NOAA: Climate Change Actually Decreases Hurricanes

The study by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Miami Lab and the University of Miami postulated that global warming may actually decrease the number of hurricanes that strike the United States. Warming waters may increase vertical wind speed, or wind shear, cutting into a hurricane's strength. The study focused on observations rather than computer models, which often form the backbone of global warming studies, and on the records of hurricanes over the past century...

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Why the Sky is Not Falling

[for those of you with children]

Holly Fretwell, an economist by training, has done her best to bring some needed critical thinking to the global-warming debate by writing “The Sky’s Not Falling! Aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds and their parents, it is a good, reasoned, 115-page antidote to the Chicken Little hysteria and propaganda found in the mainstream media and in places like Laurie David’s kids book “The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming.” Fretwell is a research fellow who focuses on natural-resource issues and public-lands management at the free-market Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont.[snip]

But as any scientist can tell you, correlation is not causation. If you actually go back and look at the data that shows CO2 levels and temperature changes over the last 650,000 years, what we find is that temperature actually changes first and CO2 in the atmosphere follows that temperature change. Maybe I should say that again: Temperature changes first. CO2 lags the temperature change. We know that humans are emitting CO2; the point being, however, there is no reason to believe that CO2 is causing temperature change when it is following temperature rises over the history of the data we have.

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America Should Be 'Oil' For More Drilling

The United States and the global economy will need a great deal more energy in the decades to come. It is said that within the next two decades we'll need about 40 percent more energy than we used in 2005. No one disputes this, and that figure is probably wildly underestimated... [snip]

It probably comes as a shock to most people that the United States is the world's third-largest oil producer (Saudi Arabia and Russia hold the top two spots). We produce a lot of oil and can produce much more. But we have hamstrung our oil industry by forbidding further drilling in Alaska, (where the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could possibly provide for as much as 5 percent of our current oil needs) or in offshore oil fields in the Atlantic, Pacific and the Gulf where vast resources are believed to exist.

But instead of focusing on how can we increase oil and gas supplies, the Democrats in Congress, sounding increasingly like Hugo Chavez, have been working to reduce supply in the face of constantly rising demand. To wit: they've said no to more exploration, and have been pushing for higher taxes on oil companies to recoup what they call "excess profits." Such policies make us more dependent on foreign oil while throttling supply, which in turn has contributed to high prices at the pump... [snip]

Meanwhile, America is being taken to the cleaners by needlessly high oil and gas prices caused by congressional ignorance and inability to come to grips with the only viable solution: Start boosting energy supplies and the cost to consumers will come down.

[again: the US has the greatest identified-recoverable energy reserves on the planet - but is the only country to refuse to develop its own resources. The Saudis are laughing their asses off]

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U.S. stocks fall as oil surges to $120 a barrel

New York - U.S. stocks fell on Monday as a surge in oil prices to a record over $120 a barrel. In the stock market the higher oil prices, on weakness in the dollar and supply concerns from OPEC members Nigeria and Iran, overshadowed a report that showed the service sector defied expectations to post its first monthly gain this year.

[there is no faster way to scuttle an economy than energy prices]

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Groups sue to stop Chukchi [oil] exploration

A lawsuit filed by Alaska environmental groups seeks to stop seismic exploration by oil companies this summer in Arctic waters. The plaintiffs are challenging federal permits that allow energy giants Shell Oil and BP to search for oil and gas (Snip) The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Alaska, names the Minerals Management Service and National Marine Fisheries Service among the defendants.

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THEY MEANT WELL [, the socialists.]

When governments get involved in projects that can be done by private enterprise, the results are almost certain to be bad. Even if they hit upon a potentially worthwhile venture, they will approach it in a very inefficient manner. Politicians and bureaucrats are not spending their own money and do not stand to lose if they are wrong.

In "They Meant Well," D. R. Myddelton, a Cranfield University professor, examines government project disasters in Great Britain. Both Conservative and Labor governments presided over those fiascos, writes Myddelton, and the results range from almost comical to utterly tragic:

• A grand 30 year experiment in socialized nuclear energy beginning in 1955 cost taxpayers around $63 billion, until Margret Thatcher moved power generation out of being a government monopoly and into the world of free market completion
• About $17.9 billion was lost on the development a supersonic jet that no private airlines would buy.
• Most recently the disappointing Millennium Dome project netted the government a loss of 1.9 billion from 1994 to 2000. [snip]

The common thread among these projects is that the politicians overestimated benefits, underestimated costs, did not know when to stop, and stuck the public with a big tab...

[the yellow book philosophy: if you can find it in the yellow pages, government should stay out.]

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AN UNSTABLE SYSTEM

Government health care as it is currently structured in Canada is not financially sustainable, according to "Paying More, Getting Less," an annual report from the Fraser Institute. Fraser found that even in provinces benefiting from inflated energy costs such as resource rich Alberta, growth in health care spending still has out paced growth in GDP and total available provincial revenue.

An increase in demand for health services without an equivalent increase in the ability to pay will inevitably leads to government rationing, says Fraser.

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THE STIMULUS DEFICIT

If you want to know the real cost of Washington's economic stimulus, look no further than yesterday's Fiscal 2009 White House budget. The federal deficit is taking a giant leap backward, thanks in substantial part to the $150 billion in "temporary" tax cuts, says the Wall Street Journal.

This non-stimulating stimulus will largely take the form of tax rebates and credits that will do little to change economic incentives. Thus they will result in a nearly dollar-for-dollar revenue loss to the Treasury, expanding a deficit that was already going to climb to $219 billion thanks to slower economic growth and faster spending.

Yet President Bush's 2003 reductions on capital gains, dividend and marginal income-tax rates are precisely the kind of tax cuts that provide incentives to work and invest and thus recoup at least some of the revenue lost due to lower rates, as is evidenced by the unsung part of the budget story that overall revenue growth remains relatively healthy:

• The White House budget office says fiscal 2007 revenue rose by 6 percent, and the main reason they're estimated to fall modestly this year is the "stimulus" tax rebates.
• Taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) are now 18.5 percent, slightly higher than the 40-year modern historical average.

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Judges Getting the Message About Illegal Immigrants

In December, a federal judge in Oklahoma upheld an Oklahoma law requiring state contractors to determine and verify the immigration status of new hires. U.S. District Judge James H. Payne threw out a legal challenge to the law.

In January, U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber emphatically ruled against illegal immigrants who had sued to overturn a similar ordinance enacted by Valley Park, Mo., a town near St. Louis. The court upheld the ordinance, which was directed at employers who were hiring illegal immigrants.

In February U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake rejected each and every argument challenging a new Arizona law that imposes penalties on businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. He dismissed the claim that federal law somehow ties the hands of state and local governments seeking to protect their own citizens.

These three decisions in three different parts of the country included both Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges. In the term loved by the mainstream media, there is now bipartisan judicial support for state and local legislation against illegal immigrants.

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VALUE OF COLLEGE TUITION IS CALLED INTO QUESTION

Students are a growing source of revenue for colleges, but little of that money is going into classroom instruction, says the report by the Delta Cost Project, a Washington-based non-profit. The study also finds that the percentage of students who complete a degree hasn't kept pace with increases in enrollments, revenue and total spending. Consider:

• The United States spends more per student than any other industrialized nation, yet it ranks at the bottom in degree completion (54 percent), says the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
• The organization average is 71 percent; the high is 91 percent in Japan.

Source: Mary Beth Marklein, "Value of College Education is Called into Question," USA Today, May 1, 2008.

[we need an internet based curricula to compete with colleges and break their cartel-like hold on education - they're diminishing our future competitiveness as a nation

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Writer Stephen King: If You Can't Read, You'll End Up in the Army or Iraq

Remember shortly before Election Day 2006 when Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) suggested that if you don't get a good education, "you get stuck in Iraq"? Well, last month, famed horror auther Stephen King was speaking in front of a group of high school students at the Library of Congress, and he virtually made the exact same statement.For those that can bear it, what follows is another in a long line of liberal media members bashing the military...

[after several years of monitoring our service men's daily sacrifice and valor I've come to believe that the 'demographic' they represent is the single most flattering to our nation - their character and integrity and selflessness is beyond compare: as a group they represent the best among us]

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Governor's budget plan grows green staff

California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's near-and-dear fight to make the state greener is adding a lot of new jobs to the state's already-in-the-red payroll. The governor's latest budget proposal calls for no fewer than 211 greenhouse-gas busters to be sprinkled throughout state government, at an annual cost of $55.4 million. That's 77 more greenies than are on the payroll this year...

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Get ready for 'plant rights.'

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated. A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms."

[again: political correctness doesn't stop until stopped]

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Chris Matthews the Most Powerful Commentator in the US?

According to new rankings by the Telegraph newspaper, Chris Matthews is the second most influential pundit in the United States.

Bill O'Reilly's 2.3 million viewers earned him the 12th spot, just ahead of Keith Olberman's 700,000 to 900,000.

Of course, a mild amount of research on the part of the Telegraph would have revealed that Rush Limbaugh brings brings in excess of 13.5 million. [not a fan, but link = fascinating Annenberg study quantifying his influence]

Yet Chris Matthews' 530,000 viewers trumped all of these people, making him the second most influential person in the United States? This is a laughable assertion at best. Am I the only one wondering if the Brits are trying to promote Matthews's Senate campaign?

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