3500) — 449,371
• Toyota Camry and Camry Solara — 413,296
• Honda Accord — 397,750
• Ford Explorer and Explorer Sport Trac — 373,118
• Ford Taurus — 300,496
• Honda Civic — 299,672
• Chevrolet Impala — 267,882
• Chevrolet TrailBlazer and TrailBlazer EXT — 261,334″

Top Ten – 2004

• Ford F-Series 432,969 $19,920
• Chevrolet Silverado 322,907 $19,485
• Dodge Ram pickup 223,609 $20,365
• Toyota Camry 213,625 $19,560
• Honda Accord 192,106 $16,390
• Ford Explorer 168,059 $23,690
• Honda Civic 162,483 $13,500
• Ford Taurus 144,035 $20,320
• Chevrolet Impala 139,460 $22,395
• Dodge Caravan 131,367

Top Ten – 2005

• Ford F-Series (includes F-150, F-250 Super Duty and F-350 Super Duty) — 901,463
• Chevrolet Silverado (includes 1500, 1500 Classic, 1500 SS, 1500 SS • Classic, 1500HD, 1500HD Classic, 2500HD, 2500HD Classic, 3500, 3500 Classic) — 705,891
• Toyota Camry, Camry Hybrid and Camry Solara — 433,703
• Dodge Ram (includes 1500, 1500 SRT-10, 2500 and 3500) — 400,453
• Honda Accord — 369,293
• Honda Civic — 308,415
• Nissan Altima — 255,371
• Chevrolet Impala — 246,481
• Chevrolet Malibu — 245,861
• Chevrolet TrailBlazer and TrailBlazer EXT — 244,150

Top Ten – 2006

• Ford F-Series
• Chevrolet Silverado
• Toyota Camry
• Dodge Ram
• Honda Accord
• Honda Civic
• Chevrolet Impala
• Toyota Corolla
• Nissan Altima
• Chevrolet Cobalt

Top Ten – 2007

• Ford F-Series
• Chevrolet Silverado
• Toyota Camry
• Honda Accord
• Toyota Corolla/Matrix
• Honda Civic
• Chevrolet Impala
• Nissan Altima
• Dodge Ram
• Honda CR-V

Top Ten – 2008

• Ford F-Series
• Chevrolet Silverado
• Toyota Camry
• Honda Accord
• Toyota Corolla
• Honda Civic
• Nissan Altima
• Chevrolet Impala
• Dodge Ram
• Honda CR-V

Seeing a pattern yet? What’s especially notable is trucks, still commanding the lead in a year of record high gas prices.

By contrast, how did those hybrids… already offered to a willing American consumer… fare in 2008? Answer… in the dumps. And the only thing that helped their deplorable sales figures were heavy discounts and incentives.

For all of 2008, hybrid sales tumbled 10.3 percent with 310,724 models sold. While nothing to boast about, the hybrid segment bested the overall market’s performance of an 18.2 percent drop for the year, according to Edmunds.com… statistics.

The only bright spots were that hybrid sales in December actually rose a bit from November, and that 2008 hybrid sales were the second-best on record in the decade since 1999, when Honda introduced the first model, the now-discontinued two-seat Insight. The year’s sales trailed only 2007, when 346,431 hybrids were sold.

The 6.8 percent rise in sales volume from November to December was due to hefty incentives and discounting by most automakers and to an especially effective financing program that General Motors’ financing arm provided for almost all of the company’s lineup.

Let’s repeat that, shall we? 310,724 hybrids of any model sold in the year of record high fuel prices *and* a downturning economy…. compare that to the amount of trucks of all stripes sold the same year (not even including mid-size Hondas, Toyots and other popular top ten cars).

As the economy worsened, and American put a padlock on their wallets, all new car sales have tumbled over the past couple of years. But when they do buy, their choices remain consistent.

So how about this year, under a green Obama/Pelosi/Reid reign? Here ya go… And how about the top selling cars in March of 2009?

Top Selling Vehicles – March 2009

• Ford F-Series: 32,728
• Toyota Camry: 25,783
• Chevy Silverado: 23,508
• Honda Accord: 22,722
• Toyota Corolla: 22,257
• Honda Civic: 20,645
• Nissan Altima: 19,521
• Dodge Ram: 19,328
• Chevy Malibu: 14,772
• Honda CR-V: 12,959

What a surprise. Of course, one has to wonder if Chevy and Dodge moved down in the list slightly due to nerves over the fate of the manufacturers. But one thing is for certain… Americans still love their trucks and larger, heavier vehicles. Despite politically correct criticisms, global warming fear mongering, and high fuel prices, the American consumer remains consistent and loyal. In fact, Ford has held the #1 slot for 27 years running.

When it’s not trucks, America also favors Honda and Toyota over the American manufacturers’ mid-sized vehicles. Cost and dependability weigh heavily in a buyers’ decision.

Needless to say, Obama and Pelosi’s marketing grasp of vehicle sales leave much to be desired. But facts don’t get in the way of agendas. They are looking ahead, knowing that all legislation they are proposing are meant specifically to sink America’s favorite vehicles. But let’s not confuse their agenda with what Americans want to drive, shall we?

Now, back to the Auto maker-in-chief and Congress market team… Despite the fact that American’s don’t want to kick what our government terms a “gas guzzling habit”, they sure aren’t going to make our forced driving changes easy. If they don’t totally drive auto makers out of business with cars few want to own, they’ll drive up the prices with their mandates.

Any increase in fuel economy means an increase in cost for automakers. While GM’s (GM, Fortune 500) cars and trucks meet current efficiency requirements, the Treasury Dept. said its product lineup is more “vulnerable to CAFE standard increases than the portfolios of many of its competitors.”

The situation for Chrysler is even more dire, according to the Treasury Dept.

Chrysler relies more heavily than GM on sales of trucks and vans. “On a standalone basis, Chrysler will struggle to comply with increasing fuel economy standards, and it may even have to restrict the sale of certain models to make sure it’s in accordance with proposed standards.”

This vulnerability is one of the reasons why more government money wasn’t immediately given to prop up the automakers. Those stricter standards are something Chrysler and GM, like other auto companies, have already been planning for.

“It’s a direction these automakers have been moving toward prior to this mandate,” said Jeff Schuster, executive director of forecasting at J.D. Power and Associates.

~~~

“I don’t think we’ll see the complete end of the large vehicle,” said Schuster, “but their share has been declining and is declining.”

Unfortunately, as much as “green cars” have become a popular rallying point, it’s not clear that they’re the way to business success. Today, hybrid cars make up about 2% of all vehicle sales in the U.S., a tiny sliver compared to sales of just pick-up trucks alone.

And Michael Robinet, vice president of vehicle forecasting for industry consultants CSM Automotive, doesn’t think that hybrids will take a huge slice of the market anytime soon.

Never has the base theory of capitalism and the free market been so manipulated by government. It’s bad enough that Obama and Congress have decided to mandate America must change it’s driving habits to “save the planet” and conserve fuel that they refuse to allow us to explore and produce within our own boundaries and territory. But even more insulting, they stand in front of cameras and media daily, lying about these “fuel efficient” cars that supposedly Americans want.

Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? Americans don’t want them. Our government prefers to dictate our wants instead, and will stop at nothing to do so.

Meanwhile auto makers – desperate for cash to pay off their union costs – quietly acquiesce to give Obama and Pelosi what they want, knowing full well their marketing statistics reveal leadership manipulating truth in order to push an agenda.

And no one in the media questions their rhetoric.

At specific risk is another $22 bil in bailout funds for GM and Chrysler, atop the $17.4 bil they’ve already received… a decision Obama promises to reach by next Tuesday after final analyses by his auto czars.

Also at risk is a potential Congressional mandate, forcing all but 20% of vehicles made in sold in the US as Flex-Fuel Vehicles. Let me ’splain…

In a comment INRE the TARP I “auto czar” creation under Bush, I pointed out that Obama fulfilled a promise for job creation (government, at least) by upping the singular czar position to another one of his famous “task forces”. It is their job to “restructure” the auto manufacturers that receive federal funds.

In quintessential Obama style, vetting proved but a fantasy, and the task force is composed of the auto industry inexperienced and the clueless. A WSJ article by Neil King Jr and John Stoll a few days ago documents a somewhat ironic amusement as they follow this group of auto czars thru their frantic crash course in the business…

Also in the article, we get a hint to their perspectives via their composition of “talent”.

President Barack Obama last month handed his auto-industry team a seemingly impossible task: to engineer the most complicated industrial restructuring ever attempted by the federal government, and to do it fast.

With almost no experience in the car business, the team’s dozen core members have undergone a crash course in the myriad woes plaguing the U.S. auto industry. Within days, just over a month after setting to work, they’ll begin announcing decisions.

~~~

It’s clear the team is not yet ready to put forward a comprehensive fix. “It’s a steep learning curve that they’ve been climbing, and there is still a lot to do,” said Michigan Rep. Gary Peters, whose district in suburban Detroit houses hundreds of auto suppliers, a few days after meeting with the task force. “That’s why I suspect they’ll come out with some preliminary statements, and then get back to work.”

In session after session in a warren of offices at the Treasury Department, the team has sat through tutorials on dealer financing, studied basic data and debated the future of U.S. car sales. They have spent days trying to understand the complexities of the hundreds of companies that supply the car companies with axles, seats and other parts.

Steven Rattner, a former journalist-turned-investment banker, was picked last month to head the team. He reports to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the chief White House economic adviser. Mr. Rattner compares the challenge to a complicated puzzle.

~~~

The team’s industrial expertise comes from Ron Bloom, a scrappy Harvard Business School graduate who gave up investment banking in 1996 to work as a top adviser to the United Steelworkers union. When Mr. Bloom’s aging 1997 Ford Taurus conked out a few weeks ago, he traded it for a green Mustang with 50,000 miles on the clock.

Several team members, such as Brian Deese, a 31-year-old former Obama campaign aide, are on loan from the White House’s National Economic Council. Three others specialize in climate change. The rest come from agencies such as the Energy and Labor departments. Backing them up are about 30 accountants and advisers.

The newest advisory addition was Matthew Feldman, a bankruptcy lawyer from the business reorganization and restructuring department at New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

According to Rattner, this hodgepodge of anything *but* auto industry savvy types aren’t “…trying to run car companies…”. Instead he defends their relevance by stressing that this is an investment decision, similar to what they face daily.

Yet I have to ask, how can anyone with no knowledge of the business make an investment decision with merely a few weeks crash course of exposure? (They did not get up and running until the last week in February, yet Obama promises the release of their findings… and his new approach to the auto industry in a matter of days.)

Then again, logic has never been a forte of politicians and government.

What we do have inkling of thus far is some changes that the TOTUS/POTUS himself describes as “pretty drastic”. Terms will be offered in a “take it, or leave it” proposition, with little opening for negotiation.

“We will provide them some help,” Obama said. “I know that it is not popular to provide help to auto workers _ or to auto companies. But my job is to measure the costs of allowing these auto companies just to collapse versus us figuring out _ can they come up with a viable plan?”

He added: “If they’re not willing to make the changes and the restructurings that are necessary, then I’m not willing to have taxpayer money chase after bad money.”

~~~

“Everybody is going to have to give a little bit _ shareholders, workers, creditors, suppliers, dealers _ everybody is going to have to recognize that the current model, economic model, of the U.S. auto industry is unsustainable,” Obama said.

~~~

“A lot of it’s going to depend on their willingness to make some pretty drastic changes. And some of those are still going to be painful,” he said.

Terms of the loan are going to demand that banks and/or bondholders, holding the debt for the companies, accept equity instead for what amounts to 2/3rds of the debt held. This is not making the bondholders happy, saying they are being asked to sacrifice more than others. This debt for equity arrangement reduces pressure to repay the bondholders.

The unions are also having to make concessions, swapping equity in the companies for 50% of the companies’ cash contributions into a union-run trust fund for retiree health care. In addition, they must agree to work rule changes and reducing hourly labor costs to be competitive with the US facilities of the Japanese auto manufacturers.

Those the “task force” met with during their crash course training found it somewhat disconcerting that they seemed to be all-consumed with second guessing when the auto sales may rebound…. focusing narrowly on the short term results. According to Daniel Roos, an automotive expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ” “They are absolutely concerned with the short-term, so it’s hard to see them grasping the medium or longer-term issues.”

More details on the “drastic changes”? Guess we’ll have to stay tuned to YouTube for more info early next week. This is not an administration that has the apples in place before they decide to bake a pie.

While Obama’s novice auto czars work to “restructure” an industry about which they know nothing, Congress is already piling on legislation and fuel standards to micromanage all products made by the US auto manufacturers, and any imports that can be sold in the States.

The Obama admin plans to, yet again, advance fuel efficiency standards for new cars and trucks in the 2011 model year.

Under the changes, new passenger cars will need to meet 30.2 mpg for the 2011 model year and pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles, and minivans will need to reach 24.1 mpg, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak in advance of the announcement.

But even more onerous is HR 1476, introduced Mar 12 in the House… sponsored by Rep. Eliot Engel [D-NY], and co-sponsored by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett [R-MD], Rep. Steve Israel [D-NY], and Rep. Bob Inglis [R-SC]. The bill requires automobile manufacturers to ensure that not less that 80 percent of the cars made, or sold, in the US by each such manufacturer are Flex-Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) that can operate on E85 biofuels…. and compounds a problem that has been festering since the passage of EPAct in 1992, post the Gulf War.

While several manufacturers already offer the E85 option for many of their models for the same price as a gasolene combustion engine, the FFV scenario has been plagued with the “Field of Dreams” connundrum… ala if you build it, they [E85 fuel stations and refining] will come.

Such has not been the case. And in the meantime, these FFVs have been sucking up more fuel because they are less efficient. Even were all operating on E85 biofuels, Consumer Reports states the FFVs get 27% less fuel economy than their gasolene counterparts.

Then, of course, there’s the rise in food prices resulting from biofuel sources.

Talk about shooting yourself in your environmental toe…

A WaPo article by Kimberly Kindy and Dan Keating last November documents the problems plaguing US FFVs.

The federal government has invested billions of dollars over the past 16 years, building a fleet of 112,000 alternative-fuel vehicles to serve as a model for a national movement away from fossil fuels.

But the costly effort to put more workers into vehicles powered by ethanol and other fuel alternatives has been fraught with problems, many of them caused by buying vehicles before fuel stations were in place to support them, a Washington Post analysis of federal records shows.

~~~

Under a mandate from Congress, federal agencies have gradually increased their fleets of alternative-fuel vehicles, a majority of them “flex-fuel,” capable of running on either gasoline or ethanol-based E85 fuel. But many of the vehicles were sent to locations hundreds of miles from any alternative fueling sites, the analysis shows.

As a result, more than 92 percent of the fuel used in the government’s alternative-fuel fleet continues to be standard gasoline. A 2005 law — meant to align the vehicles with alternative-fuel stations — now requires agencies to seek waivers when a vehicle is more than five miles or 15 minutes from an ethanol pump.

~~~

Sixty-one percent of the fleet — more than 67,000 vehicles — received waivers for 2008-2009, the second year data were reported.

Another problem with came from the reality that a larger engine had to be used to meet the Congressional mandates.

The vehicles that would allow the agency to meet federal mandates were available in six- and eight-cylinder models — not the four-cylinder variety it traditionally purchased. Alternative fuel was used less than 1 percent of the time in 2007-2008.

The US Post Office, one of the only agencies that used to be financially successful, is a perfect example of an agency that has been strapped into higher fuel overhead because of the mandates. It’s 37,000 FFVs consumed an additional 1.5 million additional gallons of gas in fiscal year 2007 alone because of the larger engine designs.

How ironic it would be indeed if we found out a main contribution to the USPO’s financial struggles had to do with increased fuel overhead. Especially considering they had ended fiscal year 2005 – prior to consuming that additional 1.5 million gallons of gas – in the black and debt free.

It would not be a stretch to ponder, was the FFV instrumental in the USPO’s financial demise? As the NYTs reported just days ago, fuel prices are instrumental in their financial health.

The high fuel prices of last year also sapped money from the post office, which operates more than 200,000 vehicles. Every one-cent increase in the price of fuel costs the post office $8 million.

What we have here is another “Gitmo moment”… the promise to make a change, with no feasible plan laid to implement the intended results of the change.

Fact is, there are not enough E85 fueling stations to service even the minimal fleet in the US now, let alone 80% of all vehicles that travel the US transportation grid. In September of 2008, less than 1% of all US gas stations offered E85 fuel to consumers. Despite a government incentive of $30K grants to install E85 pumps, only 1900 stations in the US offer ethanol fuel, while another source places the number at 2200.

I can hear it now… “so build more? what’s the problem?”

The answer is, quite simply, minimal supply, and expense of distribution. Currently most biofuel production is located in the heart of flyover, corn-country US… the midwest. Transportation depends upon rail and trucks… presumably the diesel sort, to boot. The additional costs drive up the base costs to the fuel stations themselves, discouraging investors. (from the WaPo article linked above…)

“I have to be able to justify it economically. I need a business plan that shows it’s worth the investment for my costs of getting the fuel there and putting in a station. The best data every time is where the federal fleet is located,” said Curtis Donaldson, president of Texas-based CleanFuel USA, which builds propane and E85 stations.

So how about a pipeline? Well… yup… that’s in the works. In fact, a $3 bil pipeline been in “the works” since Feb of 2008. In a stellar example of the speed of lightning of bureaucracy, it’s now March 2009, and the break thru towards an actual pipeline has now advanced to a joint venture to continue “discussing” it’s feasibility.

And how do alternative energy advocates feel about FFVs? One blog in particular, Alternative Energy blog, wrote a scathing criticism of FFVs back on 2006, calling E85 fuel “a distraction, a diversion, a red herring.”

The average flex-fuel vehicle is a guzzling truck (because they get the biggest CAFE preference from it). If those trucks get 13 MPG on E85, and they drive the national average of 13,000 miles/year, those 6 million vehicles would consume 5.1 billion gallons of ethanol. That’s roughly the same as the total production capacity of the nation.

But logic has never interfered with bunch of elected lawyers, making knee jerk decisions for the nation in the interest of “saving the planet”.

So here we are… with a tag team assault to control not only GM and Chrysler finances by clueless auto czars, but equally clueless elected officials mandating 80% of cars be FFVs with no way to provide them with fuel, and no benefits for doing so.

What a world…

sigh…

In a statistical study entitled “Reproduction and the Carbon Legacies of Individuals,” published in Global Environmental Change by [Paul A, Professor in Dept of Statistics, OSU] Murtaugh and [Michael G., Senior Fac. Res. Asst, OSU's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences] Shlax of Oregon State University, and again published here, the authors propose that the potential savings from reduced reproduction rates among humans are some 20 times more effective than the savings wrought by life style changes.

It is clear that the authors follow the Liberal mantra of the ends justify the means. If we can reduce carbon emissions by reducing the number of children, then we should do it, they gloat. It appears that carbon reductions trump even “life” itself. They summarize:

Much attention has been paid to the ways that people’s home energy use, travel, food choices and other routine activities affect their emissions of carbon dioxide and, ultimately, their contributions to global warming. However, the reproductive choices of an individual are rarely incorporated into calculations of his personal impact on the environment.

Here we estimate the extra emissions of fossil carbon dioxide that an average individual causes when he or she chooses to have children. The summed emissions of a person’s descendants, weighted by their relatedness to him, may far exceed the lifetime emissions produced by the original parent. Under current conditions in the United States, for example, each child adds about 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average female, which is 5.7 times her lifetime emissions.

A person’s reproductive choices must be considered along with his day-to-day activities when assessing his ultimate impact on the global environment.

By the authors’ desires, if we would limit every couple to having only one child, we would solve the Global Warming problem for every one. Again, humanity itself is the cause of all the woe, and the best thing for us to do is just stop procreating — or just drop dead. Living human beings are bad for the planet.

Indeed, the authors purposely fail to mention that their proposal puts humanity on a fast-tack extinction curve, as reproduction rates fall below population replacement rates. Surely, as statisticians they know this well. Within a few generations, there wouldn’t be any one around to measure, least wise care, about carbon emissions. We would all be dead.

Naturally, at it’s publishing, I didn’t leap to post it, knowing full well that so many would tut tut the possibility that the Obama admin, along with Pelosi and Reid’s Congress, would actually leap to such a tryrannical cure to an issue that Pelosi’s House Democrats see as a national security threat.

Add to that, the Speaker also considers reproduction an economic problem…. which is why she added birth control to the stimulus. Pelosi is quoted saying that “children’s health, education and some of those elements” are a financial drag to the individual states’ economy, and birth control and contraception would lessen some of those costs.

In another economic approach, Obama desperately needs his expensive cap and trade plan. His budget deficits depend upon this plan being implemented to defray budget costs.

Thus far, this ties both a “national security” and an economic/monetary expediency for climate change legislation. Now what remains to be seen is whether they will factor in draconian population control.

For this we may consider a few “six degrees of separation” relationships. Most specifically the Senate’s confirmation of Obama’s two leading “climate change” experts… including marine biologist specialist, Jane Lubchenco, to head the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Coincidently, Ms. Lubchenco spent 30 years at Oregon State Univeristy… including heading up the Zoology Dept at the Corvallis campus.

Is it also coincidental that her OSU years are spent at the same Corvallis OSU facility where the above mentioned reproduction Nazis, Murtaugh and Schlax, happened to have originated their report on reproduction and climate change? Also note, Schlax is part of the OSU College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences.

Shall we assume that Ms. Lubchenco doesn’t know of these two? Hard pressed….

So far we’ve established a financial and “national security” motive for sundry climate change legislation, and a bread crumb trail from Obama’s NOAA appointee to the reproductive Nazis from Oregon State University.

What about Obama himself? He’s never spoken out about this particular reproductive study. And while it’s hard to second guess this not-so-transparent POTUS, we do know he is dedicated to the cause of climate change.

Reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050

Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Make the U.S. a Leader on Climate Change.

Just how far will this new administration go in their quest for making the US “a leader on climate change”? Would he would support reproductive control in the interest of climate change?

We have no “let me be clear” answers of yet. So we can only speculate. And to do that, we can look at Obama’s views on abortion and reproduction.

We do know he has a history of opposing “born alive” legislation as an IL State Senator, and a firm proponent of Roe v Wade.

We also know that in Obama’s first days and weeks as POTUS, he used the Executive Orders procedure to reverse two policies relating to population: One within 24 hours to reverse the Mexico City policy, or lifting the ban on funds for international health groups that perform abortions, promote legalizing the procedure or provide counseling about terminating pregnancies”… and the other on March 9th to reverse the ban using federal funds (as opposed to private) for embryonic stem cells for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

It might be prudent to point out that – on March 11th of this year, just two days after issuing the embryonic stem cell EO – 24 agencies of this same UN compiled a 348 page document concluding that the world’s population growth and climate change were creating a crisis in the world’s drinking water.

As Obama stated to CNN INRE embryonic stem cells research:

“In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values,” Obama said at the White House.

“In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research — and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly.”

A “false choice between sound science and moral values”…. I have no doubt that Obama believes global warming is based on “sound science”. The question is, will he consider it “responsible” to mandate limitation of family size when pursuing his climate change agenda?

In Obama’s 23 minute presentation address to Planned Parenthood early in his campaign (about five months after announcing his candidacy), Obama laments Supreme Court decisions that upheld a federal ban on abortion with criminal penalties for doctors that performed them. (about 3′10″ into below video) He states the presumption, without taking into consideration the woman’s health (a rare factor in the majority of abortions) is “wrong”. He states that Roe v Wade is “at stake” in the 2008 election.

Obama has proven he is never on the side of the unborn child, but on the side of the mother and her whims. Some consider this simply a “pro choice” stand. But is it?

There is increased activity of the family planning lobbyists, hot on Obama’s trail, to seek out new constituent support for population growth’s negative environmental and security impact by using the traditional humanitarian and women’s rights arguments.

Such anti-reproduction environmental advocates – like Amy Coen at Huffpo – live among the liberals, preying on the “right to choose” emotions in order to advance their agenda.

Even if we assume Obama’s support of abortion is genuinely founded merely on a woman’s right to choose, can their pressure – combined with Obama’s dedication to acting on climate change – result in Congressional legislation to limit family sizes in the US to “save the planet”?

One thing is certain. No one will get to this control in a straight line, as it’s bound to meet with resistance. Just as the population climate control wackos hide themselves among the women’s rights groups, this is apt to be stealth legislation that appears piece by piece… perhaps culminating in a final appeal for the nation’s “sacrifice” to the global warming cause.

China has had a one child per family limit since the 1970s, which they are considering scrapping in the past year because of their ageing population.. It’s not a “new idea” in the world…

Will an America under Obama consider such measures their duty based on climate change and economic stress? A year ago, I would have confidently said now. Now… with this leadership and a cult like national following, I am no longer sure.