Browsing the Blogs
Bensblurb #499
John Hinderaker, writing in his Power Line blog:
The Democrats' assault on our economy is proceeding at such a frenetic pace that what would normally be front-page news can easily be lost in the shuffle. On the back burner, for now, is Waxman-Markey, the Dems' carbon tax bill. At the "http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/21/democrats-hidden-gas-tax/?feat=home_commentary", Senators Kit Bond and Kay Hutchison remind us what a disaster the carbon tax would be:
The controversial climate-change legislation winding its way through Congress will impose a massive new national gas tax on the American people. We discovered this by analyzing what the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would do to gas prices and what Americans spend on gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. We found that cap-and-trade legislation will levy a $3.6 trillion gas-tax increase that will impact every American and important segments of our economy.
Only in the Age of Obama, a fiscal Armageddon of unprecedented proportion, could a $3.6 trillion tax increase be an afterthought.
Americans travel more than 200 million vehicle miles each month, and annually we spend nearly $1.2 trillion on gasoline and oil. The average household spends 5 percent of its annual budget on fuel. For many, gasoline is a mandatory expense. And this legislation disproportionately hits middle and lower income households that tend to have longer commutes to work and must drive in order to work. These families will be hit especially hard by The projected $1 per gallon increase for the additional gas tax the cap-and-trade legislation will bring.The whole point of Waxman-Markey is to make energy too expensive for us to be able to afford, so we'll use less of it. It is, in other words, a policy of deliberate impoverishment. As with health care "reform," the Democrats are hoping to slip the carbon tax past you before you figure out what the legislation means.
Here’s Roger Simon, in Pajamas Media:
Team Obama certainly ran a brilliant election campaign, but since they left Chicago for Washington, they seem to have dropped about 25 IQ points – or do they think the rest of the world is like Chicago? I’m not even sure it’s that simple, because Moscow in some ways (corruption) resembles Chicago, but they sure seem to have misjudged the Russians, among many other things.
Of course, they can (and do) blame...Fox News, but that’s a sure fire prescription for having them tank even further. Even the New York Times admitted that Team Obama was blind to the most conventional of wisdom about “punching upwards not downwards,” thus benefiting Fox instead of themselves by attacking the network. I always thought the Bushies were a disaster at public relations, but the Obamanoids are giving them a run for their money.
Here’s me, reacting in the Huffington Post this week:
This reaction was in reference to a piece by Robert Creamer on the glories of progressives (liberals) being in control and how great our huge government really is.
As an American once said, "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."- Thomas JeffersonAnd, of more recent vintage: "Now the national terrain is thick with federal programs, and with state, county, city and town entities and programs, from coast to coast...it's crowded."--Peggy Noonan, in Wall Street Journal, 10/17/09That's putting it mildly. Gimme a brake.
In reaction to another HuffPo piece: (Pardon the Interruption, by Steven Weber: Our planet is in peril..)
Our survival as a species surely doesn't depend on making our planet cooler. That goofy effort ignores the fact that people live better in cozy warmth. Further, it takes much more energy to keep us warm than to cool our fevered brows. Thus, forget Copenhagen and enjoy life, friends----Ben Blankenship.
Watts Up blog , on why many moderate scientists don’t speak out.
I’ve seen this phenomenon of extreme views being the most vocal in my own hometown of Chico, where a small vocal group of people often hold sway of the city council because they are the ones that show up regularly to protest, well, just about anything. The council, seeing this regular vocal feedback, erroneously concludes that the view accurately represents the majority of city residents. The result is a train wreck, and the council sits there scratching their heads wondering why after making such decisions, they get their ears burned off by people unhappy with the decision. Bottom line, we all need to be more active in the public input process if we want decisions to be accurately reflected.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – People with relatively extreme opinions may be more willing to publicly share their views than those with more moderate views, according to a new study. The key is that the extremists have to believe that more people share their views than actually do, the research found. How do people with extreme views believe they are in the majority? This can happen in groups that tend to lean moderately in one direction on an issue. Those that take the extreme version of their group’s viewpoint may believe that they actually represent the true views of their group...
John Hinderaker, writing in his Power Line blog:
The Democrats' assault on our economy is proceeding at such a frenetic pace that what would normally be front-page news can easily be lost in the shuffle. On the back burner, for now, is Waxman-Markey, the Dems' carbon tax bill. At the "http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/21/democrats-hidden-gas-tax/?feat=home_commentary", Senators Kit Bond and Kay Hutchison remind us what a disaster the carbon tax would be:
The controversial climate-change legislation winding its way through Congress will impose a massive new national gas tax on the American people. We discovered this by analyzing what the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would do to gas prices and what Americans spend on gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. We found that cap-and-trade legislation will levy a $3.6 trillion gas-tax increase that will impact every American and important segments of our economy.
Only in the Age of Obama, a fiscal Armageddon of unprecedented proportion, could a $3.6 trillion tax increase be an afterthought.
Americans travel more than 200 million vehicle miles each month, and annually we spend nearly $1.2 trillion on gasoline and oil. The average household spends 5 percent of its annual budget on fuel. For many, gasoline is a mandatory expense. And this legislation disproportionately hits middle and lower income households that tend to have longer commutes to work and must drive in order to work. These families will be hit especially hard by The projected $1 per gallon increase for the additional gas tax the cap-and-trade legislation will bring.The whole point of Waxman-Markey is to make energy too expensive for us to be able to afford, so we'll use less of it. It is, in other words, a policy of deliberate impoverishment. As with health care "reform," the Democrats are hoping to slip the carbon tax past you before you figure out what the legislation means.
Here’s Roger Simon, in Pajamas Media:
Team Obama certainly ran a brilliant election campaign, but since they left Chicago for Washington, they seem to have dropped about 25 IQ points – or do they think the rest of the world is like Chicago? I’m not even sure it’s that simple, because Moscow in some ways (corruption) resembles Chicago, but they sure seem to have misjudged the Russians, among many other things.
Of course, they can (and do) blame...Fox News, but that’s a sure fire prescription for having them tank even further. Even the New York Times admitted that Team Obama was blind to the most conventional of wisdom about “punching upwards not downwards,” thus benefiting Fox instead of themselves by attacking the network. I always thought the Bushies were a disaster at public relations, but the Obamanoids are giving them a run for their money.
Here’s me, reacting in the Huffington Post this week:
This reaction was in reference to a piece by Robert Creamer on the glories of progressives (liberals) being in control and how great our huge government really is.
As an American once said, "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."- Thomas JeffersonAnd, of more recent vintage: "Now the national terrain is thick with federal programs, and with state, county, city and town entities and programs, from coast to coast...it's crowded."--Peggy Noonan, in Wall Street Journal, 10/17/09That's putting it mildly. Gimme a brake.
In reaction to another HuffPo piece: (Pardon the Interruption, by Steven Weber: Our planet is in peril..)
Our survival as a species surely doesn't depend on making our planet cooler. That goofy effort ignores the fact that people live better in cozy warmth. Further, it takes much more energy to keep us warm than to cool our fevered brows. Thus, forget Copenhagen and enjoy life, friends----Ben Blankenship.
Watts Up blog , on why many moderate scientists don’t speak out.
I’ve seen this phenomenon of extreme views being the most vocal in my own hometown of Chico, where a small vocal group of people often hold sway of the city council because they are the ones that show up regularly to protest, well, just about anything. The council, seeing this regular vocal feedback, erroneously concludes that the view accurately represents the majority of city residents. The result is a train wreck, and the council sits there scratching their heads wondering why after making such decisions, they get their ears burned off by people unhappy with the decision. Bottom line, we all need to be more active in the public input process if we want decisions to be accurately reflected.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – People with relatively extreme opinions may be more willing to publicly share their views than those with more moderate views, according to a new study. The key is that the extremists have to believe that more people share their views than actually do, the research found. How do people with extreme views believe they are in the majority? This can happen in groups that tend to lean moderately in one direction on an issue. Those that take the extreme version of their group’s viewpoint may believe that they actually represent the true views of their group...
posted by Ben Blankenship at
7:58 PM
