konane's Blog

They're hoping we'll forget about it.

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"Breaking: Senate postpones cap-and-trade

posted at 1:33 pm on July 9, 2009 by Ed Morrissey 
Source HotAir.com 

The Washington Post reports that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold off on consideration of the House cap-and-trade bill until September at the earliest:

President Barack Obama’s push for quick action by Congress on climate change legislation suffered a setback on Thursday when the U.S. Senate committee leading the drive delayed work on the bill until September.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer said her self-imposed deadline of early August for finishing writing a bill to combat global warming has been put off until after Congress returns from a recess that ends in early September.

“We’ll do it as soon as we get back” from that break, Boxer told reporters. Asked if this delay jeopardizes chances the Senate will pass a bill this year, Boxer said, “Not a bit … we’ll be in (session) until Christmas, so I’m not worried about it.”

But Boxer did not guarantee Congress will be able to finish a bill and deliver it to Obama by December, when he plans to attend an international summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

Two weeks ago, when the House barely pushed this through a vote, Barack Obama’s poll numbers still looked good enough to imply that there may not be consequences for hobbling the economy with ludicrous taxes, fees, and penalties for energy production.  With his poll numbers eroding quickly and the electorate losing patience with high unemployment and Porkulus’ failure, that doesn’t seem like a safe bet any more.  As the economy continues to drag, cap-and-trade will look more like a disaster than the mythical one it purports to avoid.

The Democrats simply don’t have the votes now on cap-and-trade, and unless the economy suddenly lurches back to life, the political situation will be worse in September.  That doesn’t mean we can let up on the pressure, as Michelle says.  Keep calling your Senators to tell them that a vote for cap-and-trade means adding to the unemployment lines — starting with themselves.

Update: This might have had something to do with it, too:

“I cannot support the House bill in its present form,” Byrd said in a statement. “I continue to believe that clean coal can be a ‘green’ energy. Those of us who understand coal’s great potential in our quest for energy independence must continue to work diligently in shaping a climate bill that will ensure access to affordable energy for West Virginians.” …

Senator Byrd’s was one of the two sponsors of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which the senate unanimously passed, 95–0, in 1997. Byrd-Hagel stated the sense of the Senate that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing nations as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.” Byrd-Hagel prevented Clinton from even trying to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which like the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” climate change legislation, would have put the U.S. economy at an economic disadvantage to China and India."

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/09/breaking-senate-postpones-cap-and-trade/

"DeMint: America is ‘Where Germany Was Before World War II'

by David Weigel" 7/9/09 9:42 AM

Found this video on a financial site.  Interesting opinion on things. 

Also interesting how speeding fines, etc., are THE new revenue source for states, counties, cities.

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Recession, Depression, What Michelle Worry?
"First Lady requires more than twenty attendants

By Dr. Paul L. Williams  Tuesday, July 7, 2009
By the staff ofthelastcrusade.org

Source CanadaFreePress.com

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it”
--Albert Einstein

“In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service, “ Michelle Obama

No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn’t perform any official duties. But this hasn’t deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession. Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary.

How things have changed! If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Miz Michele are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q. Public:

$172,2000 - Sher, Susan (CHIEF OF STAFF)
$140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
$113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND WHITE HOUSE SOCIAL SECRETARY)
$102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
Winter, Melissa E. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
$90,000 - Medina, David S. (DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
$84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (DIRECTOR AND PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)
$75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND ADVANCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)
$70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
$65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)
Reinstein, Joseph B. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)
$62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND EVENTS COORDINATOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)
$60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ADVANCE AND TRIP DIRECTOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)
Lewis, Dana M. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT AND PERSONAL AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)
$52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)
$50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR SCHEDULING AND TRAVELING AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)
$45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)
Tubman, Samantha (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,SOCIAL OFFICE)
$40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
$36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (STAFF ASSISTANT TO THE SOCIAL SECRETARY)
Bookey, Natalie (STAFF ASSISTANT)
Jackson, Deilia A. (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY) "

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652

"True Unemployment Rate Already at 20%

July 8th, 2009

Via: MSN:

Source Cryptogon.com

"Really, how hard is it to find a job? Was June’s horrid numbers, in which 467,000 people lost their jobs compared to 345,000 in May, a one-time fluke? Or does it mean that all those Wall Street economists who believe the economic recovery is starting are dead wrong?

Not to scare you, but the situation is actually worse than it seems. Over the years, the government has changed the way it counts the unemployed. An example of this is the criticized Birth-Death Model which was added in 2000. The model is designed to account for the birth and death of businesses and the resultant lag in survey data. Unfortunately, the model doesn’t work that well during economic contractions (like we have now) and consistently overstates the number of jobs being created each month.

John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics specializes in removing these questionable tweaks to the government’s statistical data to better align current numbers with the methodology used to gather historical data. After reviewing the data, Williams believes that “the June jobs loss likely exceeded 700,000.” David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff notes that the fall in the number of hours worked in June (to a record low of 33 per week) is equivalent to a loss of more than 800,000 jobs.

There are similar issues with the way the unemployment rate is measured. The headline rate only jumped from 9.4% to 9.5% because of a drop in the number of people in the workforce. The more inclusive “U-6″ measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers, jumped from 16.4% to 16.5%. But even this doesn’t adequately capture the situation on the ground: Back in the Clinton Administration, the definition of discouraged worker was changed to only include those that had given up looking for work because there were no jobs to be had within the last year.

By adding these folks back in, William’s SGS-Alternate Unemployment Measure rose to a jaw-dropping 20.6%. Separately, the Center for Labor Market Studies in Boston puts U.S. unemployment at 18.2%. Any way you cut the numbers, the situation is very bad. According to David Rosenberg, one-in-three among the unemployed have been looking for a job for more than six months and still can’t find one."

http://cryptogon.com/?p=9751

At least that's the buzz on financial blogs this past weekend.  Below are links to headlines and very interesting discussions about potential future implications.

One commentary just picked up added last edit.

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Favorite artist .... love this song!  Hope you enjoy.

Words from YouTube sidebar below video.

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From sidebar on YouTube

Lyrics:  Wild Child

Ever close your eyes
Ever stop and listen
Ever feel alive
And you've nothing missing
You don't need a reason
Let the day go on and on

Let the rain fall down
Everywhere around you
Give into it now
Let the day surround you
You don't need a reason
Let the rain go on and on

What a day, what a day to take to
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child

Only take the time
From the helter skelter
Every day you find
Everything's in kilter
You don't need a reason
Let the day go on and on

Every summer sun
Every winter evening
Every spring to come
Every autumn leaving
You don't need a reason
Let it all go on and on

What a day, what a day to take to
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child

What a day, what a day to take to
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child

Da-da da da da da, da da da da da da
da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da

What a day, what a day to take to
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to
Da-da-da
Da-da-da-da-da-da
What a way, what a way to make it through
Da-da-da
Da-da-da-da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da-da-da-da
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child

Slated to begin debate on Cap & Trade today on a fast track to get it shoved through..

Passed the US House last week. 

Read my previous post about green police in the UK. 

There's a provision in Cap & Trade for our own green police ......... and remember the US House already passed it. 

All is left is ratification by the Senate ... Obama who favors it will sign it into law and we're hammered.

Remember $5 a gallon gasoline?

Triple or quadruple all utilities which is the intent of this bill.  This is an energy tax imposed at a time when we can least afford it.

Do nothing if you want your wallet vacuumed clean.

http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.senate.gov/      

"Environment Agency sets up green police

Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor
Source TimesOnline.co.uk

"The boys in green are coming as the Environment Agency sets up a squad to police companies generating excessive CO2 emissions.
The agency is creating a unit of about 50 auditors and inspectors, complete with warrant cards and the power to search company premises to enforce the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which comes into effect next year.

Decked out in green jackets, the enforcers will be able to demand access to company property, view power meters, call up electricity and gas bills and examine carbon-trading records for an estimated 6,000 British businesses. Ed Mitchell, head of business performance and regulation at the Environment Agency, said the squad would help to bring emissions under control. “Climate change and CO2 are the world’s biggest issues right now. The Carbon Reduction Commitment is one of the ways in which Britain is responding.”

The formation of the green police overcomes a psychological hurdle in the battle against climate change. Ministers have long recognised the need to have new categories of taxes and criminal offences for CO2 emissions, but fear a repetition of the fuel tax protests in 2000 when lorry drivers blockaded refineries.

The central unit, based in Warrington, Cheshire, can call on the agency’s national network of hundreds of pollution inspectors, many of whom will soon be trained in CO2 monitoring.

It will also be able to demand energy bills from utilities without the companies under investigation knowing they are being watched.

Perhaps most worrying, for managers will be the publication of an annual league table ranking companies by performance in cutting emissions. The government hopes the potential shame of a lowly placing will drive organisations to greater energy efficiency.

Mitchell predicted the unit would audit about 1,200 businesses a year. The first stage would be a desk study of their energy bills and activities, followed by a visit when numbers do not add up. “The inspectors will carry warrant cards giving them powers of entry to collect evidence. We will also have access to company accounts with suppliers,” he said.

The CRC was designed to force medium-size and large companies to pay attention to energy efficiency. Under the scheme they will have to use their energy bills to calculate the carbon dioxide generated by their activities. For each tonne of CO2 emitted, companies will have to buy a carbon allowance, with the money being paid into a central pool. At the end of each reckoning period, they will get a payment from the fund.

The least energy efficient will get back less than they paid in, with the surplus going to those that have performed best. The gains and losses will be small at first but the system is designed to ratchet upwards, so business finds it increasingly expensive to ignore energy efficiency.

Initially the allowances will cost £12 per tonne but from 2013 they will be sold through auctionso the price is likely to rise. Eventually thousands of big private and public sector groups will feel compelled to spend serious money on energy efficiency — or face even bigger bills.

The government-funded Carbon Trust said a main aim would be to halt the rise in emissions from such companies. This was predicted at about 17% between 2005 and 2025.

The government has argued that the £5m-plus annual costs of administering the commitment will be met by a charge on the companies and that they will be dwarfed by the savings. John Sauven, director of Greenpeace, said: “We must be able to enforce these new rules. We saw how the absence of enforcement led to chaos with the new rules on energy efficiency in building standards.”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/article6639289.ece

Videos in this report.

"Democrats’ Cap-and-Trade Bill Creates ‘Retrofit’ Policy for Homes and Businesses

Wednesday, July 01, 2009
By Matt Cover

"(CNSNews.com) – The 1,400-page cap-and-trade legislation pushed through by House Democrats contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that.
 
This means that homeowners, for example, could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal “green” guidelines in order to sell their homes, if the cap-and-trade bill becomes law.
 
The bill, which now goes to the Senate, directs the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and implement a national policy for residential and commercial buildings. The purpose of such a strategy – known as the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) – would be to “facilitate” the retrofitting of existing buildings nationwide.
 
“The Administrator shall develop and implement, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, standards for a national energy and environmental building retrofit policy for single-family and multi-family residences,” the bill reads.
 
It continues: “The purpose of the REEP program is to facilitate the retrofitting of existing buildings across the United States.”
 
The bill leaves the definition of a retrofit and the details of the REEP program up to the EPA. However, states are responsible for ensuring that the government’s plans are carried out, whatever the final details may entail.
 
“States shall maintain responsibility for meeting the standards and requirements of the REEP program,” the bill says.
 
States may contract with private agencies to oversee the retrofitting and measuring of improved efficiency and environmental friendliness of houses and other buildings, making sure that private citizens have a variety of choices for retrofitting their homes.
 
“States and local government entities may administer a REEP program in a manner that authorizes public or regulated investor-owned utilities, building auditors and inspectors, contractors, nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, and other entities to perform audits and retrofit services,” reads the bill.
 
It further says, “A State or local administrator of a REEP program shall seek to ensure that sufficient qualified entities are available to support retrofit activities so that building owners have a competitive choice among qualified auditors, raters, contractors, and providers of services related to retrofits.”
 
In fact, individual homeowners are even allowed to retrofit buildings themselves. The bill gives specific protection to individual owners’ rights to choose who inspects and retrofits their property.
 
“Nothing in this section is intended to deny the right of a building owner to choose the specific providers of retrofit services to engage for a retrofit project in that owner’s building.”
 
Even though Congress says the states are responsible for carrying out the retrofits, the EPA and the Department of Energy will establish the guidelines and rules for doing so.
 
“The Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, shall establish goals, guidelines, practices, and standards for accomplishing the purpose stated in subsection (c) [the retrofits],” the bill says.
 
The program would involve a system of certified auditors, inspectors, and raters who inspect homes and businesses using devices such as infrared cameras (which measure how much heat a building is giving off) to measure their energy efficiency.
 
The results of these energy audits would then be used to determine what retrofits need to be performed. The audits would examine things like water usage, infrared photography, and pressurized testing to determine the efficiency of door and window seals, and indoor air quality.  
 
Those retrofits would be performed by licensed retrofit contractors using government-approved methods and resources including roofing materials that reflect solar energy.
 
“[B]uilding retrofits conducted pursuant to a REEP program utilize, especially in all air-conditioned buildings, roofing materials with high solar energy reflectance,” the legislation states.
 
After the retrofitting is complete, the government – state, local, or federal – will come back and re-inspect the house to determine how much energy has been saved and whether the retrofit is up to federal government standards.
 
“Determination of energy savings in a performance-based building retrofit program through — (A) for residential buildings, comparison of before and after retrofit scores,” the proposal states.
 
To help pay for the cost of these retrofits, states and localities may provide loans, utility rate rebates, tax rebates, or implement retrofit programs on their own. In fact, the government will even pay up to 50 percent of the cost of a retrofit through financial awards to individual home and building owners.
 
“PERCENTAGE.—Awards under clause (i) shall not exceed 50 percent of retrofit costs for each building,” reads the bill."

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50365

"Pouring cold water on global warming
Global cooling has arrived. Global warming is dead.

By Terri Jackson
Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Source Belfast Telegraph

"There is now irrefutable scientific evidence that far from global warming the earth has now entered a period of global cooling which will last at least for the next two decades.

Evidence for this comes from the NASA Microwave Sounding Unit and the Hadley Climate Research Unit while evidence that CO2 levels are continuing to increase comes from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.

Professor Don Easterbrook one of the principle speakers at the recent World Conference on climate change held in New York in March this year attended by 800 leading climatologists, has documented a consistent cycle of warm and cool periods each with a 27 year cycle. Indeed the warm period from 1976 to 1998 exactly fits the pattern of climate changes for the past several centuries long before there were any CO2 emissions. Greenland Ice core temperature measurements for the past 500 years show this 27 year cycle of alternating warm and cool periods. Recently the global temperature increased from 1918 to 1940, decreased from 1940 to 1976, increased again from 1976 to 1998 and has been decreasing ever since.

However throughout this time CO2 has been added to the atmosphere in increasing amounts. This point was brought out by at the New York conference by Vaclav Klaus the rotating President of the EU and President of the Czech Republic. If CO2 emissions cause temperature rises than why is it that every 27 years the earth climate switches to a cooling mode with decreasing temperature? Clearly there is another explanation that does not include humans. .

Nearly ten years into the 21 century it is clear that the UN IPCC computer models have gone badly astray. The IPCC models have predicted a one degree increase in global temperature by 2011 with further large temperature rises to 2100. Yet there has been no warming since 1998 with a one degree cooling this year being the largest global temperature change ever recorded. Nasa satellite imagery from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California has confirmed that the Pacific Ocean has switched from the warm mode it has been in since 1977 to its cool mode, similar to that of the 1945-1977 global cooling period.

The evidence that the earth is in a cooling mode rather than a warming mode is there for all to see. the RSS(Remote Sensing System) in Santa Rosa California has recorded a temperature fall of two to three degrees in the Arctic since 2005, while US Army buoys show an increase in Arctic ice thickness to 3.5 metres. North America has had two of its worst winters for sixty years with the temperature in Yellowstone Park falling to a staggering minus 60 degrees.

About 46” of snow fell in New York in two weeks! Last February Toronto had over 70 cms of snow, more than anything since 1950! Snow has fallen in parts of China and Asia for the first time in living memory while Britain had its worst January for twenty years. Alps have best snow conditions in a generation ran a newspaper headline last December. Strange indeed that the BBC , who likes us to believe it is impartial does not mention these freezing temperatures and Arctic conditions.

Some warming in the Antarctic has only been on a small 20 mile strip of the Antarctic Peninsula as a result of the 1977- 1998 warming period. This is insignificant compared to the overall size of the huge Antarctic continent.

Studies by the WeatherAction team(weatheraction.com) led by astrophysicist Piers Corbyn and also the measurements of sun spots by the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial physics in Irkutsk in Russia show that over the last 50 years solar activity has been at its highest for the past several thousand years.

The Russian physicists have analysed sun spot activity from 1882 to 2000 and have noted that the minimum of the cycle of solar activity will occur around 2021 to 2026 and that we will be facing not global warming but global cooling leading to a deep freeze around 2050.

The UN IPCC graphics have left out the medieval warming period (950-1300AD) and the Little Ice Age (1350- 1850). This alters the picture entirely and does not then portray the alternating warm cool warm cool cycle of recorded world temperatures. Also statements put out by the UN IPCC are unrepresentative of many of its members. I do not recall any votes being taken of the opinion of members.

At the New York climate change conference in March as well as Vaclav Klaus delegates also heard Dr Richard Linzen from MIT probably the leading climatologist in the world today, as well as Professor Syun-Ichi Akasofu, former director of the International Arctic Research Center, Dr Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for astrophysics and Professor Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute who all demolished the global alarmists case piece by piece.

In his speech the EU President Vaclav Klaus had these controversial words for the environmentalist lobby.

“Environmentalists-even mainstream environmentalists are less concerned about any crisis posed by global warming than they are eager to command human behaviour and restrict economic activity” He also said “their true plans and ambitions: to stop economic development and return mankind centuries back.

They are interested in their businesses and their profits made with the help of politicians”

He got a standing ovation from the assembled audience.

His assertion about the involvement of politicians is not surprising. This whole movement is in many parts a political movement with nearly all the recognised climatologists throughout the world dissenting from the man made global warming theory.

This can be seen on the US Senate Environment committee web site with over 700 leading climatologists from 24 different countries including Nobel Prize laureates all dissenting from the man made global warming theory. It has been well reported that at least one of the architects of Koyoto has strong links with the New Age Movement which is not a movement that would promote economic growth.

We have all recently noticed the escalating price of food. The reason for this is because American grain, the breadbasket of the world, is increasingly being turned into ethanol which has led to a three fold increase of maize prices worldwide. This has the potential to cause worldwide starvation!"

Terri Jackson is a Queens graduate physicist, climatologist and formerly founder of the Energy Group at the Institute of Physics, London."

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environment/pouring-cold-water-on-global-warming-14299972.html