Filed under: Africa, Developing Nations, Energy, Foreign Policy, Health Care, The United States | Tags: No Cars- No Air Conditioning, Quietly Renovating a Clinic, Solyndra for Africa
President Barack Obama told a town hall in Johannesburg, South Africa on Saturday that “Ultimately, if you think about all of the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning and everybody has got a big house, well the planet will boil over — unless we find new ways of producing energy.”
According to Obama global warming constitutes “the biggest challenge we have environmentally,” one greater than all other environmental calamities like “dirty water, dirty air.” Sorry, not true. The World health Organization estimates the “global warming” is responsible for approximately 140,000 deaths each year.
The greatest problem that we can actually do something about is unclean drinking water. According to UNESCO, unsanitized water causes billions of preventable diseases annually: from diarrhea (4 billion), cholera (120,000), malaria (300-500 million), intestinal parasites (25% of world’s population) typhoid (12 million), trachoma (6 million), and schistosomeisis (200 million) — listed from the highest to the least affected. We know how to treat water to make it safe, even in the far abroad. There is absolutely nothing that we can do that will affect global warming in the slightest.
Somehow that just doesn’t come across too well. The president flies in on Air Force One, with a bunch of cargo planes in tow to carry the 12 limousines, and that already puts the trip over $25 million, and he tells the Africans that they can’t have air conditioning and cars and big houses, because he’s still stuck in AlGore fantasy land. He implied several times that the U.S. would only encourage growth in Africa if it is grounded in “clean energy strategies.” I imagine there are a lot of places in Africa where solar energy could provide some energy in a place where none has been obtainable, and the cost of solar panels has been dropping. Some energy is preferable to none at all. But the president apparently has in mind some big investment like Solyndra. Uh huh.
George W. Bush and Laura are in Africa too, but they are quietly helping to renovate a women’s clinic in Zambia, U2 frontman Bono, who is an activist for the poor and sick in Africa is crediting evangelical Christians and former President George W. Bush for saving 9 million from the ravages of AIDS, a campaign the musician says is blessed by God. Barack Obama cut back on the AIDS funds, last year and this. Priorities.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Election 2014, Health Care, Law, Politics | Tags: Delayed till 2015, Employer Mandate, ObamaCare Rollout
The Obama administration has announced that Businesses won’t be penalized if they don’t provide workers health insurance, a key requirement under the health care law, administration officials said. We’ll put it all off till after the election. That sounds a bit familiar, like the unscrupulous tactics the Obamaites used to get reelected the last time round. Hide anything unpleasant—like you are going to lose your job—until after the election, so you won’t notice that ObamaCare is a train-wreck coming and you are unfortunately sitting on the track.
The mandate for all employers with over 50 employees to provide coverage for their workers is throwing a lot of people out of work or has reduced their hours to under 30 hours so they no longer qualify as full-time workers. Many of the less costly insurance plans, such as those that offer only hospital care, are being eliminated and the cost of average coverage is in many cases, doubling. Employers with many lower wage workers simply cannot afford the increased cost, and are forced to drop workers hours to avoid the rise.
Putting a lot of people out of work, or scrambling to find a way to cope with their pay suddenly cut in half is not a good way to approach an election in which you are hoping to gain seats in the House and Senate. You can trust Obama to use all the available levers of government to avoid having poorly-informed voters understand what the actions of the Obama administration are planning to do to them. Expect major spin.
The moves might draw criticism that the administration will not be able to put into effect its signature legislative accomplishment on schedule. But having people think critically about the hard work and difficult tasks in trying to roll out such a wonderful law trumps having people recognize that the train-wreck of ObamaCare has destroyed their jobs and left them dependent on Medicaid.
Interesting that the administration has no problem adjusting the law passed by Congress to suit their electoral needs without any authorization to do so from Congress. They don’t bother with all that legal stuff, they just do what is convenient.
Filed under: Politics | Tags: Drawing a Line in the Harbor, The Destruction of the Tea
December 16, 1773
At the time, they called it “the destruction of the tea.” the term “the Boston Tea Party” came along much later. No wonder the term “The Tea Party” scares Liberals so much.
John Singleton Copley, the Boston artist whose subjects included Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, was traveling in Italy when he heard the news of Lexington and Concord. He wrote home to his Tory half-brother, urging him to leave the country, and the war to others.
The flame of civil war is now broke out in America, and I have not the least doubt it will rage with a violence equal to what it has ever done in any other country at any time. You are sensible also by this time of the determined resolutions of Government to persevere in vigorous measures, and what will keep them firm in this determination is that they act as (at least) four-fifths of the people would have them they so resent the outrage offered to them in the destruction of the tea…
You must also know, I think that the people hae gone too far to retract and that they will adopt the proverb which says, “When the sword of rebellion is drawn the sheath should be thrown away.” And the Americans have it in their power to baffle all that England can do against them. I don’t mean to ward off the evils attendant on civil war, but so far as never to be subdued, so that oceans of blood will be shed to humble a people which they never will subdue. And the Americans, from the idea that England would not act against them, have tempted its power to the extreme and drawn all its weight of rage upon them, and after they have, with various success, deluged the country in blood, the issue will be that the Americans will be a free independent people.
from Rebels and Redcoats
Filed under: Freedom, History, Military, Politics, The United States, United Kingdom | Tags: Assembled in Philadelphia, The Army Awaits in Boston, The Continental Congress
June 16, 1775.
“When the Congress convened in the morning, John Hancock, from the chair, informed Washington of is appointment and expressed the hope of the Congress that George Washington, Esquire, would accept their choice of him as General and Commander-in-Chief of the forces raised and to be raised for the defense of America. The Colonel bowed, took a paper from his pocket and read:”
Mr. President: Though I am truly sensible of the high honor don me in this appointment, yet I feel great distress from a consciousness that my abilities and military experience may not be equal to the extensive and important trust. However, as the Congress desire, I will enter upon the momentous duty, and exert every power I possess in their service, and for the support of the glorious cause: I beg they will accept my most cordial thanks for this distinguished testimony of their approbation.
But, lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.
As to pay, sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to have acce3pted this arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it; I will keep an exact account of my expenses; those I doubt not they will discharge ,and that is all I desire.
And so it began.
“On June 23, Washington wrote a short note to his “Dearest,” and armed with his commission and instructions from the Congress, mounted his horse for the long ride northward to his army.”
from Rebels and Redcoats.
American Elephants 