NC Media Watch

Wisconsin Republican's won 53 percent of recall vote

Russ Steele

While the local left are stumbling all over themselves, the GOP won by comfortable margins in Districts that went for Obama in 2010. It must have been those pesky Tea Party folks who are responsible again for defeating the Democrats.  According to the Democrats they were responsible for the rating down grade, so with that much power they must have been responsible for swinging  the Wisconsin vote to the Republicans as well.  Or, it could have been just the wisdom of Wisconsin voters. Either way, it is bad news for Obama in 2012.

Barry Pruett has some thought on this election here worth your consideration. 

Prop 23 Update: Anthony asks a critical question

Russ Steele

Anthony Watts has an interesting post on the Death of a carbon salesman: Chicago Climate Exchange

The Chicago Climate Change is no more.  Here is his question:

Makes you wonder what the bloviator in chief at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), Mary Nichols is going to do with their much ballyhooed (but delayed) idea of carbon trading in California?

Ackerman on a roll this morning

Russ Steele

I do not always agree with the Editor/Publisher of the Union,  but this morning you should take a peek at his weekly colum : We brought this economic mess upon ourselves

How did it all come down to … this? How did our credit rating drop too low to qualify for a used car loan?

Let's start with the rules and regulations. Federal, state and local governments have regulated most U.S. companies to death, driving up the cost of production to the point where it is far cheaper to make things in China, where companies are not bound by the same environmental and labor laws.

We don't seem to have a problem with the pollution, or slave labor, so long as it happens outside our borders.

And unions haven't helped themselves much, often bleeding the companies to the point where they can't compete in a global marketplace. We need look no further than the U.S. auto industry to see evidence of that.

We also love our gold, silver and oil, so long as it comes from mines and rigs sitting outside our borders. We're sitting on maybe 2 million ounces of gold right here in the Gold Country — at $1,600 per ounce — but can't get it. Never mind that this community was built on the backs of miners.

America could drill, mine and grow out way out of this economic mess, but we refused to help ourselves.

Al Gore, party of one, your rubber room is ready (Updated)

Russ Steele

I was not going to post this embarassing rant by Al Gore at the Aspen Institute, but it is hilarious, and the jokes that Al is creating with his rant are priceless. I am hoping readers can top the one in the title of this post on Twitter by the Iowahawk.   Here is Al Gore in rant mode:

Update (08-09-11, 20:45)  Poor Al, he did not know that his talk was being streamed on the Internet and was public, not an off the cuff private talk for the fully washed and the unwashed public got an ear full of the real Al Gore.   Details are here.

Prop 23 Update: CA has to try harder to destroy the economy

Russ Steele

CA is still in a depression and the environmentalist are more worried that we are not meeting the goals set out in AB-32 the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, then crating jobs.  Never mind, they there has not been any significant warming for the last 15 years and in Sacramento, the source of AB32, for the last 30 years.

CA Political News has the story here:

California is not on track to meet the most ambitious goals of AB 32, the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, according to Carl Blumstein, director of the California Institute for Energy and the Environment.

“It’s very challenging,” said Blumstein, addressing an August 4 event at the University of California Sacramento Center.

Blumstein did not challenge any part of AB 32, which calls for reductions in greenhouse gasses (GHG) by 80 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2050. But Blumstein said that “we are not on course” to meet the 80 percent goal for 2050. The goal for 2012 is 20 percent.

According to the California Energy Commission, as of 2010 natural gas accounts for 41.8 percent of state energy, with nuclear power 13.9 percent, unspecified 12 percent, large hydro 10.7 percent and coal 7.7 percent. Renewable sources amount to 13.7 percent of state energy. Solar power accounts for only 0.03 percent of that amount.

California must “confront climate change,” said Blumstein, who did not indicate whether all scientists agree that climate change means inexorable warming by human agency, to be remedied by government regulation. He did not refer to 30-year data on temperatures, which show cooling in the Sacramento area.

Read the rest of the story here. I agree, that California needs to “confront climate change” but we need to ask, what happens if the cooling trend continues. Reputable scientists. in peer reviewed papers, have said the sun is going into a long slumber, and when that has happened in the past the planet has cooled, for 30 to 70 years. Past cooling has a huge impact on agriculture and millions starved. What happens to California agriculture, which is a major part of the states economy,  if the cooling continues?  Should we be preparing for cooling and not warming, that is what the real world data is telling us, but our political leaders are looking for problems elsewhere.

How LA Lost It’s Mojo

Russ Steele

One of my favorite urban geographers is Joel Kotkin. He writes in the City Journal about the current fate Los Angles in Lost Angles -- The City of Angels go to hell.

Why has Los Angeles lost its mojo? A big reason is a decline in the power and mettle of the city’s once-vibrant business community. Between the late 1980s and the end of the millennium, many of L.A.’s largest and most influential firms—ARCO, Security Pacific, First Interstate, Union Oil, Sun America—disappeared in a host of mergers that saw their management shift to places like London, New York, and San Francisco. Others, such as the Los Angeles Times and the Dodgers, were sold to outsiders. The most influential business leader downtown today, according to a recent Los Angeles Downtown News ranking, is Timothy Leiweke, president and CEO of AEG Entertainment—a subsidiary of the Anschutz Company, which is controlled by Philip Anschutz, a Denver billionaire. The fact that essentially a regional manager is so influential would make the city’s past leaders spin in their graves.

You can read the rest of this insightful article here. It is clear that the public sector unions have taken control of the city and are milking it dry.

As business retreated, power in Los Angeles, largely by default, shifted toward the government and its workers. . . . Today, almost 18,000 county workers earn more than $100,000 annually. The city has followed a similar path, with its city council the highest-paid in the nation. In L.A., as in much of California, public employees’ pensions have risen at unsustainable rates.

I highly recommend reading the whole article, there are some very interesting graphics, here is one sameple:

The 18 Countries With a Better Credit Rating Than US

Russ Steele

Thanks to the Gateway Pundit:

Cost of CARB: Fuel prices stable this week, while crude drops

Russ Steele

The current turmoil in the stock market has resulted in a drop in crude prices, but we have yet to see any drop in gas and diesel prices. They are now stable, with the average prices about $1.00 more per gallon at this time last year.  When crude is on an upward spiral, the retailers are quick to raise the price of fuel, but when they are on the down side they are much slower to adjust the price. Why, you ask? They lose some profits on the upward spiral and try to regain their losses on the down slope. If crude continues to stay low, there will be some profit taking before we see any slide in prices.

 

The bankrupt, borrowing from the bankrupt - how sustainable is that?

Russ Steele

The State "borrowed" $10 billion from the Feds for the Unemployment Trust Fund?

Now California needs to pay the interest in 30 days from the General Fund -- a total of $320 million.

I did not see this $320 million in the budget, then then again I may have missed it. If it is not in the budget, where will Brown and the Democrats get the money?  By law they can not take it from the Unemployment Fund, it MUST come from the General Fund.

With unemployment still high in California, the State is asking to borrow another $4 billion from the Feds for the Unemployment Trust Fund, yet the State cannot pay the interest on the the $10 billion we have already borrowed.

A bankrupt state is borrowing from the bankrupt Federal government, to pay the interest on what it has already borrowed, how sustainable is that?

Exit Question: Where will the State get the $320 million dollar interest payment - default?

More evidence that cosmic rays influence our climate

Russ Steele

Professor Pulinets, from the Institute of Applied Geo- physics, Moscow, addressed the Schiller
Institute conference in Rüsselsheim, Germany, on 2 July 2011 and he asked an interesting question, Are Earthquakes Foreseeable? and then examines The Current State of Research.

Professor Pulinets discusses ionization in the atmosphere as part of his earthquake research.
One source of ionization is cosmic rays. He briefly examines the idea that cosmic rays
impact the climate. Here is one of his graphics from his paper showing the relationship of
rain fall to cosmic rays.


This is fascinating paper on the prediction of earth quakes. Highly recommend reading. It is
available here.

Cross posted at The Dalton Minimum Returns.