Carbongate

Dr. John Ray, Brisbane, Australia writes about our President, our EPA, a report that the Earth is cooling, and will through 2030. Carbongate.

Chris Beck illustrates with bombast and hyperbole, what Dr. John lays out. That an EPA report describing how the Earth is cooling - not warming - was inconvenient. Instead of publishing the report, and risking passage of the horrendous Waxman-Markey Tax and Tax bill, the inconvenient facts were suppressed. Instead, at 3 am last Friday - 15 hours before the final vote, hundreds of pages of amendments were added to the Tax and Tax bill.

While the Tax and Tax bill (some call it Cap and Trade, with a glint of mischief in their eye) claims to intend to reduce carbon emissions - the reality is that bill doesn't have anything in it that might change carbon emissions. The thing is about creating government controls, government bureaucracies - and, in true Chicago-Corrupt style - ultimately, power. Power through binding sycophants through patronage, putting friends and family and others one wants to bind to them on the government payroll.

It looks like everyone wins - through bigger budgets and more buddies on the payroll - except maybe the Coast Guard and DARPA. Maybe the bill doesn't affect the CDC, but that might be the only oversight.

The Tax and Tax bill is a boondoggle that will cost and cost, and only the amount of hot air (useless rhetoric) around the bill will affect the climate.

I mean, if I wanted to change the amount of fossil fuels consumed, I would limit imports and mining. Simple, cheap, effective. If I wanted to reduce the effect on the climate of today's automobiles, I would restrict building new cars, and restrict the ability to trade cars before they are 20 years old. (Making a new car takes more energy than a gas-guzzler can consume, once constructed, in many years.)

Our nation faces a number of crises, economic instability due to high taxes and government interference, as well as due to varying availability of inexpensive energy. We face serious water shortages in the near future, especially shortages of drinkable water. Reliance on transportation of food and products from across the nation and from around the world when transportation costs have become increasingly more volatile, when the costs of farming continue to increase, when the interference of government - including stupid patenting of food crops to limit the ability of the American farmer to react to changing weather patterns, reliance of exported food as an expression of foreign policy and the way American agriculture relies on artificial fertilizer to sustain high yields. I suspect not all the food riots in the coming year will be outside the US.

The B. Hussein Obama government has complained that the economic recovery is slowed not by high (and rising) unemployment, but by reduced spending.

Hint: If you keep businesses in business and making a profit, they keep people on the job, and the people working have money to spend, to keep the precious economy running and maybe even improving.

Instead, B. Hussein Obama is "troubled" when unrest and dissent are reported on TV. He doesn't care about the unrests, only publishing the report of the unrest.

Sleep well, Mr. "let no crisis go unexploited" President. Richard Nixon remembered Watergate all his days. How long will Carbongate, lying to Congress and America about the end of global warming, follow you?

News flash! Jobless people spend less!

Sharon Astyk of Casaubon's Book writes about "You Aren’t Losing Your Job, You are Holding Back Consumer Spending!". Sharon writes well, and this piece is brief and pithy.

Sharon may have intended to be sarcastic or snarky, about how unemployed people are slowing the recovery.

But just think, if a $30k job former-worker can hold back the economy, just think what damage a millionaire does when he doesn't spend have his income. Like, when he pays higher taxes.

Or a billion dollar corporation that all of a sudden faces millions and millions of new taxes that they now cannot spend to support their suppliers and shareholders. Why, with passage of one cap-and-tax bill, Congress could be making millions of shareholders act just like fired people - burdens on the economy. And, of course, there is the point that the cap-and-tax legislation passed by the House of Representatives is about taxes, and is only intended to *appear* to limit carbon dioxide production.

I am amazed at how people worry about the economy, and support "redistributing the wealth" at the same time. In the past plundering and pillaging barbarians *planned* to burn their victims to the ground, with nary a thought about what anyone would have to eat tomorrow. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Cap and Tax passed the House - and the funeral effect

OK, so the smokescreen that raises taxes on industry (i.e. costs jobs, impairs business, raises prices on goods made and services, too) got passed in the House.

Does this mean change for the funeral industry?

I mean, making and transporting steel or plastic coffins takes lots of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport coffins and vaults. So, is this the end of using vaults and coffins to bury the Dearly Departed - are we back to wrapping in an old blanket, and waiting for the dirt to settle later before leveling off the dirt?

Does this mean the end of cremation? Cremation takes tremendous energy to consume a human body. And that release how many pounds (hundreds of pounds, in some cases!) of carbon into the atmosphere!

So, should we do what has worked for hundreds of years for some cultures, put up a rack about head high in some place you don't normally frequent, and let the body . . . umm, dry out? Weather, cure? What do you call it as the gooey stuff feeds flies and birds, and the bones weather to dust and fragments? But at least, the carbon stays un-aired. Sort of.

Will we have to combine industries? Use jet engines, supertanker engines, and utility power plants for dual use - generate steam, generate hot water and pipe them to houses and business campuses, as well as use for body cremation? No, no, that is solving the wrong problem. Burning bodies - human and animal - turns organic matter to airborne carbon dioxide - that increases the taxes, as well as offending the "sequester the carbon" tree huggers.

Well, I guess it looks like blankets, then. Maybe this will be a good way to handle old nylon and polyester blankets, bury them for good.

Everyone does know, right, that this is a pure tax bill, and can have no effect on amount of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere? That B. Hussein Obama's stated intention to "redistribute" wealth - crush and destroy people with money that he hasn't take yet - is right on track to get where he wants to go? That the Thug from Chicago is completely uninterested in preserving America, the Constitution, freedom, or the economy?

Just remember that, when you need to arrange funeral services. Or fuel your car, or apply for a new job or unemployment insurance.

Eric Karjaluoto writes at Ideas on Ideas, about "Epitaph for a plastic man", on the death of Michael Jackson.

Like many of the summaries of the life that Michael Jackson lived, Mr. Karjaluoto points out the revered music Jackson performed, and the alleged misdeeds.

The summary of how Jackson progressed from the first appearances I recall on the Andy Williams show - as a child, with the Jackson Five - to his death, is blamed mostly on the "toxic" nature of fame and media attention.

I think it is the other way around. People with no character, no ethics, willing to do and be anything to anyone - find a refuge in public performance. Musicians that know music and aren't drawn to a place of responsibility in their community will deceive themselves, telling themselves that the show is for the fans. The reality is that they only live vicariously.

The other significant memories of Michael Jackson that I carry with me are second hand, both of them satires.

Berkeley Breathed did a comic strip in the '80s called "Bloom County". In one episode a no-morals character is doing a Pepsi commercial as a musician, when he catches fire - too much mascara on his chest hairs. This lampooned a commercial that caught fire on Jackson - I never saw the commercial, only news reports. I loved the several days that the topic played on Bloom County.

The other legacy is enduring. "Weird" Al Yankovic writes and records parody songs. I can never hear the strains of "Beat It" without thinking the song that I recall from the Dr. Demento (Funny songs for fun people!) radio show - "Eat it!" will always be the hallmark for me, and Jackson's version just doesn't measure up.

Michael Jackson was younger than I am, by about seven (7) years. I always thought of him as closer to my age. But his music? That was a world away from mine. "Ben", the movie and song of a pet rat, are excellent performances. I could almost "Thriller", "Beat it", etc. variations on that ballad made for Jackson's voice - with little value added in meaning, in maturity, in soul, for all the years between.

Michael Jackson had brothers - four of them appeared with Michael on those long-ago Andy Williams shows, and recorded some really fine music. Jermain tried to care for Michael - and likely helped cover up some of the deviant stuff that came about in recent (and not-so-recent) years. I haven't kept up with them, but the other Jackson's haven't been making headlines and police blotters. With the same initial TV and other media exposure, we have four shining examples of citizenship and personal integrity greater than the late Michael Jackson.

Mr Karjaluoto in his article examines the forgiveness that a tainted icon receives, like Michael Jackson, on his death. Much of the predation is forgiven and glossed over, the accomplishments (recorded music and videos, and "Ben", of course) are sung widely.

I think much of this is something that also occurs in the justice system. A criminal act, a despicable act, an act of disrespect, is abhorred and reviled mostly - because we fear a repeat, fear another will be injured or harmed. On his death, Michael Jackson is no longer capable of harming the growth of another young man, of twisting another primate from healthy attitudes and behavior. We can replay his music and enjoy the vicarious performance without worrying that a new record release means another accusation of child molestation - the two events were paired, recently, almost as publicity ploys or distractions from prosecution, whichever.

Without Jackson's music I would be bereft of several "Weird" Al Yankovic parodies. And that feels like a pretty lame epitaph, for a plastic man.