Right Mind

Documentary: I.O.U.S.A. (2008)

Via Yahoo! Movies

A documentary film exploring the rapidly growing federal debt and its implication for the United States and its citizens. America is faced with the challenges of an ever-expanding government and military, increased foreign competition, and obligations it is finding more and more difficult to honor. As the Baby Boomer generation prepares to retire and begin collecting benefits from America's over-extended entitlement programs, an economic disaster of epic proportions.

This documentary stars Congressman Ron Paul.

Here’s the trailer.  

HT: Charles K

Certain trans fats are *beneficial*

Oh, well. Onto the next health scare.

Progressives have got to find some kind of food that they don’t want the rest of us to eat.

Have you ever noticed how progressives behave like the stereotypical puritan? They know that somewhere, somehow, someone is enjoying fried foods. And they want to pass a law against it.

From Science News:

The Food and Drug Administration quietly decided last week that food manufacturers can safely use a trans fat in their recipes. I can almost hear some of you asking: How can that be? Doesn’t everyone know by now that such fats constitute a health hazard?

In the past decade or so, the nutrition-research community has effectively driven home the message that trans fats are bad. As bad as — if not worse than — saturated fats, at least in terms of health. Communities around the nation have begun responding with proposals for local bans on the use in restaurant fare of shortening and margarines made from this type of synthetic fat.

But synthetic is the operant word, because there are natural trans fats. And the types that form naturally can have quite beneficial pharmacological properties. Known as conjugated linoleic acids — CLAs for short — these fats come in several “flavors” (what chemists refer to as isomers). Depending on which type it is, a CLA can help fight cancer, fight weight gain, fight diabetes — even fight arthritis.

In fact, the two companies that petitioned FDA for a generally regarded as safe — or GRAS — status for their products bundle the two isomers together. That way, people can get the benefits of both. Americans have been able to buy capsules containing a mix of the two isomers for years. But these products — derived by some processing of vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid — could only be served up alone and sold as dietary supplements.

HT: Tim T.

More Americans Say Surge is Working

Recent polls of interest from the Gallup Organization:

More Americans Say Surge is Working: Nearly half of Americans (48%) now say the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq is making the situation better, up from 22% when Gallup first asked the question in July 2007.

And this from Obama.

Then:

"I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there in fact I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I am going to actively oppose the president's proposal... I think he is wrong."

Now:

"(snicker) What I said was even at the time of the debate of the surge, was if you put 30,000 troops in, of course it's going to have an impact. There's no doubt about that. The question is, does it solve our larger strategic questions and do the costs involved, uh, do they outweigh the benefits."

World warned over killer flu pandemic

From the U.K. Independent:

The world is failing to guard against the inevitable spread of a devastating flu pandemic which could kill 50 million people and wreak massive disruption around the globe, the Government has warned.

In evidence to a House of Lords committee, ministers said that early warning systems for spotting emerging diseases were "poorly co-ordinated" and lacked "vision" and "clarity". They said that more needed to be done to improve detection and surveillance for potential pandemics and called for urgent improvement in rapid-response strategies.

The Government's evidence appeared in a highly critical report from the Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee, which attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as "dysfunctional" and criticised the international response to the threat of an outbreak of disease which could sweep across the globe.

The Government said: "While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable." Ministers said it would could kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and that such an outbreak would leave up to 75,000 people dead in Britain and cause "massive" disruption.

Rated "F"

HT: Tony V

Sali Introduces Gas Tax Credit

Details from Spokesman Review Betsy Russell's blog An Eye on Boise.

Idaho Congressman Bill Sali introduced legislation late last night to give every American a tax credit of $500 per adult and $250 per dependent on their tax returns each year, to respond to high gas prices. “This is a national emergency,” Sali said in a news release. “Congress must act to provide some kind of relief to the millions of Americans hit hard by skyrocketing fuel prices.”

Tax relief would be helpful.

More drilling would be even more helpful.

US Crude Oil Production

The Energy Information Administration has the crude oil field production for the US from 1920 until 2008.

Here’s a shocker for you: today we produce as much crude oil as we did in 1947.

Yet real GDP has risen 720% during those 60 years.

What is the implication for a) having GDP rise 7.2 times and b) domestic oil production stay the same?

Unless you deny the Law of Supply and Demand (Tom-Tom?), the quick, easy, and fast fix is to increase US crude oil production — something that could be done on the order of months and not years.

Here’s a quick graph I made in Excel from the Energy Information Admin’s data.

HT: Carpe Diem

Milton Friedman on Marijuana Reform

Today is Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman’s birthday. He would have been 96 years old.

This is the first is a two-part interview with him concerning marijuana reform.

Greenpeace Founder Comes Full Circle on Nuclear Power

Brilliant interview.

Via PR Newswire:

Dr. Patrick Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace, reconsiders the global benefits of nuclear energy in the latest edition of ElectricTV.net. A joint production of the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), ElectricTV.net is the only Web TV program dedicated to reporting the latest developments in the electrical construction and information systems industries.

Says Dr. Moore, now chairman and chief scientist of the Vancouver-based consultancy Green Spirit Strategies, the protest against nuclear energy that began in the 1970s was "so focused on nuclear weapons and nuclear war that we lumped all things nuclear in the same category as being evil. We made the mistake of not recognizing that nuclear energy was a beneficial use, [that] it was a clean energy source that does not produce greenhouse gas and air pollution like the fossil fuels do."

Also on the program are a feature on the construction of the first uranium enrichment facility to be built on U.S. soil in thirty years; a spotlight on Helmets to Hardhats, a unique program helping returning veterans find successful careers in the building and construction trades; and a piece exploring the truth about compact fluorescent lamps.

Bringing Nuclear Power Home

If the progressives really wanted sustainable, green, carbon-free energy, they’d be jumping up and down for nuclear power.

Yet (not surprisingly), they are not.

From the International Business Daily:

If ever there was a question about the need for nuclear power, it has certainly been dispelled now with the rising cost of fossil fuels.

The high price of oil, natural gas and coal should be a wake-up call to all regions of the country that the era of boundless use of cheap fossil fuels is over — and that nuclear power will need to play a larger role in supplying electricity to homes, business and industry.

The U.S. pioneered the development of nuclear energy, and had the first major nuclear program. Most other leading industrial countries have continued developing their nuclear programs since the last nuclear plant order in the U.S. — primarily using U.S. technology.

Today we have the means — and more important, an urgent need — to bring that technology back home.

Copernicus Would've Understood

Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Moscow technology park at center of controversy

B.J. Swanson, Vice President Moscow’s AmericanWest bank, has advocated closing Alturas.

This is the same BJ Swanson who dissed capitalism not long ago.

It seems that Jeff Harkins and the conservative candidates continue to advocate an economic model that no longer works. Please give an example of a totally "Free" market that has survived over time and has not fallen victim to collusion, corruption or theft.

The world is rapidly changing. Clinging to obsolete ideas puts us further behind.

Of course, this is the same person who signed a business petition on behalf of AmericanWest Bank to keep Wal-Mart out of Moscow; and who signed a business petition on behalf of Gritman to keep Wal-Mart out of Moscow. And she’s a board member of the LEDC. Isn’t that nice?  

Here are the original documents, in case my readers are not familiar with the brouhaha from Jan 2006.

Now she advocates closing the new, high-tech Alturas Park.

The following article ran in today’s Lewiston Tribune.

The Alturas Technology Park in Moscow has been poorly run and the urban renewal district that helped it grow should close within two years, according to one of its founders.

"I'm very much a supporter of urban renewal districts, as long as they're run in a fiscally responsible manner," said B.J. Swanson, vice president of AmericanWest Bank in Moscow and the chairwoman of the Gritman Medical Center board of directors.

But the management of the district's budget has been far from responsible, Swanson said. At a recent meeting of the district commissioners, she balked at spending $40,500 on a new economic development director and a loan of approximately $35,000, both to jump-start the district's newest project, the Legacy Crossing urban renewal area in downtown Moscow's decaying agricultural corridor.

The city of Moscow would also chip in $40,500 for the economic development director's salary.

The district is also considering a $5,000 boost to the administrative cost it pays to the city of Moscow, to $30,000 annually.

Swanson said that money would be better spent on paying off Alturas' debt with the goal of eventually closing the district.

"This is not the kind of economy to be up-staffing for an economic development director," she said.

The Science is that Bad

Regarding man-made CO2 being the cause of climate change rather than the sun or the clouds:

“The analogy I use is that my car is not running very well. So I’m going to ignore the engine, which is the sun, and I’m going to ignore the transmission, which is the water vapor, and I’m going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel, which is the human-produced CO₂. The science is that bad.”

—Professor Tim Ball, Dept. of Climatology, University of Winnipeg

CBC: Global Warming Doomsday Called Off

Chicken Little reports that the sky is not falling after all.  

"I Look Good as long as I don't have to play a real team"

Documentary Film: The Great Global Warming Swindle

The video “The Great Global Warming Swindle” produced by Martin Durkin is not new, but it is still relevant. 

Hear a number of scientists refute the conclusions that we hear so often in the press.  Some of these men were formerly on the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) who resigned because the data was being handled very carelessly.  It was also pointed out that studying global warming has become big business with over $2,000,000,000 being spent each year.  Most scientists understand that if they suddenly find that there is no basis for man caused global warming the funds will dry up.

Follow the money — and there’s big bucks in the religion of global warming.

Here’s the write-up about it:

Accepted theories about man causing global warming are "lies" claims a controversial new TV documentary.

'The Great Global Warming Swindle' - backed by eminent scientists - is set to rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans.

The programme, to be screened on Channel 4 on Thursday March 8, will see a series of respected scientists attack the "propaganda" that they claim is killing the world's poor.

Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is shown, claiming African countries should be encouraged to burn more CO2.

Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it claims that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice falling from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves falling in autumn.

A source at Channel 4 said: "It is essentially a polemic and we are expecting it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial programming that Channel 4 is renowned for."

Controversial director Martin Durkin said: "You can see the problems with the science of global warming, but people just don't believe you - it's taken 10 years to get this commissioned.

"I think it will go down in history as the first chapter in a new era of the relationship between scientists and society. Legitimate scientists - people with qualifications - are the bad guys.

"It is a big story that is going to cause controversy.

"It's very rare that a film changes history, but I think this is a turning point and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bollocks

HT: Jim Hollingsworth

Get This Man A Teleprompter!

Via Powerline:

Barack Obama is a lot like Sean Penn or George Clooney. If you give him a script, he can deliver it pretty well. But if he tries to talk without a script that has been written for him by others, he quickly reveals that he is poorly-informed if not downright ignorant. Today he delivered another classic, by claiming that if only we would all properly inflate our tires, we could save as much gasoline as "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling." Seriously:

Nuclear-Powered Amphibious Assault Ships?

This has to be one of the stupidest ideas I’ve heard in a very long time — and that’s saying a lot.

The navy doesn’t want this. But the congressman does — especially since one of the shipyards is in his district.

The cost of the nuclear propulsion system is just the start of the expenses. Then you have to pay for the training of the operators and the maintenance of the system.

Only a congressman would insist on a system the military does not want.

From Counterpunch:

Most new large U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships would be required to be nuclear powered under the National Defense Authorization Act for 2009 which the House of Representatives has passed by a vote of 384 to 23. It now goes to the Senate where many senators are uneasy about the scheme as is the Navy and the shipbuilding industry in the U.S.

As to safe-energy and environmental advocates, “This reckless plan gives ‘we'll fight them on the beaches’ a whole new sinister meaning," says Linda Gunter of Beyond Nuclear of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute. "If one of these amphibious ships is hit, or has an accident, we would be fighting a tide of radioactivity on beaches that could leave them contaminated indefinitely."

“Expanding the use of nuclear technology as a form of propulsion puts our sailors at risk,” says Jim Riccio of Greenpeace U.S.A. Also, because “nuclear-powered vessels are already rejected from ports around the world, it undermines the ability to actually use them.” Further, they would be “more of a target” for terrorists. “And what if the Cole had been nuclear powered?”

Indeed, if the U.S.S. Cole, the destroyer struck by suicide bombers who crashed into it with explosives off Yemen in 2000 had been nuclear-powered, a nuclear disaster could have occurred killing many more than the 17 crewmembers who died.

The Navy is concerned about the cost of the plan. The price of the amphibious assault ships that would be mandated to be nuclear-powered is $1.5 billion-plus each. Adding nuclear propulsion would raise the price by $800 million each. And there would be the tens of millions in cost for their eventual radioactive decontamination and disposal.

The U.S. shipbuilding industry is worried about the impact on an industry already in precarious shape. Only two shipyards in the nation, Northrop Grumman’s Newport News, Virginia facility and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut are certified to build nuclear-powered ships.

The push for nuclear-powered amphibious assault ships is being led by Representative Gene Taylor, chairman of the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. Taylor, a Democrat, also has in his Mississippi district a shipyard that is the major one for the construction of amphibious assault ships, Northrop Grumman’s Ship Systems facility in Pascagoula.

Obama's Symbolic Importance

In case you still don't think Obama has a messiah complex...

From the Washington Post:

In his closed door meeting with House Democrats Tuesday night, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama delivered a real zinger, according to a witness, suggesting that he was beginning to believe his own hype.

Obama was waxing lyrical about last week's trip to Europe, when he concluded, according to the meeting attendee, "this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for."

The 200,000 souls who thronged to his speech in Berlin came not just for him, he told the enthralled audience of congressional representatives. "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," he said, according to the source.

HT: Tim T.

Gas prices fall, but not in Idaho; Idaho gasoline prices 19 cents above national average

From the Idaho Statesman:

Idaho gasoline costs have failed to keep pace with falling pump prices nationwide in the last month, leaving Treasure Valley industry experts wondering why the state is lagging so far behind the U.S. average pump price.

According to AAA Idaho, the cost of self-service regular gasoline averaged $4.15 a gallon statewide Monday, an increase of six cents in the last month. The U.S. average, meanwhile, was $3.96, down 11 cents from $4.07 a month ago.

Why? Also from the Idaho Statesmen:

AAA spokesman Dave Carlson is at a loss to explain why gas prices in the Western United States remain stubbornly higher than pump prices elsewhere.

Oil prices rose $1.47 Monday to settle at $124.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier rising as high as $125.22 a barrel. “At $124 oil, we should be in the range of $3.80 to $3.90 a gallon,” Carlson said.

Carlson said some area convenience stores have slashed their prices to about $4 a gallon to shore up inside-store sales that have been lagging badly.

I should open a gas station and truck in my own gasoline. I could undercut the local stations here by 10¢/gal and still make a killing.

For instance, we just got back from Missouri where gas was $3.49. You can haul a lot of gas at that price to Idaho…

A 40% Trash Tax Hike

The Los Angeles City Council voted 11-1 to increase the trash collection fee by 40%.

That makes it a 500% increase since 2003.

And I thought Nancy Chaney’s budgets were out of control.

2008 State Sales Tax Holidays

Did you know that some states have “Sales Tax Holidays”?

These are often offered around the beginning of the school year, or at other times of the year — to give the taxpayers a break for a short season of time.

FWIW, there are no states in the Northwest that offer Sales Tax Holidays.

Surprised?

The Stevens Scandal

A post from Donald J. Boudreaux, Chair of the Department of Economics, George Mason University:

I’m delighted to see Sen. Ted Stevens face jail time for his crimes while in office. To charge him with concealing gifts totaling $250,000, however, is the equivalent of charging a confessed mass murderer with jaywalking. If that’s the only way to bring the criminal to justice, fine. But Sen. Stevens’s most significant misdeeds - ones of which he boasts! - are his decades-long success at directing billions of taxpayer dollars to special-interest groups for no reason other than the fact that he possessed the power and position to buy himself even greater security in office by doing so.

Of course, punishing all the criminals guilty of THAT offense would depopulate Capitol Hill.

And I wouldn’t bat an eye.

Would that we could depopulate all of the congressmen who have stolen from the taxpayers by legislative theft.

Official: China to censor Internet during Games

From Breitbart:

China will censor the Internet used by foreign media during the Olympics, an organising committee official confirmed Wednesday, reversing a pledge to offer complete media freedom at the games.

"During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the organising committee.

He confirmed, however, that journalists would not be able to access information or websites connected to the Falungong spiritual movement which is banned in China.

Other sites were also unavailable to journalists, he said, without specifying which ones. 

HT: Bill J.

U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.

RFB asked about my take on the following article.

I’m really skeptical. We’ve seen D.C. try and create all kinds of scares in order to a) increase federal spending and b) remove our liberties. IMO, this is just another one of those scare tactics.

It could also be a move by the Republicans to tip the scales away from the Dem’s “Kum Bah Yah” candidate and towards McCain.

Via Newsmax:

Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests.

One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001.

The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.

“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”

Promoting peace in the Middle East

“U.S. Spends $1 Million Researching Syrians ‘Hooked on Hookahs’ ”

US taxpayer money that’s well spent, I’m sure.

From CNSNews:

‘Hoookah,’ ‘nargile,’ ‘hubbly-bubbly’ -- all names for the waterpipe, a smoking instrument typically found in the Middle East in which tobacco smoke is drawn through water and cooled before the smoke is sucked into the mouth through a tube. 
 
For the last several years, U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $1 million to fund research on waterpipes and waterpipe use in studies being conducted at the Syrian Center for Tobacco Study, in Aleppo, Syria.
 
“We’ve done some studies in Syria just looking at the prevalence of it in the general population, and in average groups like college students,” researcher Ken Ward of the University of Memphis Department of Health and Sport Sciences, told CNSNews.com.
 
Ward and his associates in Syria have received a number of grants from the federal National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the years for research on waterpipes – $21,000 for a project that ended in 2007; $326,000 in 2006 to establish the Syrian Center for Tobacco Study; $334,000 for center projects in 2004; and $438,000 in 2005.
 
“Right now we’re doing an intervention study in Syria, looking at how to help people who are interested in quitting to actually quit permanently,” he said.

HT: Adam S.

Dems Moving to Fund UN Agency That Aids China’s One-Child Policy

From CNSNews:

If a Democrat is elected president in November, Congress probably will resume direct funding of the United Nation’s Population Fund (UNFPA), a program that has been supportive of China’s coercive “one child” policy, an expert told CNSNews.com on Monday.
 
President Bush has redirected funding for the program every year since 2001. Earlier this month, a congressional committee voted to approve $60 million for UNFPA, and that appropriation is expected to land on the desk of the next president after he is inaugurated in January 2009.
 
“Every time Democrats take back the White House, they continue to fund these population control programs that they euphemistically call ‘family planning,’” Steven Moore, a Wall Street Journal editor and an expert on UNFPA, told CNSNews.com on Monday. “Obama has said he is pro-abortion, and so I think it’s likely that the U.S. will continue its support.”

HT: Adam S.

A threat to Coca-Cola? Japan sips the eel thing

Yum.

From the U.K. Independent:

Forget cola, lemonade or beer – Japanese people sweltering in the summer heat now have a new canned drink to quench their thirst – made out of eels.

The fishy drink Unagi Nobori – which translates as "Surging Eel" – contains eel extract and vitamins found in the fish. The fizzy yellow liquid is believed to be the first mass-produced drink of its kind made in the country.

The launch of the drink this month coincides with the start of Japan's annual eel-eating season, which peaks this year on 5 August. Many locals believe the fish boost energy during the summer's hot and humid conditions.

Kazunori Hayashi, spokesman for Japan Tobacco Inc, the makers of the drink, said it is "mainly for men who are exhausted by the summer's heat".

The beverage has a similar taste to broiled eels, a popular form of the summer delicacy. The drink sells at about 140 yen (65p).

HT: Dave G.

Law prof and cop agree: never ever ever ever ever ever ever talk to the cops about a crime, even if you're innocent

Prof. James Duane of the Regent University School of Law, and Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach Police Department, present a forceful case for never, ever speaking to the police without your lawyer present.

HT: Gary E.

Less Choice is More

It always cracks me up when “progressives” say that less choice is better. We saw this in south L.A. this week.

Recall that the L.A. City Council passed a law that would prevent fast-food restaurants from opening in South Los Angeles neighborhoods.

The average person would say that it limits the restaurant choices for residents down there.

But not so, according to Councilwoman Jan Perry, sponsor of the measure:

“I believe this is a victory for the people of South and southeast Los Angeles, for them to have greater food options.” 

Greater food options by limiting food options.

Priceless.