Tag: politics

Electric cars and their cold-weather shortcomings

11:38 am

Reality meets feel-good politics: Electric cars and their cold-weather shortcomings. Key quote:

“If you live in an area where the winters get extremely cold an all-electric vehicle will have to be garaged and equipped with some kind of plug-in battery warmer for it to be effective in the coldest months of the year. Keep these thoughts in mind if you’re planning an electric car purchase; we don’t want you finding out the range of your car has been halved when it’s five below zero and you’re fifteen miles from home.”

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The difficulties of doing business in the socialist state of Berkeley

6:47 pm

The difficulties of doing business in the socialist state of Berkeley. Key quote:

When a planner working in design review looked at Dalrymple’s plans, she told her she didn’t think a black and white awning would fit in with the neighborhood, said Dalrymple. The planner didn’t give her any specific recommendations for a different color, but just nixed her idea. . . . “Rules aren’t written down anywhere,” said [Dan Marks, director of the Planning and Development Department]. “But the planner has worked in the neighborhood a long time and she knows what the neighborhood likes.” [emphasis mine]

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Congressman says that Congress has the right to force people to buy insurance

7:04 pm

Behind the curtain, a dictator: Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) said yesterday that he not only thinks that Congress has the power to make people buy insurance according to the Constitution, it is his obligation to force them to do so. In his own words:

“I think people should be required to get health insurance. We require people to get insurance for their automobile state by state but the federal government has an obligation to encourage by law, moral persuasion, to get people to get health insurance,”

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Climate change study had ‘significant error’: experts

6:58 pm

Climate scientists admit that a climate change study which claimed the Earth would warm by more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit in about a decade had “significant errors”. Key quote:

Scientist Scott Mandia forwarded to AFP an email he said he sent to Hisas ahead of publication explaining why her figures did not add up, and noting that it would take “quite a few decades” to reach a warming level of 2.4 degrees Celsius. “Even if we assume the higher end of the current warming rate, we should only be 0.2C warmer by 2020 than today,” Mandia wrote. “To get to +2.4C the current trend would have to immediately increase almost ten-fold.”

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200 Economists Ask Lawmakers to Repeal Obamacare

4:45 pm

I’m not the only one saying it: Two hundred economists ask lawmakers to repeal Obamacare. Key quote:

The letter from economists said the law is “fiscally dangerous at a moment when the United States is already facing a sea of red ink. It creates a massive new entitlement at a time when the budget is already buckling under the weight of existing entitlements. At a minimum, it will add $1 trillion to government spending over the next decade,” the letter stated. “Assertions that these costs are paid for are based on omitted costs, budgetary gimmicks, shifted premiums from other entitlements, and unsustainable spending cuts and revenue increases.

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What Congress Should Cut

9:33 pm

What Congress should cut. And they find $3 trillion in only 14 paragraphs. Key quote:

None of this will be easy. Many will likely demagogue any reduction in the rate of growth of spending as a devastating “cut.” But the politics of spending has changed, and there is an expectation among fiscally conservative voters—Republicans, independents, tea partiers and even Democrats—that the government tighten its belt, just as American families have been forced to do. Some in the Republican establishment have already started complaining that this is too politically difficult. These naysayers misread today’s political climate. Should they succeed in blocking change, tea party voters will hold them just as accountable as big-spending Democrats.

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Nearly 3000 doctors surveyed believe ObamaCare will hurt care quality and doctor pay

8:20 pm

Repeal the damn bill! By large majorities, surveyed doctors believe that ObamaCare will hurt care quality and doctor pay. Key quote:

During the next 5 years, the quality of health care in this country will improve (18%) stay same (17%) deteriorate (65%).

The Affordable Care Act will result in physician reimbursement becoming more fair (9%) neither fair nor unfair (17%) less fair (74%).

Overall, the impact of the Affordable Care Act for patients will be positive (27%) neutral (15%) negative (57%).

Overall, the impact of the Affordable Care Act for physicians will be positive (8%) neutral (14%) negative (78%).

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Confessions of a Greenpeace founder

12:59 pm

The confessions of a Greenpeace founder. Key quote:

The truth is Greenpeace and I had divergent evolutions. I became a sensible environmentalist; Greenpeace became increasingly senseless as it adopted an agenda that is anti-science, anti-business, and downright anti-human.

Other quotes of interest:

The collapse of world communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall during the 1980s added to the trend toward extremism. The Cold War was over and the peace movement was largely disbanded. The peace movement had been mainly Western-based and anti-American in its leanings. Many of its members moved into the environmental movement, bringing with them their neo-Marxist, far-left agendas. To a considerable extent the environmental movement was hijacked by political and social activists who learned to use green language to cloak agendas that had more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization than with science or ecology.

And:

There is no cause for alarm about climate change. The climate is always changing. Some of the proposed “solutions” would be far worse than any imaginable consequence of global warming, which will likely be mostly positive. Cooling is what we should fear.

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Due to a leak from Wikileaks the head of the European GPS program has been fired

1:16 am

Due to a leak from Wikileaks, the head of one of the companies building the European GPS system has been fired. Key quote:

The [Wikileaks] cable, which was published by the Norwegian daily Aftenposten last Thursday, quoted the [chief executive] as saying, “I think Galileo [the European GPS system] is a stupid idea that primarily serves French interests”, and, in particular, French military interests.

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