News of the Week for Jan. 6th, 2013
Hide the Decline
Environment &
“Green Energy”
US, Canada, and Oz Prepare for the Asian Gas Wars
Australia has designs on becoming the leading natural gas supplier for not only Asia, but the entire world. Indeed, the country has the offshore resources and the thirsty markets nearby in Asia to pass Qatar as the world’s top supplier of LNG.
Gas Drilling Is Called Safe in New York
The state’s Health Department found in an analysis it prepared early last year that the much-debated drilling technology known as hydrofracking could be conducted safely in New York, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times from an expert who did not believe it should be kept secret.
AGW Bombshell? A new paper shows statistical tests for global warming fails to find statistically significantly anthropogenic forcing
From the journal Earth System Dynamics billed as “An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union” comes this paper which suggests that the posited AGW forcing effects simply isn’t statistically significant in the observations, but other natural forcings are.
Obamacare
Government in Healthcare
New Obamacare Law Is Already Forcing Premiums to Double in Some States
War & Terror
Greenwich Village couple busted with cache of weapons, bombmaking explosives: sources
The privileged daughter of a prominent city doctor, and her boyfriend — a Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street activist — have been busted for allegedly having a cache of weapons and a bombmaking explosive in their Greenwich Village apartment.
Chinese Think Tank: “Conflict With Japan Inevitable”
Shinzo Abe’s re-election on the basis of his monetary policy aggression plans have sent the JPY reeling (as he hoped for) and the NKY soaring – but it is his more aggressive perspective on patriotism that could lead to far greater problems.
Virginia judge rules EPA overstepped authority trying to regulate water as pollutant
A federal judge has ruled that the Environmental Protection agency exceeded its authority by attempting to regulate stormwater runoff into a Fairfax County creek as a pollutant.
Evacuation of large Iranian city near nuclear site raises eyebrows
An edict was issued on Wednesday by Iranian authorities ordering Isfahan’s 1.5 million residents to leave the city because pollution in the area “has reached emergency levels.”
Russia to create two new super missiles, more powerful than Satan
Two kinds of new strategic missiles, which Russian experts develop, should become a response to the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system in Europe. It goes about a heavy liquid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) weighing 100 tons. The new missile will surpass the most powerful missile in the world RS-20B Voyevoda (Satan).
The Department Of Homeland Security Is Hard At Work With One Billion New Bullets
Last March we found 450 million rounds of .40 caliber ammunition slated for delivery to the Department of Homeland Service and its agencies.
National
Teachers union spends millions from membership dues on parties and conferences
At least their union dues are working overtime.
While city public-school teachers have gone without a new contract or regular pay raises for three straight years, their union, its staffers and political cronies have been living large off their union dues, a Post review found.
10 predictions for California 2013
California’ Democratic leaders are giddy about the future now that they have gained everything they wanted in the last election — voter-approved tax increases and a two-thirds supermajority in both houses of the Legislature, thus rendering Republicans little more than an annoying irrelevancy that can no longer block tax hikes.
California Rings In New Year With 800 New Laws
More than 800 new laws will go into effect in 2013 in California. The new laws cover a vast array of issues including internet privacy, giving drivers licenses to children of illegal immigrants, banning psychotherapy for young gay teens and the use of dogs when hunting bobcats or bears.
New Jersey Has Stopped Approving All Gun Transfers
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, in New Jersey is currently not approving any firearm transfers.
Enough Republicans Willing to Unseat Speaker Boehner
American Majority Action spokesman Ron Meyer told Breitbart News late Tuesday that enough House Republicans have banded together in an effort to unseat House Speaker John Boehner from his position–they just need a leader to take up the mantle.
Marxist Democrat Cringes As Russian Immigrants Compare Communism to…Democrats!
There is just no way to describe this without a smirk and a chuckle. When you read how some of New York’s Russian immigrants (who know Soviet-style Communism all-too-well) are aligning with Republicans—because they view Democrats’ policies to be too similar to the failed policies of their homeland—there is just something richly ironic there.
Many Russians here aligning with Republicans
Many Russian immigrants to the “red borough” of Staten Island are flocking to the Republican Party, saying that the national Democrats’ “socialistic” policies remind them too much of the top-down oligarchy they fled in their native land.
Obama to ‘Quickly’ Go for Immigration Reform and Gun Control
President Barack Obama will go for immigration reform and gun control this month, the White House tells the left-leaning Huffington Post. Obama’s actions will reportedly be done “quickly.”
Boehner tells GOP he’s through negotiating one-on-one with Obama
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is signaling that at least one thing will change about his leadership during the 113th Congress: he’s telling Republicans he is done with private, one-on-one negotiations with President Obama.
Boehner reelected as Speaker; nine Republicans defect in vote
Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) was reelected Speaker of the House on Thursday after a week of rumors of a possible GOP revolt.
Illinois Dems advance ban on most modern firearms
Illinois Senate Democrats advanced legislation late Wednesday to restrict semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, pressing forward with new gun control measures in the waning days of the session over the objections of firearms groups.
NAACP President Rips Black Sen. Tim Scott: He Does Not Believe In Civil Rights
Appearing on CNN Wednesday, the president of the NAACP slammed incoming black Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) as being a Republican who does not “believe in civil rights.”
Boy, 6, suspended from Silver Spring school for pointing finger like a gun
The parents of a 6-year-old Silver Spring boy are fighting the first-grader’s suspension from a Montgomery County public school for pointing his finger like a gun and saying “pow,” an incident school officials characterized in a disciplinary letter as a threat “to shoot a student.”
New Hampshire Legislator: We Need to ‘Restrict Freedoms’ of Conservatives
A New Hampshire legislator wants her constituents to know that she feels conservatives are the “single biggest threat” her state faces today, and she wants to use her powers to legislate to “pass measures that will restrict” the freedoms of Granite State conservatives.
FBI: More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year than Rifles
According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.
Judicial Theocrats Against Religious Liberty
In a Public Discourse essay titled “The HHS Mandate and Judicial Theocracy,” Melissa Moschella nicely explains how appalling it is that some judges—the district judge in the Hobby Lobby case, the two members of the Tenth Circuit panel who wrongly embraced the district judge’s reasoning, and the district judge in the O’Brien ruling (effectively reversed by the Eighth Circuit)—have somehow seen fit to impose on religious believers the judge’s own view on what constitutes improper complicity in immoral conduct.
White House War on Women Escalates
White House fails to represent women in latest Flickr photo
Meet the Bosses: National Education Association
Dennis Van Roekel was paid $389,620 in fiscal year 2012 as president of the National Education Association (NEA), America’s largest labor union. Van Roekel was one of 14 NEA bosses paid more than $250,000 with dues taken from teachers in Ohio and other forced-unionism states as a condition of employment.
Measures of Segregation
Court decisions dating to the 1950s theoretically ended racial segregation of higher education in the United States. But data to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association show that the pace of desegregation has slowed over time. And in a finding that could be controversial, the study finds that states that ban the consideration of race in admissions may see the pace of desegregation accelerate.
Government criminality exposed
The evidence is in: state officials in California willfully defrauded the public in order to enhance their budgets. If nobody ends up in jail over this fraud, we can expect more of it – much more. In fact, we have no idea how serious the problem already is, but as face the possibility of a partial government shutdown over the federal debt limit, it is important to keep in mind the mendacity of bureaucrats who plead poverty when dunnin g the public for more taxpayer funds for their satrapies.
White House weighs broad gun-control agenda in wake of Newtown shootings
The White House is weighing a far broader and more comprehensive approach to curbing the nation’s gun violence than simply reinstating an expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, according to multiple people involved in the administration’s discussions.
Feinstein Goes For Broke With New Gun-Ban Bill
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)—author of the federal “assault weapon” and “large” ammunition magazine ban of 1994-2004—has announced that on the first day of the new Congress—January 3rd— she will introduce a bill to which her 1994 ban will pale by comparison. On Dec. 17th, Feinstein said, “I have been working with my staff for over a year on this legislation” and “It will be carefully focused.” Indicating the depth of her research on the issue, she said on Dec. 21st that she had personally looked at pictures of guns in 1993, and again in 2012.
Beltway Republicans planning to intervene more in GOP primaries
I remember when the NRSC took such intense heat for endorsing Charlie Crist in the primary over Rubio that then-chair John Cornyn vowed to stay out of primaries in the future. Three years and several Sharron Angles/Christine O’Donnells/Todd Akins later, the tune has changed among the broader Republican establishment.
Gamma Radiation Turns Cheap Booze Into Good Stuff Within Minutes
Far be it from us to insult cachaca, Brazil’s signature liquor. That said, it does benefit, greatly, from being left to age in barrels.
How college students think they are more special than EVER: Study reveals rocketing sense of entitlement on U.S. campuses
Books aside, if you asked a college freshman today who the Greatest Generation is, they might respond by pointing in a mirror.
Economy
& Taxes
The Fork In The Road Which Lead Us To The Fiscal Cliff
We Chose To Be Exactly Where We Are
The Fiscal Cliff is a problem. We typically blame people not named us when problems occur. It’s easier and less painful than solving the problem. Here the problem is that the current US President and Congress (The US Senate in particular)* have both spectacularly failed in their management of the national fisc. And worse than that, they came to a fork in the road, after the crisis of 2008, and specifically chose *not* to manage our nation’s fiscal affairs. This innumerate choice of directions lead America to the so-called Fiscal Cliff.
With final vote, Congress resolves “fiscal cliff” drama
The United States averted economic calamity on Tuesday when lawmakers approved a deal preventing huge tax hikes and spending cuts that would have pushed the world’s largest economy off the “fiscal cliff” into recession.
Senate approves “fiscal cliff” deal, crisis eased
The Senate moved the U.S. economy back from the edge of a “fiscal cliff” on Tuesday, voting to avoid imminent tax hikes and spending cuts in a bipartisan deal that could still face stiff challenges in the House of Representatives.
It’s a Spending Problem
When talking about the fiscal problem we face, Democrats and Republicans have to start from the same set of figures, which by Washington convention is usually a set of Congressional Budget Office figures about the spending and revenue.
Growers and shrinkers
The fastest growing and shrinking economies in 2013
President Obama’s debt problem
President Barack Obama won’t be able to enjoy much of a victory lap from his win over congressional Republicans on the fiscal cliff fight.
Neighboring States Poach California Jobs
There’s nothing new about governors competing to bring jobs to their state, but rarely has it been this brazen. The Wall Street Journal reports that neighboring states, as well as some states as far flung as Georgia and Tennessee, are stationing official “business recruiters” in California to convince businesses to move their operations out of state.
Putting A Trillion Dollars Of Platinum In Perspective
So you want a trillion dollar platinum coin? Ok: here are some facts
Obamacare Layoffs, Hiring Freezes Begin
Obamacare opponents warned that forcing companies employing 50 or more full-time workers to buy healthcare would prompt employers to slash jobs and worker hours. And that’s exactly what’s happening, says one of President Barack Obama’s favorite economists, Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics.
Welfare recipients take out cash at strip clubs, liquor stores and X-rated shops
They’re on the dole — and watching the pole.
International
France counts 1,193 cars torched on New Year’s Eve
Hundreds of empty, parked cars go up in flames in France each New Year’s Eve, set afire by young revelers, a much lamented tradition that remained intact this year with 1,193 vehicles burned, Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Tuesday.
Japan’s Population Falls by Record in 2012 as Births Decrease
Japan’s population last year declined by 212,000, the biggest drop on record, according to an estimate by the nation’s health ministry.
Egypt’s nude protester Alia al-Mahdy to be stripped of citizenship?
An Egyptian activist filed a complaint to the general prosecutor calling for the citizenship strip of Egypt’s controversial Alia al-Mahdy, commonly known as the “nude poser,” for protesting naked against the country’s newly-adopted constitution.
Opinion
Americans never give up your guns
These days, there are few few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bare arms and use deadly force to defend one’s self and possessions.
Absentee Fathers and the Newtown School Shooting
Any honest analysis of the Newtown tragedy must address the social problems caused by divorce, absent fathers, and the burdens of single motherhood.
Liberal Chick: “The State is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want (Psalm 666).”
Younger Americans Believe That They’re All Above Average
For the past several decades, we as a society have focused on raising people’s self-esteem more than on working hard or setting goals or achieving things or being honest or trustworthy. According to a new survey of college freshmen, we as a society have succeeded.
