Remember, everything is about Obama’s legacy. Nothing else.

After all the legal wrangling, Obama may very well be out of office by the time any civilian trial is concluded. Holder did not tell Sen. Graham that KSM would be re-imprisoned. He said that Congress would not allow KSM to "be released in THIS country."

Obama could be accused of biasing any jury pool with his statements. If KSM is found "not guilty", Obama can point to that as an example of how fair HIS administration is and that HE has restored America to the fair and wonderful place it was before…..fill in the blank.

All of the ramifications on KSM and other terrorists custody status has been done. No one wants a clear definition. One that we could use is the old term OUTLAW. They are outside the law, and therefore free game for anyone. Just as we will never see a return to the standards of piracy prosecution from the past (can you see any modern skipper of a warship hanging pirates caught in the act?), our society will not allow itself to treat these mad dogs appropriately.

Also this trial will set precedent. This is the first step in turning the War on Terror into a criminal investigation. Obama and his far left allies want the war to end. They have never believed in it.

This "trial" could be held anywhere. NY will be picked for the theater. Why not Pennsylvania? Or Virginia? Holder refused to answer any questions about conflict of interest because of past associations with firms that DEFENDED the terrorists. This is about Obama’s legacy. Holder is his pet.

President Obama is clueless.

"Too much debt could fuel double-dip recession"

Ya think? Of course, remember his audience….his bankers in China.

BEIJING, Nov 18 (Reuters)

President Barack Obama gave his sternest warning yet about the need to contain rising U.S. deficits, saying on Wednesday that if government debt were to pile up too much, it could lead to a double-dip recession.

With the U.S. unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, Obama told Fox News his administration faces a delicate balance of trying to boost the economy and spur job creation while putting the economy on a path toward long-term deficit reduction.

His administration was considering ways to accelerate economic growth, with tax measures among the options to give companies incentives to hire, Obama said in the interview with Fox conducted in Beijing during his nine-day trip to Asia.

“It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession,” he said.

Long term deficit reduction? Recovery? People COULD lose confidence? Is he smoking crack?

He has trillions in debt coming on line and has spent more in the last two months than Bush did in a year. Recovery? Hello, McFly! Double digit unemployment, bank bail outs, and businesses closing. People DON’T HAVE CONFIDENCE IN YOU OR THE ECONOMY!

This is just more smoke to hide what is really going on. He thinks that the American public is either stupid (some evidence there-look who they voted for) or blind (What? Don’t bother me! Dancing with the Stars is on!). Apparently, he thinks that China is going to believe his lies too.

Obama lied. Jobs died.

Apparently they all look alike to the “Smartest President Evah”.

I mean, if our President is going to break 200 years of tradition and bow to a foreign leader…..

if our President is going to embarrass our country…..

if our President is going to show slavish subservience…..

Then, at least get it right.

This is the man that deserve Obama’s, if not America’s bow…..

I mean, he is lending us all of that money that Obama is trying to bribe Congress with spend……

Tyranny cannot tolerate opposition or escape. The Iron Curtain was the symbol of Soviet oppression of Eastern Europe. Children and young adults today cannot comprehend what it was like to live in such a world. Even the countries involved were labeled. Today no one speaks of Eastern Europe. Rather the world now speaks of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, etc. No longer are these free countries lumped together under a label of “the oppressed”.

Even in the Free West, the Cold War and Soviet oppression was a dank blanket over the world. Its existence, though dismissed and minimized by many, including some in Congress today, was a blight upon the world. Millions were prisoners of that system, and millions died because of that system. Socialist/Communist oppression killed over 100 million in the 20th Century alone.

The greatest symbol of that oppression was the Berlin Wall. Erected in 1961 to stop East Germans from fleeing the country, it split towns, villages, and families. Ostensibly a wall to imprison West Berlin and separate it from East Germany, the effect was to accentuate the freedom of the West and the imprisonment of communist occupied countries. The attempts to cross the Wall showed all of us that freedom is priceless. Every success was a cause for rejoicing as if someone was back from the dead.

Fine words were spoken in support of the West Berliners. The evil was confronted at the border. Kennedy, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, went to West Berlin after the building of the Wall that split families asunder, apparently forever.

The Cold War was a constant. The Wall was its symbol. However, no Western country actually confronted the Soviet Union directly over the monstrosity of the Wall. No American president was actually willing to challenge the Soviet Union oligarchy about the morality of the Iron Curtain on fear of escalation.

Until Reagan.

His speech electrified the world. Lovers of freedom applauded while useful idiots disparaged him. His challenge illuminated the fact that it was the responsibility of the occupying power to destroy the Wall; that the only way for peaceful coexistence to continue was for the Soviet system of oppression to end. This speech was the first step that led to the fall of the Wall two years later. Confronted with an increasing exodus of East Germans fleeing to the West via Hungary and Czechoslovakia, political concessions were granted, allowing freer travel between the countries. Freedom cannot be constrained once fetters are loosened.

When I take a break from blogging, I’m a real estate title abstractor. I’m….in-between…. employers at the moment. Why? Nope. Not because of the foreclosures. If every house on the market that should be foreclosed was being sold, I would have a job. My industry depends upon the transaction, the sale, of homes. And responsible banks and buyers get titles checked before they buy. And lenders and buyers need title insurance.

THIS is why I’m sittng at home, blogging.

About 1.2 million loans out there are in limbo : The borrower is in serious default yet the bank has not started the foreclosure process. Another 1.5 million are in early stages of the foreclosure process but the bank hasn’t yet taken possession of the home. Counting these and loans that are highly likely to end up in default, one analyst estimates three million to four million foreclosed homes will come on the market over the next few years.

…state mortgage-mediation schemes as well as the Obama Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, which at last count had managed to prevent 235,247 homes from coming onto the market…

Between ACORN (ie, the government) pressuring banks to give out bad loans, bank bailouts reducing the risk of the banks, and Barney Frank and co. wanting to reignite the housing mortgage bubble, and the press not wanting to give any bad news to the public because that would make their heroes look bad, we are screwed. The banks don’t want to take the loss that reduced prices would bring. Remember, when the owner is the bank on an "underwater" mortgage, they are in the same boat as the previous owner. They want the money to pay their debts. No one is willing to take the loss and Congress wants to save their investment money bail them out.

You think that the FDIC is broke now? That banks are going under now? Just wait.

A comment from the post:
The FHA is writing about a third of all purchase mortgages, most of them with no money down (after the 8% tax credit). Believe it or not, USDA mortgages are gaining market share too. Yeah, USDA. And the mortgages the private sector writes, it quickly turns around and sells. The biggest buyer is, you guessed it, the government.

God forbid that any possible Democrat voters have pain. We must buy their vote help them! The government can buy all that debt! We have our money invested in those banks! We have to help the poor! We’re with the government and we’re here to help.

But all that money is going to be for naught.

Because the commercial real estate foreclosure crisis is on the way. Won’t THAT be fun?

As Robert Heinlein put is so succintly, TANSTAAFL.

Why Drill Here, Drill Now is not just a political slogan but necessary for the continuation of civilization as we know it and carbon taxes are the ruination of us all. Mostly Cajun explains the real world of energy and why expecting to replace "fossil fuels" anytime soon is as naive as expecting Obama to be honest about his agenda.

Read the whole thing. And the comments.

Damn those Laws of Thermodynamics!

when they say that, "Of course we’ll help you with that Iranian problem…..We’ll get them to put away the nukes. We’ve only invested millions in helping them develop nuclear power….Don’t worry about it. The check is in the mail. And we have a bridge to sell you. I promise not to c…"

You get the idea.

So…..Obama has betrayed two allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, by killing the missile defense idea. Russia is upset that we want to put DEFENSIVE, anti-missile systems in Europe. Why? Oh, that’s right….they’ve already bullied two countries. Why not more? Georgia and Ukraine are screwed.

Let’s see who is the wonderful negotiator for this travesty: Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher ‘The first member of her family to attend college, she graduated in 1974 from Seton Hall University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in early childhood education.

I’m sure THAT will help in international relations. (Actually, it probably would.)

Here’s the news from abroad:

From the AP: Obama scrapping missile shield for Czech, Poland

Premier Jan Fischer told reporters that Obama phoned him overnight to say that "his government is pulling out of plans to build a missile defense radar on Czech territory."

"The same happened with Poland. Poland was informed in the same way about this intention," Fischer said.

Under the plan, which had been proposed by the Bush administration to defend the United States and its European allies against a possible missile attack from Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East , 10 interceptor rockets were to have been stationed in Poland and a radar system based in the Czech Republic.

So, Obama called them up like a unfaithful girlfriend and said, "Honey, I think we should start seeing other people. Its not you. Its me….."

He’s doing this WITHOUT Russian guarantees of sanctions against Iran. He’s HOPING that Russia will CHANGE its mind about helping the US.

Kinda of like an insecure girl putting out just so the quarterback will date her.

Alexei Arbatov, head of the Russian Academy of Science ’s Center for International Security, told a Moscow radio station Thursday that the U.S. was giving in on missile defense to get more cooperation from Russia on Iran .

"The United States is reckoning that by rejecting the missile-defense system or putting it off to the far future, Russia will be inclined together with the United States to take a harder line on sanctions against Iran ," he said.

But what happens to her reputation? Lets see:

The decision to scrap the plan will have future consequences for U.S. relations with eastern Europe.

"If the administration approaches us in the future with any request, I would be strongly against it," said Jan Vidim, a lawmaker with Czech Republic’s conservative Civic Democratic Party , which supported the missile defense plan .

The Czech government stood by us against opposition in their country because they knew it was the right thing to do. Too bad they trusted us. I wonder why we have such a poor reputation among allies……..

And Niles Gardiner of the UK Telegraph puts it just right: Barack Obama surrenders to Russia on Missile Defence.

He wrote:

“if enacted, this would represent a huge turnaround in American strategic thinking on a global missile defence system, and a massive betrayal of two key US allies in eastern and central Europe. Such a move would significantly weaken America’s ability to combat the growing threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile program, and would hand a major propaganda victory to the Russians.”

This is bad news for all who care about the US commitment to the transatlantic alliance and the defence of Europe as well as the United States. It represents the appalling appeasement of Russian aggression and a willingness to sacrifice American allies on the altar of political expediency. A deal with the Russians to cancel missile defence installations sends a clear message that even Washington can be intimidated by the Russian bear.

President Jimmy Carter Barack Obama is swallowing it all,…….hook, line, and sinker.

Since there are just too many better writers out there, and many of you are working too hard to take the time to find them, here’s a round up of reactions to ObamaCare.

Roger Kimball at Roger’s Rules talks about Obama as Tony Soprano.

He introduces Thomas Sowell’s piece on Obama vs. Common Sense.

But he absolutely loves Shikia Dalmia’s PutUp or Shut Up.

Obama swears that there will be no rationing. But he’s going to cut costs. TigerHawk and Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) talk about how ObamaCare will cut investments in medical innovation.

TigerHawk: As we have long predicted on this blog, the health care “reformers” propose to finance at least part of the “savings” or new benefits — it is impossible to know which — by decreasing the rate of return on medical technology. There are many ways in which this might be done, but the Senate Democrats are proposing to do so directly, by levying a “value added tax” on medical device companies according to their proportion of U.S. sales. This tax would be without regard to profitability, so it would amount to a capital tax on start-ups and a massive income tax surcharge on profitable companies, varying as net margins do.

Glenn Reynolds: The normal critique of socialized medicine is to point out that people have to wait a long time for these kinds of treatments in places like Britain. And that’s certainly a valid critique. I’m sure my mom and daughter would still be waiting for their treatments, while my father and wife would probably be dead.

The key point, though, is that these treatments didn’t just come out out of the blue. They were developed by drug companies and device makers who thought they had a good market for things that would make people feel better.

But under a national healthcare plan, the “market” will consist of whatever the bureaucrats are willing to buy. That means treatment for politically stylish diseases will get some money, but otherwise the main concern will be cost-control. More treatments, to bureaucrats, mean more costs.

Obama Care. Flipping you the finger while you wait to die.

cross posted at United Conservatives of Virginia

The Left always attacks its critics. Always.

From the Clinton machine to Obama’s minions, the left has attacked every critic. Pelosi calls concerned citizens, many of them democrats, nazis. The administration tells its people to “punch back twice as hard.” This is against private, albeit loosely organized, citizens. Joe the Plumber was investigated and his private information used against him. The press pilloried him for daring to question “the One.” Do you think Gov. Palin would have had so much trouble if she had never left Alaska, or hadn’t attracted so much support? Now, private citizens are getting calls and emails for questioning and contradicting their representatives in public. Many have gotten threats to their lives. Katy Abrams dared to question Arlen Spector and her family is now getting threats. Kenneth Gladney was beaten by SEIU thugs for daring to be a conservative black man.

Do you really think that, under a Progressive government, who you know and what you say won’t be held against you? Who invented anti-2nd Amendment political correctness? Who invented the idea of hate crimes and hate speech? And, of course, we always hear that “right wing” talk is “hate speech,” thereby making conservative talk, or thought, a crime, if taken seriously.

Now, picture these same tyrants in charge of your health care……

Who did you vote for? Are you a union member? Do you support the unions? Are you a member of the right ethnic group? Which candidate did you send money to? Have you sent your donation to the DNC?

These questions, or similar ones, could appear on your standard medical questionnaire.

Tell me that’s not a possibility with what you’ve seen this administration do. Tell me that, with what you’ve seen appear on the census, this couldn’t happen. Tell me, with the incorporation of ACORN, etc, into the government, that this wouldn’t matter.

Let’s hope that you are right.

But it would be safer if we just don’t have government run health care.

That said, take a look at what the “health care” plans would do.  Even if the following ideas were not implemented, since unions are exempted from the public plan, citizens would unionize just to get good health insurance….

h/t Flopping Aces

Read the Union Health-Care Label
Get ready for Detroit-style labor relations in our hospitals.
By Mark Mix
Wall Street Journal
SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.

Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.

The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.

The current House version of ObamaCare (H.R. 3200) goes much further. Section 225(A) grants Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius tremendous discretionary authority to regulate health-care workers “under the public health insurance option.” Monopoly bargaining and compulsory union dues may quickly become a required standard resulting in potentially hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses across the country being forced into unions.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy affecting hundreds of thousands of doctors, surgeons and nurses.
…
The House bill has a $10 billion provision to bail out insolvent union health-care plans. It also creates a lucrative professional-development grant program for health-care workers that effectively blackballs nonunion medical facilities from participation. The training funds in this program must be administered jointly with a labor organization—a scenario not unlike the U.S. Department of Labor’s grants for construction apprenticeship programs, which have turned into a cash cow for construction industry union officials on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

There’s more. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has suggested that the federal government could pay for health-care reform by taxing American workers’ existing health-care benefits—but he would exempt union-negotiated health-care plans. Under Mr. Baucus’s scheme, the government could impose costs of up to $20,000 per employee on nonunion businesses already struggling to afford health care plans.

Mr. Baucus’s proposal would give union officials another tool to pressure employers into turning over their employees to Big Labor. Rather than provide the lavish benefits required by Obamacare, employers could allow a union to come in and negotiate less costly benefits than would otherwise be required. Such plans could be continuously exempted.

Americans are unlikely to support granting unions more power than they already have in the health-care field. History shows union bosses could abuse their power to shut down medical facilities with sick-outs and strikes; force doctors, nurses and in-home care providers to abandon their patients; dictate terms and conditions of employment; and impose a failed, Detroit-style management model on the entire health-care field.

ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for more forced unionization.

Mr. Mix is president of the National Right to Work Committee.

Neither did I. And the powers that be don’t want you to know either. Have you seen how these “health care” bills are written? Or the existing regulations?

During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church was in charge. All power was based on God’s approval. And only the priesthood could read Latin….
Similarly, the mullahs do the same thing in the muslim world. The Koran is in Arabic. And only the imams read Arabic…..

Now, power seeking entities seek control over your lives. Insurance companies, governments, lobbyists, etc, all want to control and guide your choices.

William Tucker at The American Spectator explains it all:

But let’s get back to my original point, which is that liberals speak a different language when they talk about healthcare. Here’s what the Brookings Institution recommends for resolving the problem:

• Link “meaningful use” health IT [Information Technology] bonuses to achieving better results as part of systems of quality measurement, quality improvement, and care coordination.

• Create interoperability and provider communications standards, with a focus on filing priority gaps in standards for practical exchange.

• Fund technical support programs to ensure providers adopting health IT have access to comprehensive support for overcoming implementation challenges.

• Create an entity [that means a federal government panel] to allocate CER [Comparative Effectiveness Research] based on the expected value of the evidence to be developed, including the national burden of disease and the likelihood that the research will lead to real improvements in care.

• Emphasize areas of medical uncertainty, public health interventions, and broad provider practice patterns and the policies that influenced them.

I don’t know about you but most of these sentences sound like the kind you compose with refrigerator magnets. What in god’s name are they talking about?

Now I know what the answer will be. “You don’t have the expertise to know what they’re talking about.” I’m sure that’s true. There must be a level of non-profit, policymaker executive authority at which this all jargon makes sense.

But that’s the whole point. None of this is supposed to be comprehensible to ordinary individuals. It’s not written for people who take part in the system. It’s written for people who see the major players as chess pieces to be moved around the board.

Obama wants us all to have choice. Apparently, through ERISA, unions, large corporations, and the self insured, perhaps 90% of the insured, already have choice. Governments don’t like that.

Go read the rest.

cross posted at United Conservatives of Virginia

What is it that the Left promises?

Yes, I know, but free energy from unicorn farts IS mythical. Well, then again, so is most of what the Left says is mythical…..but I digress.

The Progressives promise more efficient government services. The Progressives promise that the government will help you. The Progressives promise that THEY will save you through the power of this or that government scheme.

The Conservatives (not necessarily the GOP) want the government to return to its Constitutional role of leveling the playing field for its citizens so that they may freely pursue their dreams. The Conservatives want the government to only referee, not be in the game.

Mark Steyn nails it: (emphasis mine)

Since January, his successor has used the economic slump as a pretext to “reform” health care. Most voters don’t buy it: They see it as Obama’s “war of choice,” and the more frantically he talks about it as a matter of urgency the weirder it seems. If he’s having difficulty selling it, that’s because it’s not about “health.” As I’ve written before, the appeal of this issue to him and to Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank et al is that governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture — one in which elections are always fought on the Left’s issues and on the Left’s terms, and in which “conservative” parties no longer talk about small government and individual liberty but find themselves retreating to one last pitiful rationale: that they can run the left-wing state more effectively than the Left can. Listen to your average British Tory or French Gaullist on the campaign trail, pledging to “deliver” government services more “efficiently.”

Any Republican that cooperates with this madness DESERVES to lose his/her seat. Any “conservative” Democrat that cooperates with this madness also deserves to lose their seat or be exposed for the lickspittles that they are.

Cross posted at United Conservatives of Virginia.

Some busybodies cannot leave well enough alone. Congress is addicted to our money. Congressmen are addicted to “fixing” what is not broken. Many want to force us into certain social pathway because they think its important.

Now, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D) Oregon, wants to spend our money so that the government can spy on us. He wants to spend millions of dollars developing a system that tracks every motorist in America in order to tax their mileage. Apparently, he hasn’t heard about the odometer yet. He needs to also track WHERE we’re driving.

US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system. The “Road User Fee Pilot Project” would be administered by the US Treasury Department. This agency in turn would issue millions in taxpayer-backed grants to well-connected commercial manufacturers of tolling equipment to help develop the required technology. Within eighteen months of the measure’s passage, the department would file an initial report outlining the best methods for adopting the new federal transportation tax.

“Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee, and it is time to expand and test the VMT program across the country,” Blumenauer said in a statement on the bill’s introduction. “A VMT system can better assess fees based on use of our roads and bridges, as well as during times of peak congestion, than a fee based on fuel consumption. It is time to get creative and find smart ways to rebuild and renew America’s deteriorating infrastructure.”

Of course, this would be on top of the gas tax. And the technology used to track which roads and bridges are most used, wouldn’t EVER be used by law enforcement, oh no…. Or be used by insurance companies to track individual driving habits.

The government controls ONSTAR. This bill would track all motorists. The government wants to control your health care. The government wants all medical records online and wants access to them. The government has shown interest in having the IRS be involved in your health care decisions and now your driving decisions. The insurance companies would love to have all this information. And if the government is running health care…….it won’t matter. Because the government will have access to all of it.

Tell me that I’m wrong that these ideas would not be abused. Tell me that I’m wrong in that these programs would, eventually, piece meal, be implemented so that more and more restrictions would be put into place. All in the name of saving taxpayer money or saving the children, of course. Politicians can’t help themselves. Everything they do is a “good idea at the time” in their eyes. THEY are not affected by any of this. They have to be seen as doing something, anything…..

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Cross posted at United Conservatives of Virginia

We have until 2012 until we follow where the European Union is leading.  Our fearless leaders, in order to make themselves feel better about themselves passed a bill that banned incandescent light bulbs from American shores.  The federal government believes that they have the right to interfere in our lives to that extent….

Well, here’s what’s happening in Europe:

On September 1, the European Union began to enforce a ban on incandescent light bulbs. The response was immediate outcry from thousands of EU citizens who felt the blanket ban was overdone and failed to take into account hazards from compact fluorescent bulbs containing the toxic heavy metal mercury, according to the New York Times.

Nine days later, the furor has failed to subside. Europeans are hoarding still available supplies of incandescent bulbs and the airwaves are lit up with complaints about the Draconian energy saving enforcement measure.

If this is what’s happening in Europe under socialism lite, just think what’s going to happen when this impinges on the American consciousness…..

Pssst. Hey. Want what I got? Need a bulb?

Get ‘em now and stock up. What happens in England happens here when progressives are in power. And yes, I include President Bush in that description. He signed the bill.

Millions of Britons are finally waking up to the fact that their beloved light bulb will disappear for good after 120 years.

Traditional 100-watt bulbs are vanishing from the High Street because of a controversial European Union decision.

Yesterday panic buyers were snapping up the remaining bulbs in a last-ditch attempt to stockpile the final supplies. Hundreds of leading supermarkets and DIY chains - including Sainsbury’s, Asda and Homebase - have already sold their last remaining bulbs after a surge in panic buying.

All in the name of lowering CO2 in the atmosphere. Global warming, don’cha know?

A little over a year ago, Congress decided that they knew what was best for you. (What else is new?) They banned the incandescent light bulb because Congress felt that those bulbs were destroying the planet.

The phase-out of incandescent light is to begin with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 and end in 2014 with the 40-watt.

( I think my attic could hold quite a bit of these bulbs. I see businesses forming…..)

All light bulbs must use 25 percent to 30 percent less 2014. By 2020, bulbs must be 70 percent more efficient than they are today.

My experience with the new CFL bulb is that they DO NOT last any longer than regular bulbs, put out horribly inferior light, and contain enough mercury that their manufacture is not allowed in the USA. ( See # 6 (bolded) below) Fluorescent lights cause me and many others to experience headaches, migraines, and eye strain.

(Hmmmm, I see a class action law suit……since CFL use will be mandatory. )

While they use less energy, they costs many times a regular bulb. If they don’t last the reported lifetime, all you are doing is spending more money. No savings. I wonder how much the power/electric companies like GE lobbied the government to “save the world” so that the consumer would be forced to pay them more money.

Here’s a quick list of the problems. From a commenter at Treehugger.com

Here’s a short critique of the bogus argument that there will be a reduction in toxic mercury into the environment with CFL’s due to the energy reduction from coal plants:
(1) The EPA figures are incorrect for several reasons. The basic one is that they assume 100% of electricity in the US is from coal plants. Not true. 50% of electricity does not come from coal plants in the US and coal plants are now mandated to reduce their mercury emissions by between 70% and 90% in the next several years.
(2) Places like California produce little energy from coal plants, so CFL energy reductions will not cut much mercury there.
(3) The 5mg of mercury generally claimed for CFL’s is largely a goal and not the current reality which can be 300% to 600% higher, depending on the manufacturer. The EPA assumes just 4mg.
(4) CFL’s are made in China with energy from mostly very dirty coal plants that emit much more mercury than US coal plants.
(5) CFL’s made in China spill as much mercury into the environment as goes into the CFL’s.
(6) CFL’s are delivered here on ships using bunker oil, the worst mercury producer of the fuel oils. Incandescent bulbs are still almost all made in the US.
(7) There is no recycling program in place or planned that could handle the number of CFL’s proposed. And after many years, even the industrial recycling programs only handle 25% of the mercury from fluorescent lights.
(8) It is likely that if any major recycling program is set up, the CFL’s will be shipped back to China for reprocessing.
Thus, a massive CFL program will put a massive amount of toxic mercury into the environment and very likely into our kid’s bodies. And the EPA says that a sixth of them already have too much mercury in them. Given the danger, it might be wise to believe the EPA in this case.

(Besides, Obama has said the he is going to END the coal powered plants. Alternative energy! Heck, how about nuclear power, then? No mercury then. CFLs are then a pollutant, not a “solution”.)

While I believe that the danger of the amount of mercury in these bulbs might be overblown, see below:

“And although one dot of mercury might not seem so bad, almost 300 million compact fluorescents were sold in the United States last year.” (NY Times Feb. 17, 2008)

5mg x 300,000,000 = 1500kg = 3306lbs (Dominion Virginia Power has partnered with the Home Depot and Honeywell since October 2007 to offer energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) at discounted rates, and the program passed two million sales this week.) 10,000,000 mg of mercury. Is that all being recycled or is it going into Virginia landfills?)

How many of you are going to recycle their light bulbs in special bulb recycling centers? Oh, wait, where are the centers? What happens when EVERY light bulb is a CFL? And how about the additional mercury that is in the normal fluorescent tube lights? Why don’t those get recycled?

From Quest, which actually promotes CFL’s

Of course, recycling is best, and that is still a problem. Alan Meier, Home Energy’s senior executive editor, admits to turning part of his garage into a “temporary hazardous waste holding facility” to hold his family’s used CFLs, since the nearest CFL recycling center is 13 miles away from his home in Berkeley, through “one of the worst traffic jams in the United States.”

“temporary hazardous waste holding facility”? That assumes that you HAVE a place to store the bulbs. I don’t have a garage. What about you? What about broken bulbs? Where do you store them?

Recycling center is 13 miles away? That’s 26 miles round trip. In traffic, with the stop at the center, that’s about an hour.That’s over a gallon of fuel in most vehicles. Hmmm, more pollution. And that gas cost just added to the increased cost and inconvenience of the CFL’s.

(Is there one in Richmond? ) Aha! Here’s some:

Home Depot

(804) 559-7333 Web Site

At least Richmond, Virginia has more recycling than Berkeley, CA. Oh, the irony….

So, make sure you hit Wal-Mart today. Buy some incandescent light bulbs. Stock up. The environmentalists have gotten them banned by 2012.

The phase-out of incandescent light is to begin with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 and end in 2014 with the 40-watt.

So now we get to import mercury filled Chinese light bulbs, built in EPA exempt, slave labor factories, powered by dirty coal, in the the great environmental paradise of Communist China and transported to the USA in  huge ships, built in non-American shipyards, powered by OPEC oil. So, we have that going for us……

Obama wants to “fix” our ENTIRE system.  Yet, he won’t touch Medicare, unless its to gut it of money to pay for HIS plan. He wants to hand over hour health system to the same idiots that do piecemeal planning like this in order to “save money”.  They want to overhaul the private system but won’t fix what THEY broke….

h/t MSNBC

Although the government regularly pays $100,000 or more for kidney transplants, it stops paying for anti-rejection drugs after only 36 months.The health care bill moving through the House of Representatives includes a little-noticed provision that would reverse the policy, but it is not clear whether the Senate will follow suit.

Bills have been introduced in Congress since 2000 to lift the 36-month limit and extend coverage of immunosuppressant drugs indefinitely. They have never made it to a vote, largely because of the projected upfront cost; the Congressional Budget Office estimates that unlimited coverage would add $100 million a year to the $23 billion Medicare kidney program.

How many examples like this do you need to convince you that socialized medicine does not work?

A MUM suffering chest pains died in front of her young son hours after being sent home from hospital and told to take painkillers.

Debra Beavers, 39, phoned NHS 24 twice in two days before getting a hospital appointment. But a doctor gave what her family described as a cursory examination lasting 11 minutes, before advising her to buy over-the-counter medicine Ibuprofen.

Family members claim the medic was abrupt and rude - and when Debra clutched her chest, he told her: “Your heart is on the other side.”

Seven hours later, the mum-of-two collapsed and died from a heart attack in front of her 13-year-old boy.

Read the rest.

Welcome to government run medicine. Didn’t Doctor Obama prescribe pain pills….

Not so Much.

Friday, August 07, 2009

AARP Officials Walk Out On Members Concerns

Update: AARP refuses to apologize for the snarky behavior of its moderator on FoxNews. States that having other meetings is evidence that it is listening to its members. NO mention of its previous endorsement of HR3200. Still lying by omission.

Look who is endorsing HR3200. Apparently the AARP spokeswoman is lying. AARP does what is good for AARP, NOT seniors.

From the Office of Speaker of the House:Statements of Support

H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health
Choices Act
Statements of Support
AARP
Families USA
Consumers Union
AFL-CIO
Office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi
H-232 The Capitol
July 14, 2009

AARP promotes the idea that it exists to help seniors and is a non-partisan organization.
Unfortunately, AARP promotes programs that benefit AARP and costs more for seniors. Go ahead and Google it. I’ll wait. And it always seems to promote only big government programs, ie, Liberal programs.

The arrogance shown by the AARP woman is typical. She starts off with a false premise, “I’m sure the we all agree….” and gets frustrated when the old people don’t fall in line. These people have become accustomed to citizenry being submissive sheep.

Apparently, the flock is waking up and digging in its heels.