Filed under: American Elephant, Humor, News, Science/Technology, Television | Tags: Laverne and Shirley, Robotics
Opening a car door or turning up the heating at home could become just a wish away with Honda’s new technology that connects thoughts inside your brain with a robot.
And all it requires is wearing an enormous dorky Death Star helmet with dozens of brain-sucking sensors protruding from your melon while lugging around a computer the size of a small dumpster.
How convenient!
Certainly far more convenient than these clumsy, obsolete devices already attached to my brain…called hands!
Honda said the technology wasn’t quite ready for a live demonstration because of possible distractions in the person’s thinking.
Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
Filed under: Environment, News, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Environment, Red River Floods
Not only all the misery of flood water, but icy cold as well. Good neighbors at work.
Filed under: Conservatism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Energy, Environment, Health Care, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Demagogues, Economy, Politics
Judd Gregg, R-NH, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the GOP Weekly Radio Address, and warns that President Obama’s budget spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much. Good address, important warning, devastating facts.
Here is the transcript:
Hello, I’m Judd Gregg, Senator from New Hampshire. We all know these are difficult times. People are worried about keeping their jobs, paying their bills, the value of their homes and the cost of sending their kids to college. It’s hard.
“Thus I appreciate, as do all Americans, the efforts being made by our President and his seriousness about addressing these issues.
“But what concerns many of us are his proposals in the budget he recently sent to the Congress that dramatically grow the size and cost of government and move it to the left.
“It is our opinion that this plan spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much.
“You may have heard this before that the budget of the President spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much.
“What do we mean? Well, let me give you a few examples.
“In the next five years, President Obama’s budget will double the national debt; in the next ten years it will triple the national debt.
“To say this another way, if you take all the debt of our country run up by all of our presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush, the total debt over all those 200-plus years since we started as a nation, it is President Obama’s plan to double that debt in just the first five years that he is in office.
“He is also planning to spend more on the government as a percentage of our economy than at any time since World War II.
“His budget assumes the deficit will average $1 trillion dollars every year for the next 10 years and will add well over $9 trillion dollars in new debts to our children’s backs.
“He also is proposing the largest tax increase in history, much of it aimed at taxing small business people who have been, over the years, the best job creators in our economy. And further, he is proposing a massive new national sales tax on your electric bill. So that every time you turn on a light switch in your house, you will be hit with a new tax — and it averages over $3,000 per household.
“These are staggering numbers and represent an extraordinary move of our government to the left.
“The President to his credit is not trying to hide this; in fact he is very forthright in stating that he believes that by greatly expanding the spending, the taxing and the borrowing of our government, this will lead us to prosperity.
“Here of course is where we differ. We believe you create prosperity by having an affordable government that pursues its responsibilities without excessive costs, taxes or debt. That it is the individual American who creates prosperity and good jobs, not the government.
“We believe that you create energy independence not by sticking Americans with a brand new national sales tax on everyone’s electric bill, but by expanding the production of American energy, such as environmentally sound off-shore drilling, nuclear power, wind, solar while also conserving more.
“We also believe you improve everyone’s health care not by nationalizing the health care system and putting the government between you and your doctor, but by assuring that every American has access to quality health insurance and choices in health care.
“We believe that you run a sound and affordable government not by running up the national debt to historic levels and unsustainable levels while over-taxing working Americans and spending as if there is no tomorrow, but rather by working on limiting the growth of government in a manner that is affordable not only today but for the next generation through limiting spending and addressing core issues like the cost of entitlements.
“Our nation has an exceptional history of one generation passing on to the next generation a more prosperous and stronger country, but that tradition is being put at risk. The dramatic move to the left and the massive increase in the size and cost of the government, proposed by the budget of President Obama, will lead to an immense national debt that not only threatens the value of the dollar and puts at risk our ability to borrow money to run the government. But it will also place our children at a huge disadvantage as they inherit this debt which will make their chances of success less than those given to us by our parents. It is not right for one generation to do that to another generation.
“Rather, we believe that if you properly steward the responsibilities of the government, if you do not spend too much, if you do not tax too much, if you do not borrow too much, we can leave our children a better nation where they will have even greater opportunity for prosperity, peace and freedom.
“Thank you for taking the time to listen, and have a great weekend.”
Transcript via Free Republic.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Energy, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Demagogues, Economy, Environment, Gas Prices
The Transportation Department has released its requirements for the first increase in passenger car fuel efficiency in 25 years — the first step in what will be extensive reform for the nations truck and car fleets. The standards for model year 2011 passenger cars will have to average 30.2 mpg, and light trucks 24.1 mpg for cars that will hit the showrooms in September of 2010. Look for more increases to come.
The new fuel efficiency standards are estimated to cost the auto industry $1.5 billion. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that price increases as a result will average $64 for passenger cars and $126 for light trucks. Passenger car buyers will be repaid in fuel savings in an average of 4.4 years, or in 7.7 years for pickups, SUVs or minivans.
Do you get the feeling that the right hand knows not what the left hand is doing? This is, I believe, the same auto industry that is receiving bailouts and needs more?
Representative John Dingell, D-Dearborn, said that Obama and his aides “recognize the auto industry is in a period of transition.” I guess you could call it a “transition.”
Representative Ed Markey,D-MA, chairman of the House Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence, praised the regulation.
With gas prices once again on the rise, I am pleased to see the Obama administration taking this historic first step towards reducing our dependence on foreign oil and helping revitalize the domestic auto industry. I look forward to working with the president to ensure that future standards are based on realistic assumptions and sound science.
I do not pretend to understand this. I guess it all makes sense if you believe that global warming is a vast danger to the earth, that extracting petroleum from American earth is something akin to rape, and that charging the auto industry another billion and a half will fill their empty coffers. But then I have no idea how to build a car.
Filed under: Europe, Global Warming, News, Politics, Socialism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Climate Change, United Nations, World Economy
Climate realists for years have been warning that the entire global warming myth was politics, not science. And above all, it was a scheme to redistribute wealth under the guise of saving the planet.
In a document obtained by FOX News, the United Nations has confirmed suspicions, and made it official. FOX News executive editor George Russell reported Friday:
A United Nations document on “climate change” that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.
Those and other results are blandly discussed in a discretely worded United Nations “information note” on potential consequences of the measures that industrialized countries will likely have to take to implement the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Treaty, after it is negotiated and signed by December 2009.[...]
The 16-page note, obtained by FOX News, will be distributed to participants at a mammoth negotiating session that starts on March 29 in Bonn, Germany, the first of three sessions intended to hammer out the actual commitments involved in the new deal.
In typical UN bureaucratic language, the negotiators are known as “the AD Hoc Working Group On Further Commitments For Annex I Parties Under the Kyoto Protocol”. The Consequences, if adopted, would be world-changing. The UN is well known for overreaching power grabs, and for utter corruption as well. Remember “Oil for Food?” That UN scheme was supposed to allow Iraq to sell enough oil to buy food on the world market for their people. It ended up in the pockets of UN Bureaucrats and Saddam Hussein — millions and millions.
What would this agreement mean if adopted? Loss of sovereignty, loss of control over trade , manufacturing, energy production and business in general. Destruction of our economy. Little things like that.
The problem is that the case for global warming is falling apart, not only because the planet has been cooling for the last decade, but because the UN’s IPCC claims are proving false, one by one. The climate is always changing. It has been far warmer in the past — times like the Medieval Warm Period — the best climate ever known, and far colder during periods like the Little Ice Age, and the Dark Ages. This year saw snow in Saudi Arabia for the first time known.
Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant, but a colorless, odorless gas that is essential to life. In the atmosphere it is only a trace gas, and the amount produced by human activity is too small to measure. It is, however, a natural fertilizer that makes plants grow. The amount now in the atmosphere is at the low end of what is required by plant life for optimum growth, and as the earth is currently cooling, more CO2 would help.
The EPA is busily trying to regulate CO2 as a pollutant dangerous to man (certainly the amount of hot CO2 exhaled in the chambers of the Capitol building is increasingly dangerous) but the rest of us exhale it every time we breathe. There is a lot of power grab behind that designation. The EPA has a disgraceful record including the designation of DDT as too dangerous to be used and thereby killed millions of children from preventable malaria by not being allowed to spray their huts with DDT.
Europe is retreating from all the green mandates. Cap and Trade has been devastating. Green jobs have not been forthcoming. Goals of carbon reduction have not been met. Wind has not been reliable in spite of vast subsidies, and colder weather has begun to emphasize the need for more energy to keep warm, while Russia rations supplies of natural gas.
Do read the FOX document linked above. Be persistent in getting past the bureaucratese, there are details on page 6. FOX News Blog’s article is here, and Rick Moran’s article from American Thinker is here. Take the time to read.
If times were normal, we could depend on Congress to reject this whole thing promptly. But these are strange times, and there are strange and dangerous ideas abroad.
Filed under: Conservatism, Economy, Europe, Freedom, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Daniel Hannan, Economy, European Parliament, Fiscal Responsibility, Gordon Brown
A little over 24 hours ago, Daniel Hannan, Member of the European Parliament for South East England, stood up in the European Parliament to challenge Prime Minister Gordon Brown. As Mr. Hannan notes on his blog, politics has changed forever. This short video has gone viral on the internet, with Conservatives cheering.
Conservatives here are waiting for someone to take on President Obama in similar fashion. This reckless disregard of fiscal sanity must stop. Feel free to cheer!
British politicians, because of the way their parliament works, learn to speak very well. British schools however are abandoning history, even their own history, so this will probably change.
They don’t even teach about Churchill anymore.
Filed under: Economy, Entertainment, Humor, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Economy, Humor, Politics
Sometimes all that is left is laughter. Here’s a British view of the subprime crisis, as only the Brits could explain it.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Military, Politics, Progressivism., Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Demagogues, Economy, Homeland Security, Obama, War on Terror
There are times when it seems as if we have slipped into an alternate universe. The President of the United States, after an appearance on a late night comedy show, has gone campaigning. His campaign organization, Organizing for America, is collecting signatures on pledges to support Obama’s budget. Is there something a little strange about ginning-up support for a budget by accosting clueless people on the street or in malls?
The Two-Minute Hate Program managed to rouse numerous people across America to deliver death threats to employees of the AIG financial group. Never mind that the employees who did the dirty deeds are long gone, and the remaining folk have agreed to stay on to help wind things down only because they were offered a contractual retention bonus to help out. They were demonized by members of the House of Representatives who devised a special (unconstitutional) retroactive 90% tax on their perfectly legal retention bonuses totaling $165 million, while ignoring the $5 billion in bailout money that the company has already received — that the Democrats hoped no one would notice. And if that wasn’t enough, ACORN organized bus tours to “look at” the homes of AIG executives.
Since the last CBO budget review in January, Democrats have passed laws that increase spending by $134 billion in the last six months of this fiscal year alone, and $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years — before we have seen the President’s 2010 budget proposals — the ones the volunteers are collecting signature support for.
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a plan to set up a new “volunteer corps” and consider whether a “workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people” should be developed. The legislation refers to “uniforms” that would be worn by the “volunteers” and the “need” for a “public service academy, a 4-year institution” to “focus on training” future “public sector leaders” The training would occur at “campuses.” (h/t protein wisdom) There is just something special about “mandatory volunteerism.” Last year Obama spoke of his “National Civilian Security Force” in which he supported creating an organization as big and as well-funded as the military.
Liberals believe in their good intentions. Conservatives care about the consequences. Who is going to do the volunteering that has formed the backbone of America when you have a paid “mandatory volunteer” uniformed army?
“The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation,” according to the New York Times. The administration could seek to put the changes into effect through regulations rather than through legislation. ( Such a bore, having to vote on things). Is there the slightest evidence, anywhere, that anyone in Washington has even the slightest clue about what is in the financial interest of a business enterprise, or what causes positive corporate performance?
Democrats are trying to abolish the rights of workers to secret ballots in unionization elections. The secret ballot is workers’ protection to insure that they are not intimidated into voting for a union that they might otherwise not choose. Last year, Mexico’s highest court unanimously affirmed for Mexicans the right that Democrats want to take from Americans. Banning the secret ballot in America!
The U.S. Constitution says that treaties, like NAFTA, are the “supreme law of the land.” With the approval of a president who supposedly taught Constitutional Law, Congress has shredded the North American Free Trade Agreement. They used the omnibus spending bill to abolish a program that would comply with our obligation to allow Mexican long-haul trucks on U.S. roads.
Mexico, in retaliation, has resorted to tariffs on many U.S. goods, which should send a Smoot-Hawley chill down American backs.
The Democrat Congress is voting to ignore the Constitution’s stipulation that the House shall be composed of members chosen “by the people of the several states,” and is pretending that the District of Columbia is a state.
China has suggested that the dollar should no longer be the world’s reserve currency. Two long-range Russian bombers buzzed the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis at 500 feet when it was in international waters. Russia spun the notion that they might base their bombers in Cuba, last week. The Chinese started harassing an unarmed US Navy exploration vessel, requiring the US to send armed escorts into the international waters of the South China Sea. North Korea is about to launch an ICBM with a range that reportedly could easily include American territory.
And to finish up the week, Obama appeared on 60 Minutes. Among other questions in the interview Kroft brought up Dick Cheney’s criticism of closing Guantanamo Bay. Obama said:
After all these years, how many convictions came out of Guantanamo? How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn’t made us safer.
As John Hawkins said “If Obama believes that the purpose of Gitmo is to get “convictions” of terrorists, you have to question whether he has even the most basic understanding of the war on terror he ’s currently in charge of fighting.”
Guantanamo is there to hold captured terrorists, to keep them from killing more Americans, and for interrogations that are designed to gain information to keep them from killing more Americans. Obama seems to think they should be tried in a criminal court. And released in the US, as the administration may do with some terrorists who cannot be returned to their native country.
We have indeed slipped the bounds of Earth and entered some strange alternate world. We must have.
Filed under: American Elephant, Fun n Games | Tags: Germany, hobbies, model railroads
Quite possibly the coolest thing ever made! I want! I want!
The Miniatur Wunderland model railroad in Hamburg, Germany is the largest in the world, covering 16,146 square feet of space with more than 10,000 train cars running around its 6.8 miles of HO scale track. Now, the makers of this huge layout have created a video that gives you a jaw-dropping look at the vast scope of this intricate work of art. Its construction started in 2000, and is still underway, with a tiny airport due for completion by the end of this year. This is just the beginning — there are plans to double to layout by 2014. [read more, photo gallery here]
…and with an estimated value of around $20 million, I can see no reason why I shouldn’t have it!
Filed under: Entertainment, Fun n Games, Humor, News of the Weird, The Elephant's Child, Uncategorized
And here you have some imaginative Welshmen and their sheep and their wonderful border collies. What a delight! Don’t miss this one.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Politics, Progressivism., Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Congress, Democrat Demagogues, Obama, Politics
New forecasts of the president’s budgetary proposals are due from the Congressional Budget Office on Friday, and they are apparently bad news for the White House. The White House has already admitted that the Obama budget will produce deficits of over $6.9 trillion, the CBO may add another $1.5 trillion to that.
According to the story coming out, CBO will say that the president’s budget will burden the country with a budget deficit of more than $700 billion in 2014 — a little higher than the Obama team’s prediction of $570 billion. CBO estimates of economic growth were far less than Blue Chip forecasts, and this should also affect the debate in Congress. Or at least one would think so. Costs way more, takes in far less.
This should be a dash of cold water on congressional democrats. But top aides to the president met on Wednesday evening in the Capitol with House Democratic allies to plan expedited budget procedures to advance Obama’s healthcare initiative past Senate filibuster threats. Obama has gone out campaigning. He is, it seems, totally unconcerned about how much this all costs the country. He wants all his ideas passed now.
In spite of mountains of evidence that show that electronic medical records will not save any significant amount of money, President Obama is pushing EMR as a money-saving plan. Studies show that not only does it not save money, it produces little, if any, improvement in the quality of care. And even Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget director, has said that health care will cost far more than is estimated.
Nancy Pelosi is talking (already) about a second stimulus plan. She would also like to bail out the San Francisco Chronicle, her home town newspaper. I know that Democrats had a lot of pent-up desires after being out of power for so long, but this is getting ridiculous. They have no restraint, no ethics, no honor. They forget why they are there. They are not there to control us, to destroy our economy in their desperate quest for power, but as our servants. They serve at our pleasure.
The White House just announced that, since they have so much free time, they will shortly take up reformation of Immigration. You couldn’t make this up. Nobody would believe it.
With all this, congressional democrats are pretending outrage over a problem that they caused. They are blaming AIG CEO Ed Liddy, who came out of retirement to work for a dollar a year, to try to clean up the AIG mess. He wasn’t even at AIG when any of the problems occurred.
The $165 million in bonuses that Congress is so “worked up about”, are retention bonuses. That is, if people will stay on, instead of quitting as most would want to do, they will get a contracted bonus to make staying worthwhile. The necessity for this, you can imagine, if they had to bring in new people to sort out the problems — who wouldn’t even know where the files were. Congress has been trying to use the phony outrage to cover their own outrageous actions. So Speaker Pelosi has led the House to pass a clearly unconstitutional bill, specifically taxing at a 90% rate, those who received, under contract, retention bonuses and did not give them back.
I think they have all gone quite mad.
Filed under: Freedom, Heartwarming, Iraq, Military, News, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democracy, Iraq, President Bush, Support the Troops!, War on Terror
U.S. combat deaths in Iraq are at a 6 year low. Three Marines have been killed in combat since last August. The Navy has not lost a member to combat since February of 2008. The Air Force hasn’t had a combat death since last April. In some weeks the number of non-combat deaths for U.S. troops has topped those killed in fighting.
Iraqis’ faith in government institutions has vastly improved. 84 percent of Iraqis feel good about their security, 78% feel positive about crime protection, and 74 percent are positive about their freedom of movement. These figures come from an ABC News/BBC poll that documents the improvements in Iraq.
64 percent of Iraqis prefer Democracy as the political system for Iraq. Only 14 percent prefer a strong leader and only slightly more, 16 percent would prefer an Islamic state. George Bush was right.
A poll finding that was particularly interesting was that 53 percent of Iraqis say they “never” attend mosque, while another 11 percent attend “several times a year”. This is certainly not what we have been led to believe
The people have confidence in the Iraqi Police and the Iraqi Army at 74 percent and 73 percent respectively. 61 percent have confidence in the National Government. And Iraqis are optimistic about their future. That is very, very nice to hear, and we wish them well.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Media Bias, News, Politics, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Demagogues, Economy, Liberal lies, Politics
The news today has been full of AIG, death threats that AIG people have received from the useful idiots, and the incompetence of the Democrats in charge. As one headline said, “So Many Democrats, So Much Phony Outrage.” I do not wish to write about it any further. Here is Shepard Smith, expressing himself, with a little more than righteous indignation.
