Category: politics

Job Czar Jeffrey Immelt: Crony Capitalism 101: A Limerick.

Corruption shows a familiar ring:

Immelt has friends in the White House wing

Re: Power consumption.

He got his exemption.

It  helps to be friend of the King.

Obama issues global warming rules in January, gives GE an exemption in February

By: Timothey P.Carney, Washington Examiner 02/02/11 4:50 PM

Jan 2011, the Obama EPA began enforcing new rules regulating the greenhouse gas emissions from any new or expanded power plants.

A week later the EPA issued its first exemption, Environment & Energy News reports:

The Obama administration will spare a stalled power plant project in California from the newest federal limits on greenhouse gases and conventional air pollution, U.S. EPA says in a new court filing that marks a policy shift in the face of industry groups and Republicans accusing the agency of holding up construction of large industrial facilities. According to a declaration by air chief Gina McCarthy, officials reviewed EPA policies and decided it was appropriate to “grandfather” projects such as the Avenal Power Center, a proposed 600-megawatt power plant in the San Joaquin Valley, so they are exempted from rules such as new air quality standards for smog-forming nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

There’s something interesting about the Avenal Power Center The proposed Avenal Energy project will be a combined-cycle generating plant consisting of two natural gas-fired General Electric 7FA Gas Turbines with Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSG) and one General Electric Steam Turbine.

Maybe GE CEO Jeff Immelt’s closeness to President Obama, and his broad support for Obama’s agenda, had nothing to do with this exemption. But we have no way of knowing that, and given the administration’s record of regularly misleading Americans regarding lobbyists, frankly, I wouldn’t trust the White House if they told me there was no connection. On the upside, at least Job Czar Immelt is creating jobs!

Lies, damned lies, Statistics and Climate Forecasting. A song.

It is hard to make predictions – especially about the future (Yogi Berra, Niels Bohr, et al.)

The Met Office has caused a storm of controversy after it was revealed their £30million supercomputer designed to predict climate change is one of Britain’s worst polluters. The massive machine – the UK’s most powerful computer with a whopping 15 million megabytes of memory – was installed in the Met Office’s headquarters in Exeter, Devon. With a total peak performance approaching 1 PetaFlop — equivalent to over 100,000 PCs and over 30 times more powerful than what was in place before. It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run – enough to power more than 1,000 homes.

So what glorious new and accurate information are they producing now?

Met Office Initial Assessment of Risk for Winter 2010/11 This covers the months of November, December and January 2010/11, this will be updated monthly through the winter and so probabilities will change. Temperature 3 in 10 chance of a mild start 3 in 10 chance of an average start 4 in 10 chance of a cold start Precipitation 3 in 10 chance of a wet start 3 in 10 chance of an average start 4 in 10 chance of a dry start Summary: There is an increased risk for a cold and wintry start to the winter season. Looking further ahead beyond this assessment there are some indications of an increased risk of a mild end to the winter season.

I am really impressed by their newfound forecasting ability. So impressed I have written a new lyrics to Merle Travis song: Sixteen tons (Popularized by Tennessee Ernie Ford)

Some people say people are made outta mud

Global warmists they are, they are chewing their cud,

Chewing their cud and follow Al Gore

A mind that’s a-weak can you ask for much more?

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

They came in one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine

They picked up their papers and continued the grind

They had  sixteen conditions, mostly falsified bull

And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

They came in one mornin’, it was drizzlin’ rain

the prognosis had failed them again and again

The boss harshly told them, You will do many more

Do as I tell you, and agree with Al Gore.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

.

The cold snap we’re having now, it just cannot last

and hidin’ the warming that occurred in the past

Their ol’  man Mann and his hockey stick.

With conditions like this nothing ever will click.

More than one megawatt, and what do you get?

Another prognosis and deeper in debt

 Saint Peter don’t you call ’em ’cause you must let ‘em be

They sold their souls to the IPCC.

Obama was right! The sea levels are beginning to drop. A call to action.

In a campaign speech Jun 2 2008, in all humility candidate Obama said this:

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Well, what do you know? The sea levels are beginning to drop in 2010.

(1) Thank you Obama that  the global temperatures are beginning to drop.

(2) Thank you Obama that the excessive heat caused by human activity are beginning to rain out in Australia and Brazil, central Europe and many other places. Thank you Obama for delaying and diminishing Solar Cycle 24, allowing record amounts of Cosmic radiation to reach the earth, giving us more clouds, rain and snow, thereby cooling the planet.

(3) Thank you Obama for protecting our land from all further development, so that our standard of living can be more in line with third world countries.

(4) Thank you Obama for your tireless efforts to usher in Global Governance through Article 21, Cap and trade legislation, giving us mercury lightbulbs that splat mercury all over the nursery when they break, working to sign the Children’s protection act, The Law of the Sea Treaty and everything else coming from the wise leadership of the United Nations.

Thank you Obama for your tireless efforts to protect a woman’s right to choose by denying Federal Funding to doctors and hospitals that have moral qualms about aborting the lives of yet to be born babies, and providing federal funding for abortions.

Again, where would we be, and what could we do without you? Could a return to abiding by constitutional principles change anything? Could reining in a multitude of czars, putting them under congressional oversight rather than giving them carte blance to implement regulation of laws that have not been read before passed prevent some of this? By doing nothing, will all this go away?

But yet, there is hope. As God says through the Prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:21-23 (King James Version) 21This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. And again, a call to action: 2 Chronicles 7:14 (King James Version) 14If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

 

The Lanthanides Lamentation Limerick:

China’s Ban on Selling Rare Earth Minerals to Japan Continues, Officials Say

By KEITH BRADSHER and EDWARD WONG New York Times Published: October 10, 2010

HONG KONG — Chinese customs officials continued to bar all exports of rare earth minerals to Japan over the weekend, industry officials said, but the Chinese government showed signs of taking a more conciliatory stance toward Japan. …

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China told European political and business leaders Wednesday that China had not imposed any bans on exports of industrial minerals for political purposes and that it did not intend to stop exports in the future. Rare earths are used in the manufacture of hybrid gasoline-electric cars, computer screens, large wind turbines and many other applications.

Mr. Wen made his remarks in a speech at a China-European Union business meeting in Brussels. Chinese officials have consistently taken the position that they have not imposed any regulations preventing rare earth exports; any such regulations could be easily challenged at the World Trade Organization. …

Throughout the halt on exports of rare earth minerals, China has allowed continued exports of manufactured products that use rare earths, like powerful magnets, and highly purified rare earth metals. Japan is the largest importer of rare earth minerals and ores. Companies there use the material to make a wide range of high- technology products and have been reluctant to import manufactured goods from China instead.

Even before questions arose over the exports to Japan in late September, China had been putting tighter caps on rare earth exports for the last five years. When the export halt was imposed, the quota for 2010 was within a month and a half of being exhausted. But shipments could continue into November if customs officials allow a resumption soon. Edward Wong reported from Beijing and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong.

Note: China mines 97% of the world’s rare earth metals.

The Lanthanides Lamentation Limerick:

What is “Rare Earth Metals”, and who gives a hoot?

They’re all mined in China with prices to boot.

We closed our own mines

with lawsuits and fines.

We need them for green jobs:  No freedom to toot.

Alan Colmes mocks Santorum on loss of his child.

Jan 2, Alan Colmes made headlines by making an unseemly comment about Rick Santorum– namely, about his child who died hours after being born.  Colmes used Santorum’s reaction to the death of 2 hour-old Gabriel as an example of “some of the crazy things he’s said and done.” Later Santorun spoke with Sean Hannity:

This is the problem with today’s Liberal elite, of which Alan Colmes is a product. They cannot deal with life and death issues, so they hire professionals to deal with them, Planned Parenthood for abortions, funeral homes for normal deaths, but no personal involvement. People don’t die in hospitals, since this would reflect badly on their reputation so they get shipped off to hospices to die, where they are given morphine but not the comfort of a family to comfort them in their last hours on earth. Animals get euthanized because people cannot see an animal die a natural death. In refusing to acknowledge death we are losing our ability to live, and even recognize life, such as an unborn child, full of life and vitality in the mother’s womb. Santorum did the right thing in taking the baby home for a final farewell. This reminds me of my own mother. At the age of 13 her little brother died just minutes after birth. Her own mother died a few hours later. They laid the little baby boy in a very small casket, naked. When mother saw the child she immediately went to the sowing machine, now hers, and made him a suit so he could be properly clothed for the burial. If this is insanity, give me insanity!

How to beat Obama in 2012.

Here is how Sarah Palin can win the Presidency with Santorum’s help.
Announce tomorrow she is a candidate for the presidency but also fully supporting Santorum in states where the deadline is passed. She will challenge him that whoever has the most delegates when time for the winner take all primaries come around will continue, and the other will suspend his or her campaign in favor of the other. In exchange she will offer Santorum the VP spot, but promise Santorum he is free to choose whomever.
Romney and Newt are busy destroying each other and the Republican party.
Neither Trump nor Paul will mount a 3rd party challenge with Sarah in the ring since they recognize leadership when they see it and her solid financial credentials.
This works for a variety of reasons. The left will get two more people to try to destroy. Sarah has already been vetted beyond any candidate before her, they will not go after Santorum as vigorously as they would had she endorsed but not entered, the establishment will look like a dog between two sausages and cannot make up its mind who to attack first. The Democrats will concentrate on Sarah Palin being the real threat, but will be unable to lay a glove on her. Meanwhile, Santorum will be useful for the other fight, that of the Islamic threat to our country. When Santorum realized he was going to lose his senatorial bid to Bob Casey he let it all hang out and warned about the epic battle of the 21st century, the Islamization of the free world.
Together they will make it, and civilization will be rescued.

My testimony and the tragedy in Arizona.

The tragedy in Arizona three years ago has affected me deeply from that time, not in the way I expected, but much more profoundly. To fully understand what happened, let me go back, way back to my days in Sweden as an agnostic liberal, for most Swedes are liberal or socialists. We still had the hope of a better world under the careful and wise guidance of the United Nations, under the excellent leadership of the Swede Dag Hammarskjöld. After all, the evil of the second world war was over, and the innate goodness of all men was destined to be triumphant. Peace, love, equality and solidarity were to be the guideposts for our future. Medical and technological advances would abound, President Kennedy had just said: Let us go to the Moon! And then, he was shot! We got a comedown, a jolt. But it must have been some of those evil, reactionary, racist Southern Democrats that did it. Yeah, except for those reactionary Democrats people are still basically good, especially the Northern Democrats. And it was America. We Swedes were ages more advanced in our understanding of true freedom and Social Justice.

A few years later I attended a debate between the Social Democrat Olof Palme and a moderate, whose name I cannot even remember. Palme was by far the better debater, speaking of income transfer, social contract, solidarity and social justice. The moderate tried to put forward individual responsibility and reward for work, freedom and the likes, but he was quickly neutralized by Palme’s oratory. I decided, this will not end well, so I made up my mind to try to emigrate from the cradle of freedom, enjoyed since Viking times.

The year was 1968, the papers were in order, the lung X-rays paid for, and I stood at Kennedy Airport in the immigration line. The officer took the tube of immigration papers, looked through all the papers and held up the x-rays to the light. A long line waited impatiently after me, but he took his time. Then he gave me a big smile and a hand shake: Welcome to the United States of America! A few weeks earlier Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. When I checked into my room at the YMCA in Rochester, N.Y., I found out that Robert Kennedy had been killed. I looked around  the lobby of the YMCA. What have I done?  Why did I get here? Even though I was an agnostic, I knew in a strange way I was on a divine calling from destiny. My wife and I were married a few days earlier, and she had yet to get her papers in order. She, a Dane was going to go on the Swedish quota, for the Danish quota was full. But to do that I had to be in the U.S. with work, so she could not follow on our honeymoon. Everything was accomplished before July 1 1968, when they abolished the quota system. She came, and we have been together ever since. Then followed the normal life of newlyweds: Traveling, dreaming and building a household. We got beautiful children, a boy and a girl, a large house with a two car garage, a good income, in short, a dream-life. But my wife grew more and more unsatisfied. Something was wrong. “I have everything I thought important, and yet, I am unhappy. What is wrong?” she asked me, day in and day out. Well, you do the best you can, right and truth will prevail, and this earth will be a better place. “And then what?” she countered. I had no idea. This was as far as I could think. Everything else is pure speculation. She went to a discussion group about great literature, and for some reason the Gospel of Matthew was in it. She read it and concluded those ideas were too far-fetched to really believe. Better stick with more sane philosophy. She had a neighbor that had taken an interest in her, for she “Had just found Christ”. She used to be an Episcopalian, but had married a Jew, so officially she had become a Jewish convert. She asked her to come to a bible study to find out. My wife was good at excuses, but after a couple of months, she just said: “Yes, I have lots of questions for the teacher, so I will come with you once. If I don‘t like it, don’t ask me again”. They went, she had lots of questions, the teacher was patient and answered as much as she could in a very loving way. So my wife went again to find the answer to the rest of her questions. And again she went. Then she tried the teacher’s answers on me, and we had many long discussions. One day she just decided to believe, and she started to work on me, since I did not have any answers.  I thought; this is good for her, her problems are solved, this is good alternate reality building, but it is just that. We all need an alternate reality to be able to cope with this brave new world.

We had tried to try to go back to Sweden or Denmark, but the doors were closed. Coming back to U.S. after four weeks of vacation my wife decided to take up aerobic exercise and the local Baptist church had started aerobics. The old friend was there to prod her along. I did not think favorably of Baptists since childhood, after my father, a secondary school teacher had had a student, a foster child that was kicked out after he started smoking. “They did that, because they were Baptists.” Those prejudices from youth linger. But it was free, so I said: go ahead. Then she started to attend church, first alone, then with our children. One day she came home after church and said: We didn’t have any choir today, for there were no tenors.

I smiled. Then, that Monday night I had a problem from work I took home to try to flowchart and debug. I put on the record changer and put on a record I had received as a farewell gift from my choir in Sweden. The music was Bach cantatas. I did not notice the record changer kept playing the same LP over and over again. Suddenly I looked up. I had solved the problem. And it was three o’clock in the morning. Waking up I realized: Bach knew something I don’t. I better find out what it is. So on Thursday I said to my wife: Are there any regulations to join the choir? She jumped on the phone and asked the secretary. “Can he? He is not saved?”  Wel,l the secretary said, I never heard this before, but you don’t have to be a member to join the choir, so I guess it is o.k.

That Sunday, my first Sunday in church, I sang in the choir. After a few months I started to feel like a hypocrite. The pastor spoke, everybody prayed for me, but it was still all an alternate reality. I thought to myself: I better find out once and for all if this is real. So I started to read the Bible, King James Version. Since my wife had read the Gospel of Matthew and rejected it, this was a good place to start. That would give me time, and yet I would be doing what I could. So I did. Everything went fine until I came to Matthew 27, the place where the Pharisees ask Pilate for a guard.  “Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: So this last error shall be worse than the first.” That’s when it hit me. That is exactly what I had done. By denying the reality of Christ, and his resurrection I was still locked in my alternate reality. This changed everything. He is Risen!

Fast forward to Sep 11, 2001, the day that changed reality again. The forces of evil are more active now than at any time in history, and we will never look the same at the world again. But I got back to normal. A few years passed.

My wife is Danish, so I follow the Danish news. The newspaper Jyllandsposten had issued a competition for the best cartoon of Mohammed. This was in response to a threat from the Muslims. There had been an honor killing in Denmark, and the Danes decided: We will not put up with this. So they gave lengthy sentences to all six involved, including the taxi-driver, since he too was in on it. They got death threats for the way they reported it. So they decided: We are not afraid. Over a hundred deaths have occurred since the publication of the cartoons. The Danish flag now has the honor of being burned together with the Israeli and U.S. flag.

I followed in horror. Is this the face of Islam? Why do they not condemn the insanity of it? I told the Lord in prayer. I am going to find out about the Muslims. The Lord answered: You may do that, but first you must learn the Holy Bible fully. So I put the Bible to Power-point, 11000 slides and growing, then I put the Koran to power-point, 2040 slides. I was disappointed in it. The message from Mecca is peace and tolerance. The message from Medina is War, holy war, arbitrary laws(sharia), and mind-control. This is evil.

Last year came the latest installment on my transformation. When the news of the tragedy  in Arizona broke I immediately jumped on the internet to see what my friends and opponents in the blogosphere had to say about it, and a frightening picture emerged. In less than two hours over 50 entries blamed it on either the tea-party or Sarah Palin – or both. I was running behind. Nobody knew anything, but whatever it was, Sarah Palin and the tea-party were to blame. It was as if I was watching a well orchestrated conspiracy. This is not possible, I muttered to myself. My wife got worried. “Who are you talking to? She asked”. Nothing important, nobody, I answered, still staring at the screen in disbelief. Then it hit me. Yes, it is this bad. Islam is one force that is trying to take over, but this may be even worse.

After three days of watching the news develop, the acts were found to be performed by a pot-smoking Marxist anarchist with paranoid schizophrenia. Sarah Palin was still to be blamed, for “she is an idiot and does not know what she is talking about.” All she had done up to this point was to send out a short condolence, on her usual communications media, no direct contact with the press, which they complained about, and they were going to let her have it.

Sarah put out an 8 minute compassionate video, a vigorous defense of free speech and constitutional principles, but she acknowledged no guilt in the tragedy. MSNBC proclaimed the end of her political career. So I watched the video for myself. This was pure Sarah. With two words she managed to change the whole tone of the dialog. This time the two words were “Blood libel”. I had no idea what that meant, but it must be bad, because the media said it was a very inappropriate choice of words. So I looked it up on Google, and my eyes opened wide. Never in my life have I seen more apt words to describe the happenings of the week. One by one people started to defend Sarah. After the obligatory “I am no fan of Sarah” they grudgingly acknowledged that in a wider context this is probably the most fitting term possible to describe this type of false accusations. Again, having been low for three days I raised my chin: Yes things are still possible in America, but only if we fight back, not with violence, but with words that cut and heal, and with votes.

Later that night at the memorial service President Obama held a rallying speech complete with t-shirts depicting “Together we thrive” thereby starting the 2012 election campaign.

By the way, “Together we thrive” correctly interpreted means that an individual is important only as part of a collective.

I now know we have a tough row to hoe, but it must be done, or the weeds will choke what is left of our freedom. With the words of the original Liberty bell:

“Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” (part of Leviticus 25:10)