August 30th, 2011
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A man was killed and two others were injured after a shooting outside a Copenhagen mosque following prayers to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on Tuesday, police said. (more)
December 13th, 2010
As predicted, because it is by now absurdly ritual, early the day after the scheduled conclusion of this year’s talks to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol, negotiators emerged hailing a breakthrough agreement on “global warming.” The Washington Post offers its take which, although it provides no word whether I won the CEI office pool on the number of European diplomats crying (the “over/under” was five), nonetheless opens risibly: (more)
December 10th, 2010
| Obama must convince liberal rich people that it is OK for them to keep their money – We’re gonna need a bigger shoe: Carbon footprint of Cancun climate conference significantly larger than last year – WaPo finds GAO flat-out lied in for-profit report – Indian ambassador groped by TSA for second time in three months – Cruel irony: This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner earned it, but can’t attend – Earmarks may be dead in the House, but phone-marks are alive and well |
| 1.) Deep Democratic pockets may dry up after tax-cut deal – “President Obama’s advisors are confident that liberals dismayed by his agreement to extend tax breaks for the wealthy will forgive him by the time the 2012 election kicks into gear,” reports the LA Times. But will less forgetful and more moneyed liberals be as starry-eyed? The Times found that “some stalwart party donors are vowing to withhold funds because of their anger over the tax-cut deal.” Hedge fund manager Art Lipson, for instance, told the paper, “I do not plan to support Obama and his reelection effort,” because Obama is not willing to steal more of Lipson’s money. The Times counters its own thesis by pointing out that the DNC raised some big bucks “despite anger in the liberal wing about the lack of a public option in healthcare reform and the slow pace of repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military.” New York Magazine’s John Heileman explained best what Obama must do to keep the money rolling in: “If he is going to climb up on top of Casa Blanca and urinate all over congressional Democrats, he will need to learn the trick that Bill Clinton mastered: doing it with such a big bright smile that they mistake his piss for Champagne.” |
| 2.) Cancun climate conference run by hypocritical clowns – “In the middle of all the global-warming demagoguery and calls for developed nations to shell out $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate reparations to help less-developed countries cope with the unfair burden of climate change, one thing has very obviously not changed,” notes The Daily Caller’s Amanda Carey–”the hypocrisy.” Yes, that’s right. There was lots of “Do what I say, but not as I do,” at this week’s freakout fiesta. “The carbon footprint of the Cancun conference is five times larger than it was for the 2009 conference in Copenhagen, despite the fact that attendance this year was significantly lower,” writes Carey. “The figure of the carbon footprint released by the Mexican government is 25,000 tons.” The pollution caused by guests’ use of private jets, round-the-clock but oft-empty shuttle buses, and electricity use at the resort’s five-star hotel will be “offset” by planting trees in nearby poor-person communities. |
| 3.) The GAO lied, stock prices dived – In August, the Government Accountability Office released a damning report exposing unethical recruiting practices by some of the country’s top for-profit colleges, many of which make the bulk of their profit from government-backed student loans. The Department of Education seized on the findings as evidence that new regulations for the for-profit industry were needed. The feeding frenzy had begun: Liberal bloggers, then mainstream papers like the New York Times, wielded the GAO report like a bludgeon, causing for-profit stocks to plummet. This week, the Washington Post uncovered its own unethical practice: The GAO had lied. And it had lied to such an extent, in fact, that it quietly released a heavily revised version of its report in late November. For some reason, “Oops” just doesn’t seem adequate, does it? |
| 4.) TSA gropes the wrong diplomat – “The foreign minister said Thursday that it was unacceptable that the Indian ambassador to the United States was patted down by a security agent at a Mississippi airport, and that he would complain to Washington,” the Associated Press reports. “The ambassador, Meera Shankar, was returning from giving a speech at Mississippi State University last week when she was pulled out of line at the airport and given a pat-down by a female Transportation Security Administration agent. Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna said this was the second time the ambassador had been chosen for a pat-down in the past three months.” If only Ambassador Krishna were an American politician, she could forego the screening process altogether! |
| 5.) Winner of Nobel Prize actually earned it this year– “Imprisoned in China and with close family members forbidden to leave the country, the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is to be represented at the prize ceremony here on Friday by an empty chair,” reports the New York Times. Not since 1935, when Adolf Hitler imprisoned Count Carl von Ossietzky in a concentration camp, has a Nobel prize winner been prohibited from attending by his government. In response to the news, Pres. Obama payed Xiaobo the highest compliment an egomaniac can pay another human being: “Mr Liu Xiaobo is far more deserving of this award than I was.” Meanwhile, the Russian government has suggested that Australian activist Julian Assange should have won the award for nearly giving Hillary Clinton an aneurysm. |
| 6.) Earmarks are only half the problem – While the House may have taken up an earmark ban, there’s nothing to stop representatives from ordering their pork over the phone. “They still will be able to call or write to federal agencies to ask that funds are spent on projects they recommend, and there’s currently no official record of how often representatives and senators do this,” reports TheDC’s Matthew Boyle. “Though the process, dubbed ‘phone-marking,’ doesn’t forcibly require those federal agencies to grant a congressional members’ request, they frequently do because of the clout representatives and senators carry in Washington. Brian Riedl, a fellow for The Heritage Foundation, said the only difference between phone-marks and earmarks is that there is no ‘paper trail’ of members’ requests. Riedl said federal agencies grant the requests more often than not for fear of their budgets being cut by spurned legislators.” Will Republicans take up a phone-mark ban as well? Probably not! |
December 7th, 2010
From the “Kyoto II” talks in Cancun, National Journal reports a surprising story, if one almost predictable, as well, given President Barack Obama’s current unraveling and fast-fading loyalty to campaign promises. Specifically, in “U.S. Tells the World It Will Pass Climate Bill,” we read that the Obama administration is seeking to forge an international “global warming” commitment on the premise that the administration will then coerce Congress into passing domestic legislation consistent with treaty promises made to China, Europe, et al. (more)
December 6th, 2010
Two leading environmental groups are calling for increased government funding of international climate change initiatives. (more)
November 29th, 2010
Sunday, as the Son-of-Copenhagen was about to kick off in Cancun to try and salvage a Kyoto II treaty, the Washington Post had yet another item, “Climate change talks face crucial test,” noting that the administration’s various ways of imposing global warming regulations include ignoring the Constitution’s treaty process — a process alternately described by champions of this approach as “broken,” as shown by the fact that Kyoto died in the Senate, or something never intended to apply to instruments as complex as Kyoto, once again proved by virtue of the fact that Kyoto died. (more)
August 10th, 2010
For the second time in a month, President Obama on Tuesday made a grand show of demanding that Congress pass legislation that was already guaranteed to be approved in hours or days. (more)
July 19th, 2010
In his address to the nation on the response to the BP oil spill, President Obama played the “China card” – invoking fear of falling behind the emerging economic superpower – to spur support for more subsidies for renewable energy. The President said “countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America.” The use of China as an exemplar of green energy investment is odd. Most analysts are more concerned about the “environmental crisis” caused by China’s rapid, fossil fuel-based industrialization. Last December, China refused to sign on to the non-binding Copenhagen greenhouse gas reduction goals and in March 2010 was only willing to agree to reduce its “carbon intensity.” Were China a leader in green energy investment and employment, one would expect its government to exploit this competitive advantage by championing a global climate accord. (more)
July 1st, 2010
Germany’s publicly-funded international broadcaster Deutsche Welle held its third annual “Global Media Forum” last week in Bonn. According to the conference website, this year’s event drew some 1500 participants from 95 countries. The topic: “The Heat is On: Climate Change and the Media.” (more)
June 25th, 2010
Of the many interesting narratives swirling around the Obama/McChrystal saga, the least explored to date— less than 24 hours in—the subtleties in messaging are worth noting. (more)
May 5th, 2010
The number 13 is proving quite fortuitous for me, if not so much for the global warming industry. (more)
April 22nd, 2010
Happy Earth Day. (more)
March 9th, 2010
China formally signed up on Tuesday for the climate accord struck at the Copenhagen summit, the last major emerging economy to endorse a plan strongly favoured by the United States. (more)
February 23rd, 2010
Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry is working with Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to craft a new climate and energy bill. (more)
February 11th, 2010
The West Wing is buried in knee-high snow and on Sunday, hundreds of locals descended upon Dupont Circle for a massive snow fight. But the residents of Washington, D.C., are not the only ones feeling a chill in the air. So, too, are the die-hard proponents of global warming, and the recent snowstorms in our nation’s capital are not the only things dampening their heated arguments. (more)
February 10th, 2010
U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern on Tuesday said that “overwhelming” evidence supports the science of climate change, despite the controversy over flawed data in reports by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (more)
February 1st, 2010
Abstract: In the real world, as opposed to what French President Nicolas Sarkozy calls President Barack Obama’s "virtual world," America faces the reality of Iran’s intransigence and aggressiveness; China’s headlong pursuit of its own national, regional, and global interests; Russia’s determination to regain its Near Abroad; the Arab states’ refusal to accept any kind of a reasonable settlement of the kind that Israel has already offered under several governments; Syria’s designs on Lebanon; and Hugo Chávez’s designs on the weaker countries in Latin America. President Obama’s foreign policy agenda of gradual American retreat will have inexorable consequences: When erstwhile allies see the American umbrella being withdrawn, they will have to accommodate themselves to those from whom we were protecting them. If Obama proves impervious to empirical evidence and experience, all these accommodations, the weakening of alliances, the strengthening of centers of adversarial power in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Caracas, and elsewhere will continue until we are awakened by some cataclysm. (more)
January 31st, 2010
The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt. (more)
January 29th, 2010
The United States pledged Thursday to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels under an international climate agreement, though it made its commitment contingent on passing legislation at home. (more)
