Victoria Wells Wulsin Whatever, affectionately referred to around here as VW3, has a full, complete, all-angles-considered, and simply fabulous plan for Iraq at her OH-02 congressional campaign web site.

I really can’t understand why no one in the Bush Administration, the military, or in Iraq has thought of this (saved here in case Team VW3 changes it, for fair use and discussion purposes):

• Iraq:

We need to set benchmarks and goals for the war in Iraq, and we need to have a plan to bring our troops home safely and quickly. We should also establish clear goals and benchmarks for the Iraqi government, and bring the troops home if they’re not met.

Brilliant!

Upon learning of Wulsin’s plan, President George W. Bush was heard to say, “I should have figured that out with my huuuuuge brain. ….. Wait a minute — We did, and I was in charge. How ’bout that!”

General David Petraeus said, “I should have felt that in my biiiiiig heart. ….. Hold on — The Iraqis have met or are working towards meeting those benchmarks.”

Barack Obama said, “I should have had the cour- …. uh, never mind.”

“Hey — Stop talking about my gun flip-flop ….. and my wife ….. and my race ….. and my former old pastor ….. and my former new pastor ….. and Father Pfleger ….. and my smoking ….. and my campaign finance “flip-flop of epic proportions” ….. and my FISA flip-flop ….. and my twenty-plus other flip-flops.”

“And I’m putting you on notice — You’d better not say another word about my ears!”

“Anybody got a light?”

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki muttered, “You Americans need to keep this Wulsin woman out of your Congress …. and her little dog too (scroll to “6/17/2006″ at the link; backup file here). Oh, and remind Obama that he hasn’t been to Iraq in over 900 days. So he’d best go to an airport, notify air traffic control, start flapping those ears (snicker, snicker), and get over here.”

++++++++++++++++++++

The above policy statement by Ms. Wells Wulsin Whatever should not surprise anyone who has read the full, complete, all-angles-considered, and simply fabulous text of her energy statement at the same web page (backup file here), as it comes straight from the Land of Oz:

Gas prices are too high. We should reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce our dependence on the foreign powers that provide it. Southern Ohio is well positioned to develop alternative energy sources for the nation - let’s invest in cleaner, renewable power produced here at home.

VW3 will just click those ruby slippers together a few times (”there’s no energy like clean energy, there’s no energy like clean energy …..”). Just like that, we’ll have all the “cleaner, renewable power” we’ll eeeeever need, right now, without having to do any messy drilling for that nasty black stuff.

Brill- Whatever, Vic.

My reax to the 2nd Amendment decision by the Supremes today?

• Duh — What about “shall not be infringed” don’t you understand?
• 5-4? O,M,G. DC’s law was a ban on handgun ownership. It obviously violates the Second Amendment. It’s not debatable. I’m leaning towards a conclusion on the four dissenters that, in the interest of sobriety, must await reading their dissents.
• Does anyone still think judicial nominations won’t be an important election issue? (see the first update)

Update, 3:15 p.m: I deliberately avoided reading blog reax until I put in my $.02 above. Now I see that Instapundit is linking to a CQpolitics post claiming that guns won’t be a big deal in the November Prez vote, and says that “Obama’s record of strong support for sweeping gun control would hurt him a lot more in a climate where gun owners felt more threatened.”

WHAT? Today’s decision shows that we’re one bad appointment away from losing the right that supports all of the others. Heck, we’re lucky that Anthony Kennedy got this one right.

The gun ownership issue is more important than ever. Obama is clinging to the wrong side of it (*), and I can guarantee you, despite the shows of pleasure at the decision, that the feeling is more of relief, and that gun-rights supporters feel as threatened as ever. Their worst fears about the desires of judicial activists to take away our fundamental rights have just been confirmed.

* - Oops, the Obama Waffle Iron is out. See 3:50 p.m. update.

Update, 3:45 p.m.: In fact, support for the Heller decision should be a litmus test for any US Senate candidate. Opposition to it should be a deal-breaker, period.

Update, 3:50 p.m.: If the decision is so irrelevant to the Prez vote, why is Obama already trying to spin his way out of his clear support for the DC ban seven months ago (last two sentences at this link)? This is yet another flip-flop Matt Hurley can add to his collection of over two dozen at Weapons of Mass Discussion. I think it’s perfectly clear, based on his track record, that Obama would take your gun in a heartbeat if he could.

Update, 3:55 p.m.: Which leads to another question — Why is that outspoken former Hillary Clinton supporter, Gun Guy Ted Strickland, now so gung-ho for Obama in the circumstances? When he says he’s giving his “whole-hearted and enthusiastic support” to Obama, doesn’t that make Ted’s cred on the Second Amendment suspect?

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Geez, I was going to predict that gun-grabbers would attempt registration as their next gambit, but decided to wait and see. Well, I didn’t have to wait long. According to this AP update at 2:12 p.m.:

District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty responded with a plan to require residents of the nation’s capital to register their handguns.

WaPo confirms this, and also has the mayor claiming that “the city can still bar handguns from being carried outside of the home.” With all due respect (i.e., none): Bleep you, sir.

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An e-mailer suggests voting at this Internet poll about “what should happen next?” now that James Hansen has called for criminal prosecutions of energy executives “for high crimes against humanity and nature.” I’m not a big fan of these because they’re not scientifically done, but perhaps, given that the blogger doing the poll says that “the results will be submitted to a member of the U.S. Senate for distribution, NASA’s director, and will also be mailed to Dr. Hansen at NASA GISS,” it should be considered the equivalent of a petition. I voted.

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This story about war correspondent Lara Logan should surprise no one. I love the fact the FreeRepublic.com scooped everyone on the story — six months ago.

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Take that, Arnold — According to Survey USA, a majority supports expansion of off-shore oil drilling. That would be a majority of those polled in California, as well as in the whole USA.

Of all the excuses (bolds are mine):

Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America’s addiction to “dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive” oil if he is elected U.S. president — and one of his first targets might well be Canada’s oil sands.

A senior adviser to Mr. Obama’s campaign told reporters it’s an “open question” whether oil produced from northern Alberta’s oilsands fits with the Democratic candidate’s plan to shift the U.S. sharply away from consumption of carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

….. The remarks amount to a shot across the bow of Alberta’s oil sands industry, which is planning to boost production from 1.3 million barrels a day to 3.5 million barrels over the next decade.

The industry has come under sustained attack from U.S. environmentalists over the past year because the production of its heavy oil emits an estimated three times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil.

….. Mr. Obama is committed to supporting energy sources that help slow climate change if elected — and he will reward industries that meet tough new greenhouse gas standards, Mr. Grumet said.

“It’s a meritocracy. We are going to support resources that diversify petroleum supplies, that bring more production to this hemisphere, and that meet our long-term obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “And I think it’s an open question as to whether or not the Canadian resources are going to meet those tests.”

Who died and put them in charge of the marketplace?

Once again, we see that “globaloney” — my term for the belief that the earth is warming (probably wrong), that humans are the primary cause of it if it is taking place (almost definitely wrong), and that drastic actions to reduce “greenhouse gases” is necessary to “save the planet” (how convenient for the command-and-control types) — leading to the conclusion that we can’t consume energy that is in abundance literally in our neighbor’s back yard.

Can’t drill offshore. Can’t drill in ANWR. Can’t build refineries. Can’t get use new technologies to get oil. Instead, bet on the come that some marvelous “alternative technology” will appear — and ridiculously quickly.

Isn’t it amazing that every time Barack Obama has a choice between continued economic growth and government control that either could or will jeopardize it, he chooses government control? Income taxes, capital gains taxes, energy, education, Social Security, health care — it goes on and on and on. Is there nothing he doesn’t want under his thumb?

Mark Levin is right — this guy is a blind ideologue, and a dangerously ignorant one at that. Facts don’t matter. Economic progress doesn’t matter. Only power does.

PBS’s Bonnie Erbe hosts that network’s weekly news analysis program, “To the Contrary with Bonnie Erbe,” is a weekly columnist for Scripps Howard Newspapers, and blogs at USNews.com.

Erbe called for the impeachment of George Bush in February 2006. Anyone looking through her Scripps Howard archive will conclude that she can’t possibly be labeled a conservative ideologue — which is why her take on the attempt by CNN’s John Lewis to make it appear as if both the Obama and McCain campaigns are equally hampered by flip-flops is so compelling.

Here’s how “A battle of accused political ‘flip-flops’,” the CNN report at which Erbe takes umbrage, begins:

Days after both men reversed course on major issues, the presidential campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain spent much of Sunday’s talk-show circuit working to ensure accusations of “flip-flopping” don’t stick.

Both sides tried to go on offense, with the Obama camp accusing McCain of “yet another flip-flop” on the issue of oil drilling and the McCain camp saying Obama broke his word on the issue of campaign financing.

(Before getting to Erbe’s critique, it should be noted that Lewis spent Paragraphs 3-9 on McCain and oil drilling before finally getting to the arguably more serious “broke his word” position change by Obama on campaign financing in Paragraph 10.)

Erbe’s USNews.com blog post Monday on Lewis’s article did not mince words, while the titles of her previous and subsequent posts show that she is truly unimpressed with the presumptive Democratic nominee (bolds are mine):

….. From where I sit, flip-flopping is an unbeatable addiction for Obama. For McCain, by comparison, it’s an occasional foible.

The flip-flops preoccupying them right now are on acceptance of public financing for Obama and on offshore oil drilling for McCain.

McCain’s policy change makes sense given changed circumstances. Obama’s is based purely on greed. McCain opposed offshore oil drilling before but now says it should be pursued off the Florida coast. I don’t support his new position. America should be promoting alternative energy sources, not drilling for more oil. But given the run-up in oil prices, one can understand McCain’s change of heart.

Obama’s flip-flop, on the other hand, is purely about self-interest. He promised to accept public financing before he knew he could raise more money from donors. Now that he can raise twice as much from donors as Uncle Sam would give him if he forswore private donations, of course he’s pursuing the bigger bucks. What’s more troubling is Obama’s list of flip-flops is so limitless, he’s beginning to sound like he tailors his position to whichever audience he’s addressing at the moment.

That’s strong stuff, which Erbe backed up with five more examples, four of them from a New York Post editorial, along with a claim that she has many more.

Erbe likely has a closet crammed full of the summer footwear, all in Obama’s shoe size. Matt Hurley at Weapons of Mass Discussion has compiled a list of 25 Obama flip-flops thus far. The latest is over nuclear power (”Yesterday, after signaling opposition to nuclear power, he told Democratic governors he’s open to expanding it.”). Hurley expects that it won’t be long until he accumulates forty flip-flops, at which point closet space will truly be at a premium.

Meanwhile, Erbe concluded:

Change we can believe in? No, change we can count on, because as soon as he takes a position, we can count on the fact he’s going to change it in front of the next audience.

Can flip-flop fatigue be far behind?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

UPDATE: Catch of the Day — Eric the Red at Vocal Minority found out who American “historian” Allan J. Lichtman is (Wikipedia entry is here). Eric is right: “This guy is a hard-core radical leftist with a truckload of political axes to grind against Republicans!” If there was any doubt about “worst ever,” the sole-sourcing to an outright partisan disguised as a “historian” erases it.

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(original post)

Two Associated Press writers, with the help of accompanying photos at ABCnews.com, have dug down deep and reached a new low in dismal, depressive reporting.

You can be forgiven if, after reading the entire Saturday afternoon “report” by Alan Fram and Eileen Putman of the Associated Press, you worry that the two writers plan to jump from the nearest tall building — and take their readers with them — unless Barack Obama wins the White House.

This is how the pained pair’s incredibly over-the-top report begins (note how the headline answers the question before the text begins; excerpted text, and photos found at the ABC link, are included for fair use and discussion purposes):

Everything seemingly is spinning out of control
Out-of-control weather, gas prices, economy chip away at American self-confidence

Is everything spinning out of control?

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country’s sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.

The sense of helplessness is even reflected in this year’s presidential election. Each contender offers a sense of order - and hope. Republican John McCain promises an experienced hand in a frightening time. Democrat Barack Obama promises bright and shiny change, and his large crowds believe his exhortation, “Yes, we can.”

Freaking-Out Fram and Put-Upon Putman then lament that “a barrel-scraping 17 percent of people surveyed believe the country is moving in the right direction.” It’s a wonder, given the tenor of press reporting during at least the past two years, that it’s as high as it is.

(By the way, did you notice that Fram and Putman didn’t mention who has been in control of Congress while much of this decay in confidence has taken place until the third-last paragraph? Or that Congress is the least-trusted institution in the country — less than HMOs and “Big Business”?)

Global warming, or what yours truly likes to refer to as “globaloney,” even makes an appearance:

Floods engulf Midwestern river towns. Is it global warming, the gradual degradation of a planet’s weather that man seems powerless to stop or just a freakish late-spring deluge?

Then the Disheartened Duo get to the real purpose of their piece: to convince us, now that we’re all completely miserable, that the only solution is a change in which party controls the White House (bolds are mine):

American University historian Allan J. Lichtman notes that the U.S. has endured comparable periods and worse, including the economic stagflation (stagnant growth combined with inflation) and Iran hostage crisis of 1980; the dawn of the Cold War, the Korean War and the hysterical hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s; and the Depression of the 1930s.

“All those periods were followed by much more optimistic periods in which the American people had their confidence restored,” he said. “Of course, that doesn’t mean it will happen again.”

Each period also was followed by a change in the party controlling the White House.

By the way, those familiar with the Venona Papers and the work of M. Stanton Evans know that there is a better word to describe the “hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s.” The word is “necessary.”

You’ll have to go to the final two paragraphs at the last page of the article yourself to read how these two wrap things up. One really has to wonder how they get through each day.

Fram’s and Putman’s despondent drivel isn’t labeled “analysis,” or “background.” It is apparently what these sad sacks, and their editors at the Associated Press, believe is “journalism.”

No it’s not, but it is this: Something you should save to the hard drive, and show to anyone still clinging to the misbegotten belief that the press hasn’t taken sides in the 2008 presidential election.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Home Depot ruiner, then plunderer, Bob Nardelli, currently running ruining Chrysler, now says that he sees the company staying independent.

Translation: After less than a year at the helm, Nardelli may have ruined Chrysler to the point where nobody with a brain wants it — even though it was supposedly clear as little as 90 days ago (see final paragraphs at post) that the whole idea was to “get Chrysler in shape for another buyer.

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Three weeks ago, the presidential candidate I refer to as JS3M3 (John Sidney the Mad Maverick McCain III) released medical records that were probably longer than War and Peace.

The presidential candidate I refer to as “Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH” (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama - Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters) released summary-level information a couple of weeks ago, and this guy at MyDD was, justifiably, very skeptical:

….. as a practicing physician for almost 30 years two things in his medical history seemed patently improbable. First, there are virtually no 47 year old men with blood pressures of 90/60. Most men with that kind of B.P. would be in the throes of acute blood loss! I would say that kind of B.P. would be more likely in an 8 year old. Second, Obama may be the only smoker in America with a resting heart rate of 60! He is in fact a walking advertisement for taking up smoking.

Obama has admitted taking cocaine when he was younger. It’s not unreasonable to believe it might have affected his health. Why no detail, and where’s the watchdog (cough, cough) press?

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NixGuy comments on Matt’s post at Weapons of Mass Discussion of a one-minute speech by OH-02 Congresswoman Jean Schmidt advocating drilling for more oil.

Schmidt’s opponent, renowned Malariotherapy Adventurer Victoria Wells Wulsin Whatever, wants alternative-fuel solutions that don’t sufficiently exist to suddenly ride in on a magic carpet.

Yeah, and I want a pony.

Renowned Malariotherapy Adventurer Wulsin Whatever, and those who agree with her that said solutions can arrive quickly, should put up or shut up by signing a pledge agreeing that they won’t use gasoline effective 12 months from now.

The supposedly surprising rejection of the Lieberman-Warner climate bill last week had an element that Old Media in the US hasn’t covered, but is very relevant.

While the press is ever eager to jump on politicians who fly in the face of supposed “world opinion” when it goes against US positions and traditions, it has been virtually silent over how “the rest of the world” has been rejecting the true linchpin of government climate policies: supposedly climate change-related higher taxes and fees. Surely some of the green-leaning Senators who were supposedly on board but voted against cloture were not blind to this.

Consider the following:

• Germany — “German Car Tax Plan to Be Delayed: Government.”
• In Canada, a sympathetic columnist cautions the Liberal Party, which seems to think that the road back into power is through green taxes, about “The Suicidal Allure of a Carbon Tax.”
• Australia — “The Sun Sets on Rudd’s Climate Change Credibility.”
• New Zealand — “Emissions Bill Hanging by Thread”

Each story is about how a government or party is finding that citizens/voters are not at all keen on reducing their living standards in the name of supposed environmental purity.

The biggest media blackout is over the political situation in Great Britain, where Tony Blair’s successor Gordon Brown hangs by a thread, largely because of his radical environmental initiatives.

Brown continues to push his “Green Road Tax” on “environmentally unfriendly cars.” Poorer Britons stand to be hit hardest, while his environmental minister plays the save-the-planet card:

Owners of the most polluting cars in band M will pay £440 (about $870) in tax. And from April 2010, people buying the most polluting cars would pay a one-off “showroom tax” of up to £950 (about $1,900).

(Environmental Minister Joan) Ruddock added: “What we can’t do is lose sight of the environment agenda because this is everybody’s future, the future of the planet.”

She denied the retrospective aspect of the policy was unfair.

“Over a 10 year period…I think the direction we have been going in has been clear to people at the time,” she said.

In other words, according to Ms. Ruddock, “Your crystal balls should have told you these taxes were coming.”

Two weeks ago, a one-day strike by lorry drivers (truckers) over high fuel prices shut down London’s roads in what was called the “capital’s largest-ever fuel protest.”

If most of all of this is news to you, it’s because the US press is studiously ignoring it. New York Times stories about Brown’s situation on May 14 and May 23 have not a word about the Green Road Tax, even though many Labour MPs have been calling it a “ticking time bomb” for several weeks. Wire-service stories have also been few and far between.

There are three lessons here:

• The tax plans environmentalists want invariably end up taking their pound of flesh from the people they supposedly care about the most.
• Once people see through it, they rebel.
• Politicians interested in self-preservation aren’t about to commit political suicide in the name of greenness. Their best hope is that the news media keep details of the costs away from public view until after legislation passes — a tough task indeed in the New Media Age.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

The Club for Growth PAC is on a sensible streak:

• It backed Tom McClintock in California’s GOP primary. McClintock won against a relative RINO.
• It backed Congressman Steve Pearce in New Mexico. Pearce defeated RINO-drifting Congresswoman Heather Wilson in the GOP Senate Primary.
• It is backing Sean Parnell, Alaska’s current Lt. Governor, against incumbent congressman Don “Bridge to Nowhere” Young in August’s GOP primary. A Parnell win could energize fiscal conservatives around the country and shake some religion into wandering RINOs.

When it picks its battles wisely, the Club is awesome. When it gets involved in races where the differences are minimal between two decently conservative candidates, it gets egg on its face.

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Speaking of which, the Club for Growth’s 2007 ratings of congresspersons and senators came out back in March. Here’s how Ohio’s reps and select others fared:

Senate:
- McConnell (KY) - 84%
- Bunning (KY) - 82%
- Lugar (IN) - 57%
- Voinovich (OH) - 46%
- Specter (PA) - 39%
- Bayh (IN) - 9%
- Brown (OH) - 0%
- Casey (PA) - 0%
- McCain (AZ) - 94% (but incomplete due to missed votes)
- Obama (IL) - 0%
- Clinton (NY) - 0%

House:
- Pence (IN-06) - 99%
- Jordan (OH-04) - 96%
- Boehner (OH-08) - 92%
- Chabot (OH-01) - 87%
- Davis (KY-04) - 85%
- Schmidt (OH-02) - 80%
- Tiberi (OH-12) - 65%
- Hobson (OH-07) - 50%
- Pryce (OH-15) - 49%
- Regula (OH-16) - 39%
- Turner (OH-03) - 37%
- LaTourette (OH-14) - 18%
- Jones (OH-11) - 11%
- Kucinich (OH-10) - 6%
- Space (OH-18) - 6%
- Heath Shuler (NC-11) - 2%
- Ryan (OH-17) - 1%
- Wilson (OH-06) - 1%
- Mollohan (WV-01) - 1%
- Sutton (OH-13) - 0%
- Kaptur (OH-09) - 0%

Observations:

• Jordan, whom the Club supported in 2006, is no surprise, but good to see nonetheless.
• Some readers may be surprised at how Davis and Schmidt fared. Maybe they can mellow on the criticism a bit. Maybe Definitely, the Club owes Schmidt an apology for its attack ads against her in 2005.
• Zack Space = Dennis Kucinich. Fred Dailey, call your office.
• Charlie Wilson < Dennis Kucinich. Richard Stobbs, call your office.
• Heath Shuler < Dennis Kucinich. Carl Mumpower, call your office.
• It’s hard to understand why Ohio Daily Hack Jeff “Dann’s the Man” Coryell is so upset at being represented by LaTourette, who votes like a Dem.

The biggest takeaway is that there are many more economic and regulatory RINOs than DINOs. No Dem senator scored higher than 21%; Maine’s Olympia Snowe is the only GOP senator who scored lower (12%). No Dem congressperson scored higher than 29%; only five GOP congresspersons came in below that. 52 Dems had scores of 0% - 2%.

Make sure to see what votes the Club used for its scorecards. It’s pretty obvious which party is generally on the side of economic freedom and growth.

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NewsBusters was on a roll yesterday:

• Brent Baker outed Brian Williams as just another lib newshack — “NBC’s Williams Tells Grads U.S. Broken, ‘Need You to Fix the Country.’”
• Geoffrey Dickens — “‘Today’ Promotes French Climber Who Claims Global Warming Kills More Than 9/11.” To be clear, the climber claims that this happens every day.
• Terry Ann Rendon — “CNN Shows Us How We Are Reliving 1968 in 2008.” Okay. The Republican won the presidency that year.
• Tim Graham — “‘Bush Lied’ Argument Doesn’t Match Facts — Democrats Say.” The takeaway: The president’s statements were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates and information, and this was acknowledged by Democrats, particularly Jay Rockefeller.

From Christopher Booker in the UK Sunday Telegraph (second major topic at link; bold is mine; HT Benny Peiser’s CCnet e-mail):

There is something comically forlorn about the BBC’s continued efforts to promote its frenetically one-sided belief in global warming. It was inevitably quick, for instance, to pick up on that bishop who suggested anyone who refuses to save the planet from global warming was morally comparable with Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who fathered seven children on the daughter he kept for 24 years in a dungeon. But how about these headlines?

“Globally, 2008 significantly cooler than last year”, “Global temperatures dive in May”. Not a word about this on the BBC, although they summarised two items on the Watts Up With That website run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts, reporting the latest data from Dr Roy Spencer, formerly head of climate studies for Nasa.

Based on satellite and balloon temperature readings taken at various levels up to 135,000ft, the first item showed that global temperatures in the first months of 2008 were on average between 0.4 and 0.5 degrees Celsius lower than they were at the same time in 2007. The second said that temperatures in May again fell sharply, by nearly 0.2 of a degree, bringing the drop since January 2007 to 0.77 degrees.

In other words, in just 16 months we have seen global cooling greater than the 0.7 degrees net warming recorded by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the whole of the 20th century. Yet it was on this figure more than anything else that the whole warmist theory has been based. Those IPCC computer models never predicted anything like this recent drop in temperatures.

….. Before the world commits economic suicide, it might be an idea to look at the theory again in the light of those latest temperature figures.

Booker also quotes a Lieberman-Warner cost figure of $6.7 trillion (with a “tr”) by 2050. Betcha haven’t seen that figure until now.

I’d like to “look at the theory again” long enough to throw it into the circular file. Under “globaloney.”

Don’t be surprised if, 50 years from now, objective history teaches that Al Gore was the Walter Duranty of the environmental movement. Like Duranty, Gore will probably live very well on his hype long after it has proven to be false. As Duranty never has had his Pulitzer revoked, even though he lied for years about conditions in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, Gore will likely get to keep his Nobel Prize long after his complete foolishness has become clear to all but the most willfully blind.

U.K. Business Secretary John Hutton speaks, and in this case people should listen.

From Bloomberg, a quote from (HT the indispensable CCnet e-mail from Benny Peiser):

“We must strongly resist the temptation to demonize the new Asia economies,” Hutton told executives in Hong Kong today, according to a text released in London. “Those who think the answer to dealing with the challenges of climate change is to tell the people of China or India to sacrifice the sort of living standards that we have enjoyed are deeply misguided.”

….. “It is the right of every person and every nation to strive for a better way of life,” Hutton said.

The environmental movement ought to be renamed the “Y’all Stay Poor Coalition.”

Peiser scolds Hutton in his e-mail:

Well said, Mr Hutton! But what about the British people? Don’t they also have the right to strive for a better way of life, without having to sacrifice their standards of living on the altar of green taxes?

Indeed.

Note: This column originally appeared at Pajamas Media on ____day.

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There really are people out there praising high gas prices.

They naturally include those who believe that “cheap gas and a clean economy are mutually exclusive,” even though the air got continually better in the US for decades while gas prices declined in real terms. If they’re truly mutually exclusive, how did that happen?

Then there are those who, like this gentleman, believe that higher gas prices can bring about a return to “true values that have meaning.” I get that, but convincing families to eat more meals together or to get more involved in charities should be independent of that.

One of the high-price praisers is in the business press. He’d like to see prices go twice as high.

He is Chris Pummer at MarketWatch.com, in “$8-a-gallon gas: Eight reasons higher prices will do us a world of good.”

That Pummer has authored such a piece would not surprise those familiar with his previous work.

In August 2002, Pummer complained that because California had no employer-paid family leave law, “I couldn’t even afford the ‘bereavement’ airfare to bury my mom, let alone taking time off to be with her when she died.” California passed such a law that became effective in 2004 — yet another explanation beyond those I mentioned in a previous column why the state is currently holding back the US economy.

Also that month, Pummer expressed disgust that U.S. workers weren’t uniting in revolt:

U.S. workers see evil, hear evil and speak evil, but we’ve become too gutless to utter even a modest demand to our employers.

….. American business provides the worst employee benefits of major industrialized countries and those we do have are being continuously scaled back …..

….. Of course, we have only ourselves to blame for our plight. We turned away from the union bosses and found no one else to stand up for us.

MarketWatch really is a daily business publication, not an adjunct to the AFL-CIO.

Pummer’s pitch for $8-a-gallon gas is also permeated with hostility. He characterizes oil as “poison,” and “the pus of the earth.” With classic urban-planner arrogance, he seethes with contempt for “antiseptic, strip-mall communities” and “cookie-cutter developments slapped up in the hinterlands.”

Here are my responses to Pummer’s reasons to “rejoice” at $8-a-gallon gas.

1. RIP for the internal-combustion engine — Name something other than the computer chip that has led to more human freedom — of movement, of flexibility, and of enjoyment. You can’t. If a replacement arrives, fine, but that’s not what environmentalists really want. “For the cause,” they want us to limit our movement, have less flexibility, and, inevitably, to enjoy life less. No thanks.

2. Economic stimulus — Pummer believes that $8 gas would “trigger all manner of investment sure to lead to groundbreaking advances.” Innovation is great, but it’s really irritating that he would be so cavalier about what $4 a gallon gas has already caused. For example, it surely contributed to GM’s Tuesday announcement that it would close four plants (which, incidentally, employ a lot of union members).

3, 4 and 8. Wither the Middle East’s clout; deflate oil potentates; ease global tensions — The only reason those folks have their clout is that we haven’t allowed enough exploration and drilling in the U.S. On Tuesday, Bloomberg had a story that referred to “Saudi-sized reserves” in the Dakota oil fields. Do you mind if we retrieve it, Chris?

5. Mass-transit development — Americans have been using mass transit in record numbers. No, I’m not talking about bus and rail lines. I’m talking about the greatest mass-transit system ever conceived by man — the system of roads, expressways, and highways. Remember what I said about freedom of movement, flexibility, and enjoyment? The highway system has provided more of each than any other mass transit system. Yes, there are congestion problems, but I have solutions: Build roads to accommodate the traffic, and charge reasonable tolls during peak hours.

6. An antidote to sprawl: Sure, the automobile has enabled sprawl, but I maintain that three things accelerated sprawl: high crime, exorbitant taxes, and lousy schools. To the criticism that affordable gas prices have helped families who care to escape these menaces, I say “Thank God.”

7. Restoration of financial discipline: Pummer believes that vehicle loans have contributed to our overburdened debt situation. But no one twisted anyone’s arm to buy things they couldn’t afford. Also, allow me to contend that many families have taken on debt willingly in the name of accomplishing important goals whose achievement requires freedom of movement and flexibility, ultimately maximizing enjoyment and accomplishment for family members. Exactly what is wrong with that?

Affordable fuel has led to a U.S. standard of living that is the envy of the world — one that the world, other than its control freaks, wants to emulate. While busy “rejoicing” over expensive fuel, Pummer overlooks the fact that those who can least afford it are the ones who are hit the hardest. That’s quite an oversight for a guy who has urged a workers’ revolt.

It occurs to me that at some point, the muddling-along economy gets to be about a 50-50 Bush-Reid/Pelosi proposition — at least as long as I’m seeing nothing but economy-dragging ideas like huge tax increases and frightening environmental laws being considered in Congress.

Congress is doing nothing but dragging down economic expectations, and then trying to capitalize on those gloomy expectations at the polls this November. I suspect that even a healthy majority of the 85%-86% of the electorate that is relatively disengaged — the ones they are hoping will be driven to despair by the press’s downbeat economic reporting — can see through this.

They’re ideologues, but they’re not totally stupid. I’m reading that the congressional majority is so scared of the Lieberman-Warner bill that they’re thinking about pulling it (HT to the indispensable CCnet e-mail). If there’s any way Mitch McConnell can force a vote on this enviro-nonsense, which “addresses” what Family Security Matters cleverly calls the Biggest Non-Problem in History, he should. Any Senator on the record in favor of this becomes instantly, and deservedly, vulnerable — and of course that includes co-sponsor RINO John Warner.

If Congress did a turnaround, shredded the tax increases, and actually made the Bush tax system that has been in place since 2003 permanent, the economy would pick up pretty quickly. It would zoom if they cut taxes further, by about 10% across the board, retroactive to 1/1/08. Those would be the right things for the country, but they are clearly not as important as the congressional majority’s political power calculus.

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One of the Senators who should be forced to go on the record for or against Lieberman-Warner is Ohio’s own junior senator, The Invisible Sherrod Brown. NixGuy reminds us that Brown was Mr. “Ohio Lost Jobs Because of Free Trade” during the 2006 campaign. If he supports Lieberman-Warner, especially given the recent job-cut announcements at DHL in Wilmington and GM-Moraine, he becomes Mr. “Killed More Ohio Jobs to Hug Trees.”

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Speaking of assigning responsibility, Nix also noted that Ted Strickland’s popularity, while still mostly intact, is still below Bob Taft’s at the same time in 2000. Ted can thank Ohio’s media for protecting him from the other major finding of the Quinnipac survey, which is that by a 65%-3% margin (not a typo), Ohioans think that “state economy has deteriorated under his stewardship and are very pessimistic about the future.”

58% of those who say the economy is worse blame Bush.

Hmm. If that’s so, someone will have to explain how and why the President wreaked targeted economic misery on the Buckeye State, while 41 other states “somehow” managed to turn in higher GDP growth last year — most of them more than 1% higher that OH’s dismal 0.4%. Only AK, NH, DE, RI, FL, WV, MI, and IN trailed.

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Just as I suspect Ohio’s mediocre economic performance and the shadow it could cast over Ted Strickland’s popularity is probably removing him from serious Vice-Presidential consideration, the same fate should befall Florida’s Charlie Crist. John McCain should run away from him — quickly.

Yesterday’s GDP by State report shows that Crist has done what seemed impossible 18 months ago, managing to muck up the Sunshine State with zero growth in his first year of office after eight amazing years under Jeb Bush.

While Florida drifts, Crist fiddles with globaloney.

It’s here.

They did a nice job on the tease, too — “Believe it or not, some people out there actually believe that soaring gas prices are a blessing. Time for them to ‘fill up’ on common sense.”

I will post the column here at BizzyBlog Saturday afternoon (link won’t work until then) under the title “$8 Gas a Good Thing? I Don’t Think So” after the blackout expires.

Note: This was published at Pajamas Media on Friday with the title “Big-Government Environmentalism Wears Out Its Welcome.”

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While the three remaining presidential candidates try to out-green each other, the rest of the world is rebelling at the astronomical costs involved. “Somehow,” this rebellion has received little US media attention.

This explains how Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain can still advocate government- and tax-heavy approaches with straight faces.

Meanwhile, my nearly daily e-mails from the indefatigable Benny Peiser of CCnet, whose assemblages of environment and science links and summaries are essential for anyone who wants to keep up with worldwide environmentalist mischief, tell me that:

• Governments elsewhere are balking at meeting mandatory targets for reducing so-called greenhouse emissions. A recent G8- and Europe-related example is here (”Rich nations must lead on climate change: UN official”).
• Those same governments are using “climate protection” as a crutch as they attempt to do what governments do best — raise taxes.
• Citizens, and politicians preferring to remain in office, are saying “Enough!”

Fortunately, government attempts at fiscal extraction are not faring well. First, from Germany:

German car tax plan to be delayed - government

The German government’s controversial plans to change rules on car tax from 2009 to take exhaust emissions into account will likely be delayed further, government officials said on Friday.

….. The measures, part of a climate protection package agreed last year, have stoked tensions within Germany’s ruling conservative-Social Democrat coalition.

The measures need the backing of the upper house Bundesrat where the 16 states are represented as they receive around 9 billion euros ($14.2 billion) of annual income from the levy.

In Canada, a columnist who supports that country’s Liberal Party and appears to buy into “global warming” sees big political danger:

The suicidal allure of a carbon tax

If a carbon tax is to define and decide the next federal election in Liberal favour, Stéphane Dion will have to be a ghostbuster. Even though he seems blissfully oblivious, the Liberal leader’s bold gambit is haunted by the bad memory of too many other big ideas.

….. there’s no doubt that a specific carbon tax is a political accident waiting to happen.

Then there’s Australia:

The sun sets on Rudd’s climate change credibility

Kevin Rudd’s climate change honeymoon ended last week.

….. Most Australians when surveyed want the Government to fix climate change. But they also want cheaper petrol and electricity. Labor has been happy to play to this information disconnect by indulging voters’ naivety about what is coming, allowing them to believe these symbolic acts would be enough to solve the problem.

So they can hardly cry foul when the same voters turned on them …..

In New Zealand:

Emissions bill hanging by thread

The government’s flagship plan to combat global warming is hanging by a thread as National (the National Party — Ed.) withdraws support for the Emissions Trading Scheme.

In a policy announcement on Sunday morning, leader John Key has revealed the party will not be supporting the scheme in its current form.

….. Key says the government is cutting corners and risking people’s financial security in order to reach a political deadline for the ETS.

But the backlash is worst in the UK. Because of it, Gordon Brown may not be Prime Minister much longer.

Just as Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax wrecked her once-assumed invincibility in 1990, Brown’s “Green Road Tax” (in essence, a per-vehicle levy of up to £440, or about $870, on “environmentally unfriendly cars”), as well as angry lorry drivers (truckers) who are incensed over higher fuel taxes, threaten to do the same to him.

For these and other reasons, Brown’s supply of political capital has shrunk dangerously. This month alone, his Labor Party suffered its worst drubbing in 40 years in local elections, including the London mayor’s race, and followed it three weeks later by losing control of a district it had held for 30 years.

Upping the UK madness ante, a group of MPs has proposed “personal carbon credits.” I’m not kidding:

The Government should push ahead with a “radical” system of personal ‘carbon credits’ if it wants to meet emissions targets, a committee of MPs has said.

They said people would be able to engage with the scheme, which would see everybody given an annual carbon limit to “spend” on items such as fuel and energy bills.

Those who wanted to spend more than their limit would be able to buy extra credits from low carbon emitters.

This prompted one Times Online columnist to ask, “What next? Little (green) Hitlers patrolling the streets ….?”

I’m wondering when they will take up differences in individuals’ breathing rates and generation of flatulence.

What is happening outside the US should be instructive to our presidential contenders. If Obama, Clinton, or Mr. McCain think they’ll somehow have an easier time pushing direct and indirect carbon-related taxes and cap-and-trade schemes on the public, I have a two-word reminder from the, uh, ash heap of 1993 history: BTU tax.

….. and where communists and their socialist sympathizers went when they lost 20 years ago:

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class — social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies — arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher’s England to Deng’s China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but — even better — in the name of Earth itself.

Environmentalists are Gaia’s priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect ….. And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment — carbon chastity — they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.

Only Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.

There’s no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.

….. to reduce our carbon footprint in the interim ….. The most obvious step is a major move to nuclear power, which to the atmosphere is the cleanest of the clean.

But your would-be masters have foreseen this contingency. The Church of the Environment promulgates secondary dogmas as well. One of these is a strict nuclear taboo.

Rather convenient, is it not? Take this major coal-substituting fix off the table, and we will be rationing all the more. Guess who does the rationing.

Call these people what they are: Enviro-tyrants.

It’s here.

Their home-page tease is pretty good too — “America’s presidential hopefuls are pushing government-heavy approaches to climate change — just as the rest of the world is rebelling against them.”

I will post the column here at BizzyBlog Sunday morning (link won’t work until then) under the title “Governments Find It’s Not Easy Being ‘Green’ While Trying to Fleece Citizens” after the blackout expires.

Follow-up thought: It’s interesting how the “we ought to follow world opinion” crowd, and their media water-carriers in the US, are stone silent on “the world’s” rejection of draconian taxes and living-standard reductions to fight “global warming.” Maybe it’s because the “rest of the world” has figured out that it’s all a bunch of globaloney.

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UPDATE: Today’s edition of the CCNet daily e-mail I referred to in the PJM column has these three stories leading it, each from the UK (links added by me) –

(1) GREEN TAXES ON THE ROPES AS PUBLIC BACKLASH GROWS — Local Transport Today, 30 May 2008

The Government was struggling to maintain its green taxation agenda on transport this week amid truckers’ fuel protests, a media onslaught and a revolt by its own backbenchers. Ministers, already alarmed at Labour’s plummeting poll ratings and stung by this month’s byelection defeat in Crewe and Nantwich, this week insisted that they were in listening mode to the protestors, which suggests they may be prepared to abandon policies that are central to their attempts to reduce transport’s carbon dioxide emissions.

(2) BROWN HIT BY WORST PARTY RATING EVER — Jeremy Lovell, Reuters, 30 May 2008

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ruling Labour Party has registered its worst opinion poll showing since surveys began in 1943, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Friday. It said the YouGov poll showed Labour on 23 percent against 47 percent for the opposition Conservatives, underlining voter concerns about a slowing economy, rising fuel and food prices and a botched tax reform that have battered Brown’s popularity.

(3) GAS BILLS SET TO CRASH THROUGH THE £1,000 BARRIER — Gerri Peev, The Scotsman, 29 May 2008

Householders have been warned to brace themselves for “catastrophic” rises that could take their gas bills to £1,000 a year, after prices nudged to a record high yesterday. The average bill is set to soar by nearly £400 as energy companies prepare to pass on the costs of wholesale gas prices, which have surged. This would take the average gas bill from £665 to £1,091, the first time it has been more than £1,000. This is double what it was in January last year and treble the average bill just six years ago.

How is this not news in the US? If this were happening to Tony Blair over opposition to British military involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’d be reading about it daily.

UPDATE 2: In light of the previous update, isn’t it “amazing” that the New York Times’s coverage of Labor’s Crewe and Nantwich losses last week says absolutely nothing about unpopular “green” taxes on older vehicles or the truckers’ protest? In fact, you’ll see a bit of blame-shifting to the US (not kidding) for Gordon Brown’s troubles.

From Townhall.com:

Now that another Earth Day has come and gone, let’s look at some environmentalist predictions that they would prefer we forget.

At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.” In 1968, Professor Paul Ehrlich, Vice President Gore’s hero and mentor, predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and “in the 1970s … hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million. Ehrlich’s predictions about England were gloomier: “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”

In 1972, a report was written for the Club of Rome warning the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987 and petroleum, copper, lead and natural gas by 1992. Gordon Taylor, in his 1970 book “The Doomsday Book,” said Americans were using 50 percent of the world’s resources and “by 2000 they [Americans] will, if permitted, be using all of them.” In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, “The World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000.”

Harvard University biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, “… civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” That was the same year that Sen. Gaylord Nelson warned, in Look Magazine, that by 1995 “… somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

It’s not just latter-day doomsayers who have been wrong; doomsayers have always been wrong. In 1885, the U.S. Geological Survey announced there was “little or no chance” of oil being discovered in California, and a few years later they said the same about Kansas and Texas.

But we should trust the alarmists’ descendants today, because they now have Nobel Prizes, and government contracts, and cushy jobs at NASA. Oh, and Old Media treats what they say as accepted wisdom. (/sarc).

It must be nice to be on Old Media’s “free pass” list.

For years, Apple Computer has been on that list (disclosure: yours truly is a 23-year Mac user). Apple has been the cool, innovative tech darling, the noble foil of big, bad monopolist Microsoft.

Another free-pass beneficiary is Al Gore, who sits on Apple’s Board of Directors.

Wait until you see what ClimateCounts.org thinks of Apple’s record on “fighting global warming,” especially in comparison to its industry peers (HT InfoWorld via Kevin at Pundit Review):

( Links: Sector Company Scores; Apple’s Overall Scorecard)

According to Apple’s detailed scorecard (PDF), the company scored a zero in 18 of the 22 measurement criteria. Some of them include (bold is mine):

• Item 13 — Has the company achieved emissions reductions?
• Item 5 — Is there external, qualified third party verification of emissions data, reductions, and reporting (where applicable)?
• Item 18 — Does the company require suppliers to take climate change action or give preference to those that do?
• Item 19 — Does the company support public policy that could require mandatory climate change action by business?

In 2006, Apple’s score was “2.” I doubt that ClimateCounts.org has set aside a “most improved” award for the company’s 9-point 2007 pickup.

Note that I do not subscribe to any of this nonsense. “Climate friendliness” is part of the broader, dangerous notion of “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR). As I have noted before, companies that embrace CSR, or cynically give into it in the name of appeasement, are engaging in an an economic and ideological sellout to groups who are, at bottom, hostile to capitalism. The late Milton Friedman was and still is right when he wrote that CSR is a “fundamentally subversive doctrine,” and that “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.”

But, though he is careful about when and where he talks about it (note that his Nobel Prize acceptance speech makes no direct reference to business), Al Gore does subscribe to CSR.

Here’s an interesting possibility: One of the reasons Apple is financially outperforming its peers under Gore’s “oversight” may be that it’s not allowing itself to be overly distracted by CSR, and that Gore’s mere presence on the Board is enabling the company to escape activists’ wrath. If so, how “convenient.”

You would think that journalists who have swallowed whole the gospel of globaloney (my term for the mistaken beliefs that catastrophic global warming is taking place, and that it’s largely caused by human activity) to be giving Apple and Gore some, uh, heat over the company’s “disgraceful” (as ClimateCounts.org defines it) record of environmental stewardship.

But it appears that when you’re on the “free pass” list, all is forgiven.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.