Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals and moderates can all agree that 2008 was an interesting year, to say the least. Who would have thought the New York Football Giants would have bested the New England Patriots in the Superbowl? If you thought that would be the strangest thing to happen this year you don’t follow politics too closely.

2008 kicked off in the midst of the Presidential primary season. Democrats bickered over who cared more about the impoverished and who wanted our troops out of Iraq sooner. Republicans went back and forth, each claiming to be the most conservative, while Republican voters kept wondering how they could channel Ronald Reagan. Read the rest of this entry »

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie’s Notebook

Fox News’ Redeye, hosted by Gregg Gutfeld, interviewed John Coleman, the weather channel founder, about global warming and climate change, and the extremes of the global warming fraud. Coleman makes it clear that he is “green,” - is definitely an environmentalist, but that the hysteria over CO2 emissions is unfounded and inaccurately documented. Read the rest of this entry »

I must admit, it was a brilliant move for Barack Obama to appoint “centrists”  to his cabinet early and with much fanfare. Some would argue the point that they really aren’t centrists, but why bother. We’ll find out soon enough how moderate they really are.

But there’s nary a soul who can make a convincing argument that his energy team is anything but a bunch of left wing, tree hugging, economy killing ideologues. The Wall Street Journal predicts big carbon taxes in the midst of a depression. Read the rest of this entry »

The US Senate Minority Committee on Environment and Public Works has released a statement on man made global warming claims. While the UN global warming conference is underway, hundreds of renowned scientists are coming forward denouncing global warming. Read the full statement here.

POZNAN, Poland - The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.  Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007.

A full report is set to be released by Thursday morning. The following are the best quotes from scientists in the report: Read the rest of this entry »

With all of the money the Fed’s been pumping into the economy, one would think things would have stabilized by now. Yet, November’s job loss numbers tell us things quickly went from bad to worse.

Tom Blumer analyzed the data and was only able to come to one conclusion. Read the rest of this entry »

The Democrats seem to think they can wave a magic wand and trillions of dollars will magically appear to solve all the problems in the global economy. The $700 billion they and President Bush printed isn’t enough. Charles Schumer suggested an additional $700 billion is needed, bringing the grand total to $1.4 trillion dollars.

Nancy Pelosi pretty much said the same thing. I heard she also proposed giving US automakers not the $25 billion they asked for, but a whopping $75 billion. How generous of her!

I wish just once someone would ask them how they plan to pay for all of this spending? While Barack Obama promises to ‘invest’ money in new technology and create millions of jobs after the next mid-term elections, he fails to mention that every dollar he ‘invests’ is a dollar he needs to take or borrow from someone.

Who is going to pay it all back? Have they forgotten about the trillions of dollars in those unfunded mandates known as Social Security and Medicare?

Rather than proposing a few simple measures to stimulate the ecomony, such as reducing the capital gains tax rate and allowing more domestic oil drilling (pirates have just hijacked an oil tanker on its way to the US) these yahoos are pretending they can make money magically appear and everything will be A-OK.

What’s most amazing is that so many American believe them. Go figure.

Moderate Democrate John Dingell’s out as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Henry Waxman’s in, which doesn’t bode well for the business community.

John McCain and Barack Obama met earlier this week. I was thinking “Now McCain can go back to being a Democrat.” Apparently, I wasn’t the only one thinking that.

Barack Obama has named Tim Geithner as his pick for Treasury Secretary and Bill Richardson for Commerce. The market reacted positively. Whether that holds up next week is unknown. Didn’t Geithner have a hand in the bailout of AIG?

There may be a rift between Nancy Pelosi and the new adminstration. It’s been reported that Obama supports a pre-packaged bankruptcy for the US automakers (who reject the idea), while Pelosi says bankruptcy should be taken off the table. This could be interesting.

It’s almost official, Hillary Clinton will be our next Secretary of State. I wonder who will take her place in the Senate. I need a Tagamet.

Sarah Palin pardoned a turkey and during a post-pardon interview another turkey met his maker. I don’t understand the big deal. Where do people thing their Thanksgiving turkeys come from?

Five million people are expected to descend on Washington DC for Barack Obama’s inauguration. Why does the thought of 5 Million people in one place conjure up images of the Super Dome after Hurricane Katrina? All I can say is “Good luck, folks.”

Soon we will have one party controlling the entire federal government. This is no time to sit back and stop paying attention. Hank Paulson indicated a desire to leave about half of the $700 billion bailout money in the hands of the next administration and congress. This is the time to be more vigilant and vocal than ever.

American Solutions has a page where you can find the phone numbers or addresses of your elected officials. I urge you to mark this link as one of your favorites. Any time you hear about another bailout, or some other mischief our government is conjuring up, please let them know you don’t like it, you don’t want it and if they vote for it you won’t vote for them. If enough of us do so it can make a difference.

To see what else American Solutions is up to click here. They have a lot of great ideas, on everything from the economy to energy solutions.

One thing you learn when mentoring young engineers is to be careful and not be anxious to tell them they can’t do something. After all there were so many impossible things that we couldn’t do, like go to the moon or split the atom. Still, there are some things that are not practical or require a foundation first to be built. Maybe it’s like that with first term senators.

Listening to Barack Obama’s speech in Ohio tonight reminded me of the landlord I had decades ago. He was absolutely convinced that he could create hydrogen and oxygen from electrolysis then burn them in an engine and generate electricity. His plan was to do this and sell the surplus back to the power company. He wasn’t a bad man, he just forgot to take into consideration that it would consume more energy to create the hydrogen fuel than he could produce with his engine. There was absolutely nothing I could do to convince him otherwise. He believed in the idea but had no practical knowledge of thermodynamics. His lesson came at a high price.

Barack says he’ll stop the subsidies to companies that are shipping jobs overseas so that they will be punished if they do. Punished, with higher taxes, if they ship jobs overseas. Does he know so little of history or economics? Rather than shipping a few jobs overseas the companies will simply move out of the USA. No revenue at all, except perhaps some repatriated wealth for a few people that bring enough back to pay for their life style. A policy that will not mean fewer jobs from these companies, it will mean no jobs, no domestic product. Nothing. Read the rest of this entry »

The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed Barack Obama in January of 2008 and for some reason kept this audio under wraps. According to NewsBusters, the article they wrote about the interview did not mention Barack Obama’s plan to bankrupt the coal industrty. Read the rest of this entry »

The Wall Street Journal is sounding the alarm about what the ultra liberal Democrats will do with their supermajority should they win the trifecta in next months election.

If America is truly a center-right country I can’t imagine the voters will let this happen. I certainly hope not. Do you really want the most liberal member of the US Senate leading our country with absolutely nothing to reign him in?

The Journal predicts the following will be enacted between 2009 and 2010: Read the rest of this entry »

Have you heard? Oil prices are headed down. One “expert” has predicted that oil is headed down to the $60 per barrel level. Remember when those same experts were predicting $200 per barrel?

But before we get too excited and breath a great sigh of relief, remember the pain at the pump from this summer. The crisis in the economy will pass. Growth will return to global markets. Let’s not make the same mistake twice. We’re getting a second chance and we must not be fooled into letting it slip away.

Read the rest of this entry »

 Americans have learned in the past months how inextricably linked our energy and our economy have become. A disturbing indication of how poor regulation may push the technology and production of alternative fuels off shore has emerged. If we don’t pay attention now we may find ourselves being held hostage to foreign alternative energy sources, much as were are to foreign oil.

Read the rest of this entry »

While Congress was debating what to do about the current financial crisis Harry Reid was trying to reinstate a ban on oil shale production. John Boehner issued the following statement: Read the rest of this entry »

Can we have AlGore’s peace prize rescinded? He’s now encouraging civil disobedience, AKA violence, to stop coal plants that don’t have carbon storage systems from being built.

“If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause.

I think he’s finally fallen off his rocker (or broken it).