Filed under: Education, Energy, Environment, Junk Science | Tags: Environmental Literacy, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/27/maryland-adds-environmental-literacy-in-high-schools/?test=latestnews, Junk Science
The state of Maryland has become the first state in the country to impose a new requirement for kids to graduate from high school—something called “environmental literacy.”
The new rule is a regulation from the State Board of Education, not a law passed by the legislature. Governor Martin O”Malley offers no details but praises it saying that “it will infuse core subjects with lessons about conservation and smart growth and the health of our natural world. O’Malley also said that it will also serve as a “foundation for green jobs.”
An analyst remarks that training for those is just like it is for any other job. “You need to know how to get there on time, how to be alert, how to work hard, how to absorb a lot of information, how to — learn new skills.
The state board of education leaves all content up to local school boards. Sarah Boder of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation supports the initiative and says that students could learn by doing. “Kids have the opportunity to participate in some real world learning, such as raising native oysters and replenishing reef habitat. By raising the oysters they can learn math and read about the history of oystering in the state of Maryland and throughout the Chesapeake Bay and that gets them excited and that helps to boost their achievement.”
Sounds like a pretty complicated way of getting kids to learn math. Could there possibly be political agenda? Well, in short, yes. The local school boards won’t get any extra money, so a group called the North American Association of Environmental Education offers a teacher’s guide.
An early passage from the guide says “consumption of natural resources, air and water pollution, and the impacts of climate change are among the many complex challenges that threaten human health, economic development, and national security.” It goes on to talk about the need to “take informed action.”
That’s not education, it’s indoctrination. Myron Ebell of CEI points out that “it’s propaganda and it’s designed to raise up a new generation of easily led and poorly educated and misinformed students.”
Beware of associations and groups that are just delighted to step in and offer all sorts of free materials to help with the education of your children. They usually have an agenda. When kids’ ability in math is a problem, it’s not wise to take more time away from the subject to play around with activist agendas. Environmental literacy, indeed. Our school have been busy indoctrinating kids in “environmentalism” because they can write papers about cute polar bears and find all sorts of pictures on the internet. Do they learn that polar bear numbers are increasing, and the bears are not endangered? Not likely.
They call them NGOs. Non-governmental organizations. Because they call themselves “an association” and have a website and a 501(3)C designation doesn’t mean that then are anything other than a bunch of activists with an agenda.
Filed under: Energy, Environment, Science/Technology | Tags: Junk Science, Roy W. Spencer PhD, The Left's Global Warming Agenda
A complete debunking of the left’s global warming agenda, from Roy W. Spencer, former NASA climatologist and climate expert. Dr. Spencer, at University of Alabama at Huntsville, continues his work with NASA as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite.
He has published two popular books on global warming that are completely accessible for those who are not scientists. He’s a good explainer. His first was Climate Confusion (2008), followed by The Great Global Warming Blunder, which has the coolest cover ever. And for more on this topic, purchase his new Broadside, “The Bad Science and Bad Policy of Obama’s Global Warming Agenda” by clicking here: http://amzn.to/jYWz
He has provided expert testimony to Congress several times on the subject of global warming.
[via @adamsbaldwin on Twitter]
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Humor, News | Tags: Adventures in Wonderland, Down the Rabbit Hole, north Korea
Some days it just feels like you fell down the rabbit hole and woke up in a really strange place. To wit, the new president of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament is — So Se Pyong of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
In his initial address to the Conference as president, So Se Pyong of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea said that the was very much committed to the Conference and during his presidency he welcomed any sort of constructive proposals that strengthened the work and credibility of the body. He was ready to work closely with all members to provide the grounds for strengthening their work. As president, he would be guided by the Rules of Procedure and take into account the position of each delegation to find common ground on substantive issues and procedural matters as well. With their support and cooperation, he would do everything in his capacity to move the Conference on Disarmament forward.
The retiring president, Ambassador Marius Grinius of Canada in his farewell address said:
[H]e would argue that the Conference on Disarmament was on life support because it no longer was the sole multilateral negotiating forum for disarmament. Indeed, it was not negotiating anything and had not been for a very long time. He suggested they must do more, by looking at the entire United Nations disarmament machinery and deciding whether this machinery was part of the problem or victim of political paralysis. The Conference on Disarmament was fast approaching an historic tipping point. They would need all of their collective wisdom, and perhaps some luck, at the General Assembly in the fall when it would decide what to do with the Conference on Disarmament.
And that is the word from UNOG, the United Nations Office at Geneva, in the Heart of Europe. If you have constructive proposals for the newly elected president of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, send them along to Mr. So Se Pyong. And if you see the rabbit, say Hi!
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy | Tags: Increasing Revenue, Obama's Press Conference, Raising Your Taxes
President Obama held a press conference today. The debt limit conference he turned over to Joe Biden has produced nothing. Congress has called for him to lead. He rejects the idea that he is not leading, though he has not participated in debt limit meetings, has refused to produce a budget, offers no proposals, and actions taken by the agencies of the executive branch keep eliminating more jobs.. He ignored the work of his Debt Commission. He invited Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan to the White House and savaged him.
He explained how hard he has been working. He has been doing Afghanistan, and Libya and Greece, and Congress hasn’t been doing all-nighters. His leadership on the budget has been notable only for its complete absence. Obama’s way is to stand back and let others argue and discuss, and at the last minute he will step in to summarize what has been said, and offer his own twist, then claim credit for the whole thing.
He wants to raise taxes. He does NOT want to cut spending. but wants to keep “investing” in his favored programs. What he’s there for and what his presidency is about, in his estimation, is to transform the country with his ideas of a clean green economy and end our dependence on dirty nasty fossil fuels. He really doesn’t understand this debt thing. He was handed a disaster by George W. Bush, and he shouldn’t be blamed for any of it. If there was anything that was made clear by this press conference, it is that Obama just does not understand basic economics.
Basic economics as well as common sense instructs that you do not raise taxes in a recession. It puts an additional burden on the very people that you are hoping will hire the unemployed. Democrats now talk about “increasing revenue” — and have even said that they don’t want to raise taxes, they just want to raise revenue. Uh huh!
Democrats have urged lawmakers to include in any potential debt deal — new spending measures in the form of infrastructure projects, clean energy subsidies and a payroll tax cut for employers — to “stimulate” the sluggish economy. They want more money for highway construction. “Get the recovery right before you get in this deficit-cutting mode,” Assistant Senate Democrat Leader Dick Durbin told reporters. “Get people back to work. Let’s start moving in that direction..” Been there, done that. That’s what Obama’s huge stimulus was all about — infrastructure projects, clean energy subsidies and a payroll tax cut for employers — and it was all, according to official statistics — a waste.
Obama simply does not understand why the economy is not creating jobs, and he does not understand how jobs are created. The first step to help business, he said, is his review of government regulations that might put an unnecessary burden on business, and they did eliminate the one about spilled milk being treated as an oil spill, and the new regulation will appear sometime. Yet the Dodd-Frank Bill puts so many new regulations on business that they are paralyzed. He’s launched a “partnership” with businesses and community colleges to train workers sometime soon for jobs that may appear sometime in the future. Congress could send him a bill, he said, putting construction workers back on the job rebuilding roads and bridges. We had a lot of people “trained” for green jobs in the last two years, but those “green jobs” just didn’t appear.
If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship. That means we’ve got to stop funding certain grants for medical research. That means that food safety may be compromised. That means that Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden
False choices, straw men, and complete misrepresentation of the budget problems. “Those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires” are the Bush “tax cuts for the rich,” a favorite Democrat talking point, but in the real world “the rich” got a smaller tax cut that anyone else. Having called out that straw man, he claims that if we don’t raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires then— no medical research? no good safety? no college scholarships? and all the old folks out there can now be terrified that Obama is going to take away their Medicare. Obama apparently sees the economy as a zero sum game — a pie, and if someone unfairly gets more, then everybody else gets cheated.
The corporate jet tax break was part of the Democrat’s stimulus plan in 2009. Taxing “Millionaires and Billionaires” (read small business filing as individuals) said economist Lawrence Lindsay, simply wouldn’t raise enough revenue over ten years to rescue the economy, let alone pay for Obama’s desired new spending. Many economists have explained that even if you took away all the millionaires and billionaires money — it still wouldn’t be enough.
It is an unusual moment when a president of the United States appears before the press and the nation to demonstrate that he simply hasn’t a clue about economics, at a time when the nation is in enormous peril simply because of his profligate spending.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Law, Liberalism | Tags: Consumer Product Safety Commission, Dumping Good Products, Regulating Baby Cribs
Today is the deadline for U.S. retailers to unload any unsold baby cribs that don’t meet the federal government’s new safety standards. There are something like 117,000 cribs that are headed to the dump. Oddly enough, they have never been declared unsafe. They are not considered unsafe, a hazard to children, or subject to recall. They simply do not meet the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s latest safety test. Any cribs that are unsold by today must be destroyed and sent to landfills. Perfectly good, perfectly safe cribs must be destroyed because some bureaucrats decided that drop-side cribs don’t meet the new paperwork.
The new safety regulations essentially prohibit drop-side cribs, and make retrofitting unused models very difficult. The new safety regulations are apparently unconcerned about millions of American mother’s backs! Been there, done that. The whole reason that drop-side cribs were invented is that lifting a heavy, wet baby in and out of a crib is very hard on the back, and I’m fairly tall. Short moms are out of luck. Retailers, in a sour economy, stand to lose at least $32 million according to the commission’s own estimates.
A related regulation applies to daycare providers, requiring that all cribs — regardless of age or condition must be replaced by December 28, 2012.
The commission was following a congressional mandate to update safety standards. The 100,000 number represents the inventory of just five retailers, so it may be vastly underestimated. The commission had the option to extend the deadline to spare businesses the hit in a down economy, but the Democrat-controlled commission refused to move the deadline.
This administration just cannot stop imposing new and damaging regulations on business. And Obama wonders why employers aren’t hiring. Look in the mirror, Mr. President.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Energy, Law | Tags: Bakken Formation, Obama's Clean Energy Folly, Oil Shale Deposits
President Obama’s hopes that his energy revolution will create something new and wonderful for the 21st Century. (It’s always the 21st Century). The problem is that most of the technologies aren’t new at all. Windmills are centuries old, the sun has always been a diffuse source. Electric cars have been promising miracles since around the turn of the last century (1900) if only, and as soon as… The engineers say that they have exhausted the periodic tables and known physics. Wind is too intermittent, solar energy is too diffuse (and the sun goes down at night).
But the U.S. is in the midst of an energy revolution. A gusher of natural gas from shale formations has the potential to transform energy production, and supply the country with energy for centuries. About ten years ago, Texas oil engineers hit upon the idea of combining two established technologies to release the natural gas trapped in shale formations. Horizontal drilling— in which wells turn sideways after reaching a certain depth — and a 50 year-old technique called hydraulic fracking — in which water, sand and chemicals are injected into a well at high pressure, to loosen the shale and release gas and increasingly — oil.
The Bakken formation, along the Montana North Dakota border, is thought to contain four billion barrels of oil — the biggest proven estimate outside of Alaska. The drilling boom is responsible for North Dakota’s unemployment rate of only 3.2% — the lowest in the country. Keep that in mind when the Obama administration remains bewildered about how to create jobs.
Well, we can’t have plentiful oil and gas making the President’s release of 60 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve look unimportant. Environmental organizations have challenged everything about fracking claiming that oil shale production techniques were unproven, dangerous, water supply, royalties too low, etc. etc. etc. Earthjustice filed two big lawsuits on behalf of 13 environmental groups to block, well, everything.
Ken Salazar said the administration was taking a “fresh look” at the rules. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the appointment of a seven-member panel to come up with new fracking rules and safety standards. This duo has demonstrated their cooperation with the environmental lobby in the Gulf, in spite of a contempt of court order by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman. The new panel will feature such energy enthusiasts as former Al Gore aide Kathleen McGinty and Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
I did mention that the fracking technique had been around — safely— for around 60 years. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 prevents the EPA from explicitly regulating fracking wells under the Safe Water Drinking Act. Both the EPA and the Ground Water Protection Council have published studies determining that no documented evidence of fracking-sourced groundwater pollution has been found. But the EPA is now looking at possible contamination. The real threat of fracking is to the Obama administration’s promotion of clean energy renewables. Access to abundant, inexpensive energy instead of expensive, job-killing renewable energy, would just be too helpful for the economy. Can’t have that!
Filed under: Capitalism, Conservatism, Economy, Law, Politics | Tags: 3rd District Pennsylvania, Helping the Economy, Rep. Mike Kelly
Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) serves on the Education and the Workforce Committee, Oversight and Government Reform committee., and Foreign Affairs. I can’t tell you how nice it is to hear someone who really gets it — tell it like it is!
(h/t: Maggie’s Farm)
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Energy | Tags: ATMs Kill Jobs?, Has Never Worked!, Picking Winners and Losers
It was just a little over a week ago that President Obama was explaining in an interview that one of the reasons the unemployment rate remained so high was that business had gotten more efficient, and had replaced workers with machines. When you went to the bank you used an ATM and didn’t go to a teller. (ATMs aren’t that recent). Many jokes made about this gaffe.
So the president followed this up on Saturday with a trip to Pittsburgh, PA to visit and praise RedZone, a new high-tech company that manufactures robots to inspect water and sewage pipes from the inside. So having blamed the high rate of unemployment on machines replacing human workers — now he’s boosting a company that makes robots. Oh ha, ha, ha.
“This company is just one example of how advanced manufacturing can help spur job-creation and economies across the country. That’s why this week, we launched what we’re calling an Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. It’s a partnership that brings our federal government together with some of America’s most brilliant minds and American’s most innovative companies and manufacturers.”
But at RedZone Robotics, “they’re not just solving problems, they’re working with unions to create jobs operating the robots, and they’re saving cities millions of dollars in infrastructure costs.” Oh, RedZone is not creating jobs, they’re trying to get municipal unions (government workers) to hire more union employees to operate the robots. More government jobs, more government unions, with all the pension and collective bargaining problems that entails.
The Washington Post notes that “with trips that began two months after he took office, President Obama has devoted more than half of his out-of-town private-business visits to promoting a single industry: clean technology, which the president says will lead the nation back to economic prosperity. He’s made 19 trips to 22 clean technology companies, ranging from solar cells to electric car batteries to windows and new lighting. In the 2008 campaign, he promised $150 billion for innovative energy projects. and investors such as those with National Venture Capital Associates have been generous with their support for the Obama campaign, and have gotten jobs r advisory positions with the administration.
Unfortunately most of these start-up companies employ only modest numbers of people: nothing that would compare with the thousands of high paying jobs provided by the petroleum industry when they are not being blocked by administration policies refusing permits, shutting down coal-fired power plants, closing off oil-bearing lands from drilling.
The administration is picking clean-tech “winners and losers” by pouring “government money” into a sector best determined by the free-market. “Government money” was the WaPo phrase. Is it necessary to remind them that the government has no money of its own? Governments, particularly an administration that has fewer people who have ever worked in the private sector than any administration in American history, don’t know squat about picking successful technologies or skilled management.
David Axlerod, Obama’s campaign guru, said admiringly a few days ago that Obama was absolutely consistent. Richard Epstein, who knew him at University of Chicago, described the same quality a little differently. He said Obama is very dogmatic in terms of substantive positions. His ideas are set in concrete, and he does not change his mind. Sounds like he does not learn from the evidence, or from the experience of others — but I have never met the man.
Congress is asking questions about some of the political connections of some companies that have received federal help. The most attention has focused on Solyndra, a Silicon Valley solar company that had received a $535 million federal loan guarantee. Obama visited the company’s factory in May 2010, only weeks after independent auditors had questioned whether the company could remain a “going concern.”
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations said he is “concerned that there was a hurry to get this money out of the door and that companies and individuals that supported the president were among the beneficiaries.
A month after Obama’s visit, the company withdrew its public offering plans. In November Solyndra announced that it would close its older factory and reduce its workforce by 127 people. Company officials said they never intended to hire 1,000 additional workers, but thought they could create that many jobs in the related supply chain. Analysts don’t think their product is viable.
Solyndra is not alone in profiting from government largess. There are many others, and evidence of crony capitalism, big campaign donations, and successful companies that have the misfortune to exist in Republican strongholds. No Obama visits for them.
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Military, National Security, Terrorism, The United States | Tags: "Cut and Run Speech", Obama's Afghan Disaster, Way Forward in Afghanistan
President Obama’s “cut and run” Afghanistan speech has caused a blossoming of unintended consequences. “Can the last NATO ally out of Afghanistan please turn off the lights?” said the Wall Street Journal. By Thursday morning France’s Nicholas Sarkozy had endorsed the U.S. pullback and unveiled his own plans to withdraw a quarter of his own troops, starting next month.
Poland’s Prime Minister will conform their actions to the US strategy, and move their 2,560 soldiers from combat to training. Germany, Italy and Canada had already planned to reduce their troops. The U.S. does the bulk of the heavy fighting, and other NATO nations play a supporting role. If America says they’re heading out, their allies aren’t going to stick around.
The military leadership believes the decision is a mistake, especially the decision to withdraw the remainder of the surge troops by September 2012, but they have no choice but to endorse the president’s decision after giving him their best advice. The Chairman of the Joint chiefs said that they believe the decision will increase the risk to the troops and increase the chance that the mission will not succeed. The president’s decision is based on a political calculation, and he wants the troops out two months before the 2012 election, so he can brag about bringing our boys home.
Mr. Obama forgets that the Taliban will receive the news of his speech too, and will direct their efforts accordingly. he U.S made a huge mistake in turning its back on Afghanistan when the Soviets pulled out in 1989. Now Obama seems ready to make the same mistake.
Obama has been consistent in his opposition to the War in Iraq, calling it “a dumb war,” and indicating that the only real war was in Afghanistan to pursue Osama bin Laden. Clearly, his understanding of the military and what they do is unusually superficial. He doesn’t understand the language (corpse-man?), and I’d guess has never read a history of a war— any war. No Tom Clancy or Harold Coyle in his vacation reading either.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan he has made the mistake of telling our enemies there when we would leave, so they could make their plans accordingly. He is far more comfortable sending drones to kill the enemy than with military strategy, yet under Obama the U.S. casualty rate has increased 5-fold. The withdrawal plan signals to both our Afghan allies and enemy forces that the U.S. is more committed to withdrawing its forces than to the long-term go al of stabilizing the country. The words “win” or “victory” have never to my knowledge crossed his lips. Oh wait— there’s the ubiquitous “win the future.”
“Now,” he said, “we must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industries, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy. “
The man is obsessed with infrastructure (always crumbling), and maybe this time it will be “shovel-ready.” But did you notice that “living within our means.” Gosh, last year we spent a trillion dollars more than we received in revenue. Living within our means indeed!
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Freedom, Politics, Progressivism, Taxes | Tags: "new revenues?", Government Must Shrink!, How to Help the Economy
Everything the federal government does costs money— whether it’s the motorcade to the golf course at Andrews Air Force Base or the missiles expended in Libya. There are only two ways to get the money, your wallet or to print it. And if they print too much it diminishes the value of what is in your wallet.
Democrats just cannot get their minds around the concept of spending less. In all the discussion about the debt crisis, the steadily increasing unemployment rate, they go back to the same tired themes. If the stimulus didn’t work, it was only because it wasn’t big enough! They need more stimulus, even though the last one was wasted.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) argued that Republicans are focusing on the deficit at the peril of the economy, and that infrastructure spending and support for clean energy are other stimulus measures that should be considered by Congress. If it hurts to bang your head on the wall, to fix it you should bang it longer and harder?
The American people have their own budgetary problems, and they know how to deal with them. If the spending is bigger than income— they cut back on the spending. If they get in big trouble and have to go to a debt counselor, they are taught how to cut back on the spending. How come these “progressive” nitwits in Congress cannot understand that the principle is the same for the country? Because Fairy Dust trumps common sense. In Fairydustworld, you just change the language a little, and tax increases will be made cooler by changing the phrase to “new revenues.”
Sen. Max Baucus said “new revenues had to be part of a balanced deal to reduce spending and increase the country’s borrowing authority.” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that “we need to raise new revenues in order to reinvest in the sources of our strength; education, infrastructure and government-funded research to push out the boundaries of knowledge.
Raising tax rates does not necessarily bring in more money. People have options, and can arrange their affairs so as to pay less taxes. Businesses have been moving from high-tax states to low-tax states at a tremendous rate. Businesses move overseas. People move overseas. Capital goes where it is wanted and stays where it is well treated.
A Mr. Hawkins commented plaintively at the Corner:
Presented with abundant evidence, the American people have rightly judged Obama economic policies failures, and they recognize he intends to continue those policies. Thus they expect the economy to continue to muddle along at best.
True, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. As a small business owner I’m not only sitting on my hands in terms of expansion and hiring, I’m paring back expenses wherever possible, getting as lean as I can. To say I’ve lost confidence in Obamanomics is like saying the liberal media has lost confidence in Sarah Palin’s ability to govern if elected. True enough, but it goes a little beyond loss of confidence.
Obama & Company scare the crap out of me and I look at them in the same way a three-legged caribou looks at a pack of wolves running up alongside. The assault on folks like me comes on many fronts—business taxes, personal taxes, regulations, inflation, energy prices, Obamacare, etc. I have no way to reasonably outline any business plan(s) for the short or the long term. All of the variables are up in the air. Healthcare costs? Who knows? Energy costs? Got me. Tax rates and levies? Who could say?
It is further exacerbated by the fact that I cannot predict what these jackals might still do to hurt me.With most administrations or congresses,whether you agree with them or not, at least you could usually predict the limits of harm or help they might do you. Not with this Obama crew, and not with the Dems in Congress.
Just a comment on a blog, but I think he speaks for multitudes.
Treasury Secretary Geithner says that the Obama administration believes that taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.” But that’s what the people want, Mr. Geithner. We want to shrink the overall size of government programs.
Democrats cannot conceive of a world where they do not have extra money to do favors for unions and Hispanics and LGBT programs, and poor people and African-Americans, illegal immigrants, anti-war activists, green activists, ethanol producers, wind energy companies, electric car makers, battery makers, window factories, turbine makers, General Electric, teachers unions, schools, solar-cell makers. If they don’t do subsidies and bailouts, regulation and favors who would vote for them?
How come just doing what’s right for the country, encouraging the free market, freeing business from over-regulation is so frightening? It always works.
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Freedom, Israel, National Security, The United States | Tags: American Foreign Policy, Michelle Bachmann, The State of Israel
Michelle Bachmann has been a long-time and consistent supporter of the State of Israel. It is refreshing to see an American politician, and presidential candidate, take a firm stand in supporting our allies. These Republican women are a force to be reckoned with. Brains, beauty, loyalty, common sense and clarity.
(h/t: Powerline)
