Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.com has a great video showing the position of the Democrat party when if comes to helping solve this energy crisis. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader of the Senate, is trying to get a bill passed to allow drilling in outer continental shelf. He’s doing his best to work with the Dems, but they won’t budge, not even when the people are paying $10 a gallon for gas:
Do you think this will be on any campaign commercials this fall? It had better be. But, as Hannity says, don’t underestimate the Republicans ability to lose elections. They are getting campaign material handed to them by the Dems. Like Captain Ed wrote:
Republicans should use a very simple message. We have enough oil to satisfy American needs for at least the next 100 years, but Democrats won’t let you have it. They’d rather you pay $10 per gallon at the pump and watch food prices increase 250% rather than agree to drilling. If you don’t want $10 per gallon gas, vote Republican
They had better wake the American people up to who, exactly, is standing in the way of lowering the price of oil and gasoline in America. This is a great video to do that with.
I was listening to Rush Limbaugh this morning, and I heard him say something that made me laugh, gasp, and then laugh again. I was able to get it recorded, so I’ll just let you listen to it. I suppose it can and will be considered offensive to some people, so if you’re easily offended… don’t listen, don’t read any more of this post, and just go away.
[display_podcast]
I suppose that could be played off as a slip of the tongue. On the other hand, I think calling Britney Spears and Paris Hilton “twats” is probably a pretty accurate description. Either way, thanks for the laugh, Rush.
By the way, tomorrow is the 20th Anniversary edition of the Rush Limbaugh show. It’s hard to believe he’s had his national show for twenty years now. It’s also pretty impressive. If you love him, hate him, or are like me and just take everything he says with a grain of salt, you have to admire what he has accomplished.
Barack Obama is a money generator. Last month, he raised $52 million dollars, more than twice what John McCain raised. He is destroying McCain in fund-raising, but I still don’t think you should be donating to McCain’s campaign. He’ll get his financial support from the Republican National Committee:
John McCain’s presidential campaign is trying to ease Republican concerns that he won’t be able to compete financially with Barack Obama in the general election.
In a conference call with reporters, campaign manager Rick Davis said the campaign, the Republican National Committee and a handful of state victory accounts are on track to raise a combined $200 million for the primary period.
John McCain will have enough money to compete. And if he doesn’t, the 527s can compensate for what he lacks. If you are like most Americans, you don’t have piles of expendable income looking for a home. You need to get the most from your donation, and your donations are better spent on the tight Congressional races.
Regardless of who wins the Executive branch, liberal legislation will have a friend in the White House. John McCain is a fan of cap and trade programs which experts say would do great damage to the U.S. economy. He wants to get the federal government more and more involved in the free market, blames Wall Street for the housing crisis, describes oil company profits as obscene, thinks the government should be able to prevent citizens from selling stocks, even when they want to sell them and determine what companies pay their executives.
He is in no way a free market thinker. And Barack Obama is simply a Marxist. What seems to be most important this election is getting a conservative/libertarian minded Congress to stand in the way of an increase in Washington’s reach and power.
The campaign donation that you were thinking of sending to John McCain can be better used in Senate and Congressional candidates where Republicans have a chance to hold onto, or gain, seats. Candidates like Sam Graves, who work to minimize earmarks, could use your money. Tim Bee of Arizona could possibly unseat Democrat Gabrielle Giffords and Steve Greenberg (R) of Illinois could beat Melissa Bean (D).
While it is expected that the Democrats will gain seats, there is a lot of time between now and the election. The number one issue today is the cost of oil and gasoline. The Democrat’s answer is alternative fuels and they refuse to even discuss drilling. Imagine the effect ads like the one to the right will have on undecided voters. It could be a year for Republicans to take back a few seats. Those seats will be important if another attempt at amnesty is tried, or if Barack wants to implement universal health care.
The tight Congressional races have a more urgent need for your campaign donations. Come 2009, conservatives in Congress will be fighting against the Executive branch on many different issues. Let’s make sure there are enough of them.
I know it is hard to believe, but China has lied to the world. They told the reporters they would have unrestricted access to, um, information via the Internet. Today, they squashed all that nonsense:
The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games.
Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages – politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.
On Wednesday – two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games – the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.
Gosper said that he regretted the limitations but that “IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related.”
You will read what the government allows, and you will be thankful. Welcome to China.
For all my friends who read the blog and don’t like foul language (yes, there are a select few out there who have never heard me swear), consider this your warning. The following videos are filled with it. After all, the name of the series is “Bullsh*t!”
The first sentence in this video is Penn saying “What the f*uck are we gonna do?” So, if you don’t want to hear that kind of language, don’t watch this collection. Your ears will not like what you hear.
Now that I have presented a very clear disclaimer, I give you:
“Being Green” by Penn & Teller:
Here’s a bonus video of the duo talking about the above episode:
Also, I would love to have a single version of this video, like Climate Change Fraud has, but I can’t find a full version. If anyone finds one, send me an e-mail.
Thanks to Climate Change Fraud for adding the full version to Google video and alerting us about it. Great people over there.
The $300 billion housing bailout was signed by the President today in a ceremony that had no celebration or hoopla:
Only a few aides and administration officials were present, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Steve Preston and James B. Lockhart III, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The White House announced the signing by e-mail moments later.
The bill, the biggest overhaul of housing law in decades, provides a lifeline for an estimated 400,000 homeowners facing foreclosure, and provides assurances to the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose books are loaded with bad mortgages.
Usually such a bill signing is accompanied by a self-congratulatory ceremony, with souvenir pens for congressional leaders and for members, senators and chairmen who spearheaded the legislation.
Sad, really. It seems just yesterday we had a Republican in office that would say things like:
The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!
Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
Now we have a Republican that signs huge bailouts without really wanting the people to see him do it.
As I said yesterday, we are standing on the bridge to dependence and some days, it seems like we are being pushed across it.
A friend of mine from Newsvine sent me an e-mail, asking about blogging and specifically:
…what do you think is the best way to get a blog to where yours has gotten so far? Or any other suggestions you may have.
I was surprised that anyone was asking for my advice on blogging, considering that we have so many reasons to be humble. But I know a lot more today than when Andrew and I started the blog, and thought that there might be some insight on building a decent blog. After starting with three things, I moved to five, then six. I finished my reply with seven things that have gotten us to where we are.
Here they are.
Original content is the most important thing you can have on your website. One original story a week beats 50 link posts. That is no lie. Yesterday, I posted “Standing on the Bridge to Dependence.” After I stumbled it to all my Stumble Upon friends, I finished the day with almost 2000 hits to that post. If that had been just a link to another article and a line or two from me, it would not have worked. People can get link posts anywhere, but they can only get your opinion from you.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for link posts on your blog, but don’t make them the meat of it. Make them the french fries to your Angus beef burger. Build the blog around original work, and use link posts to inform your readers about things you find interesting, but didn’t write.
You have got to make friends. I mentioned Stumble Upon above. There are some great people there who appreciate good conservative writing. It is also the best site for driving traffic to your site. But you have to do more than just meet people on social sites like SU. You have to reach out to other bloggers. Send them e-mails telling them what you like about their site, for no reason other than to give them a compliment. I did that before and found that people really appreciate it. Make sure you let them know about your blog, but don’t make that the point of the e-mail. Tell them that if they ever need anything to ask, and mean it. They will probably send you an e-mail, letting you know about a post they just finished. Go read it. If you like it, make a link post about it.
There are a ton of people out there just trying to get noticed. Notice them, and they will notice you.
Also, reach out to the top tier bloggers with e-mails telling them about any new articles you posted. A great format that I use mimics the suggestion made by Kevin Aylward at Wizbang. Check that post out. It is how I approach every top blogger when I offer my work. It’s how Ace noticed me.
Read blogs about blogs. I have subscribed to all kinds of different blogs about blogging. Every weekend, I go through the RSS feeds and read the posts that I think relate to me. Stuff like finding writing ideas, writing headlines, and new stuff like how to better use Twitter. Start with ProBlogger, Dosh Dosh, Copyblogger and … tell you what I just did. I created a Netvibes account and imported my blogging RSS feeds into it. It is a big collection but I don’t want to miss a great idea from a smaller blog, so I have added feeds as I have found them. If you want it, go to Netvibes. The login is duane -at- allamericanblogger.com and the password is Reagan. Do with it what you will. Personally, I use Google Reader, but to each his own. Those sites are just as important as the political sites. They should be a part of your routine.
Read the old articles too. There are some great posts in their archives about writing. I have found them to be very important.
Site design has to be original. Andrew has designed ours to emphasize the copy. You can see that the writing is the focus of our blog. Other blogs have different ideas, but our theme is clean. We want a very clean site. And that is mainly due to Andrew’s efforts. If it weren’t for him, I would have all kinds of different widgets and gizmos embedded in the sidebars. You can find great ideas on site design in the blogs on blogging, which is another reason to read them regularly.
Plan for the long haul. This is gonna take a while. When we started, we had nobody reading us. If we had 50 uniques, it was a good day. I remember the first day we had 1000 unique visitors. It was all because Ace at Ace of Spades HQ linked to an original article I had written. Man, I was ready to go out and celebrate that night. But it took months to get. We still have days where it looks like the world forgot us, but then we have days like yesterday. It just takes time. Stick with it.
The sixth thing is surprisingly tough for some. If you make a mistake, correct it. If you screw up, say you are sorry. If you do something wrong, make it right. It’s called being human. I wrote that China has oil rigs off the coast of Key West. Turns out that is an urban legend. I noted as much on the article that made that claim. Better to correct it myself than be made to look a fool by someone else.
This one is the most trite, but true. Write. As often as you can. Every time you write something, you get a little better at it. It’s true. When I started writing on Newsvine, I found my positions and ideas under attack. I learned to write in a way that minimized that, which is why you see so many links in my articles. Not only that, but the composition has improved from when I started. Reading my stuff from two years ago opened my eyes to how my writing has improved.
I know that there are many other things that I have learned in the past year about blogging, but these were seven that really popped into my head as I was replying to my friend. Some of the first things I read when I started blogging were John Hawkins’ thoughts on building a successful blog. He has some good ideas there as well.
What have I missed? Is there anything you think I should have included in the post, or are there some things you have learned that you think are worth mentioning?
There was an earthquake in California yesterday, measuring about 5.4 in magnitude. On a side note, I didn’t know they didn’t use the Richter scale to measure earthquakes anymore, but according to Dr. Morgan Page, Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasedena, they don’t:
Dr. Morgan Page: Hello everyone! My name is Morgan Page. I am a researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, CA. It’s been quite an eventful day here in Southern CA. The earthquake which occurred this morning near Chino Hills, is now estimated to be approximately magnitude 5.4.
_______________________
Anonymous: How ‘substantial’ is 5.8 on the Richter scale?
Dr. Morgan Page: We don’t actually use the Richter scale anymore. It’s somewhat antiquated. A 5.8 is a moderate earthquake. However, as more data has been processed, we now believe the earthquake is closer to a 5.4. This is not a Richter scale magnitude, but a moment magnitude, which is a more precise measure of the energy in an earthquake. Each additional unit on the scale has 30 times the energy, so a 5.4 earthquake has 30 times the energy of a 4.4, and so on.
This earthquake is moderate in size. There may slight damage to some buildings.
I think there might be some slight damage to the leather on Judge Judy’s chair. “Well, she got your PIN…rumble…ZOOM!” I mean, could she have at least given some instructions or something to the people rather than just bolting.
But then, earthquakes are very disquieting things, and they were under some heavy, hot lights. That doesn’t make it any less funny though.
There is a lot of buzz about a new technology being touted as a possible solution in the “climate change crisis.” It is called a CO2 scrubber, and it removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Just one would take a ton of CO2 out of the air every day. I mean, everyone is talking about this. And when I say everybody, I pretty much mean Glenn Beck. Other than him and some in the blogosphere, the subject is almost non-existent. Just Google “CO2 scrubber” and you can see what I mean.
The scrubber is the creation of a team lead by Physicist Klaus Lackner, of New York’s Columbia University. Here’s how it works:
Professor Lackner said carbon dioxide could be removed from the atmosphere by absorbing it in various chemical filters and a newly discovered property of absorbent plastic sheets – which are routinely used to purify water – would be used to used to clean those filters of CO2 so they can then be reused to carry on the job.
The captured carbon dioxide could then be pumped into greenhouses to boost plant growth.
Granted, there would have to be millions of these to make a dent, but they are definitely part of the solution. Or they would be if this were really about reducing carbon dioxide and saving the planet from global catastrophe.
The environmentalists should applaud this technology and welcome it to the battle. Instead, it is dismissed and condemned because it allows us to maintain our current lifestyles:
“There’s no magic bullet to save us from the problem of global warming,” said Kert Davies, an energy expert for Greenpeace USA in Washington, D.C. Removing greenhouse gases so readily will not encourage people to develop alternate, renewable technologies, he said, and strive for energy efficiency.
Such techno-fixes also miss the point of the environmental degradation brought on by the use of fossil fuels, he said.
Lackner told the Telegraph, “I’d rather have a technology that allows us to use fossil fuels without destroying the planet, because people are going to use them anyway.â€
Not necessarily, Professor. If some powerful environmentalists had their way, we would all be controlled by carbon. As I noted before, more than once politicians have suggested we become tethered to individual carbon limits, set by governments who have our best interests in mind, of course.
The idea has also been derided as folly because of the cost and the number of filters needed. Kert Davies asked in the link above, “Can you imagine thousands of acres of giant fly swatters across the land?”
Actually, I can. Right here. And it could easily pay for itself over time, because right in the middle of all those acres of carbon trapping flyswatters, I would put “bioreactors” that use sequestered carbon dioxide to grow algae.
Two Australian firms have established a joint venture that intends to use emissions from coal power plants to grow algae that can be used as fuel.
Linc Energy and Bio Clean Coal announced the creation of the company last week and said they would spend $1 million over the next year to build a prototype bioreactor.
The bioreactor will be designed to grow algae, using the carbon dioxide produced from processing coal for electricity as “food.” That process should dramatically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, the company said.
The dried algae could be burned for power generation, turned into biodiesel or fertilizer, the company told GreenTech Media.
Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant’s exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly even in the wan rays of a New England sun. The cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward, but with 40 percent less CO2 (a larger cut than the Kyoto treaty mandates) and another bonus: 86 percent less nitrous oxide.
After the CO2 is soaked up like a sponge, the algae is harvested daily. From that harvest, a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel for automobiles. Berzin hands a visitor two vials – one with algal biodiesel, a clear, slightly yellowish liquid, the other with the dried green flakes that remained. Even that dried remnant can be further reprocessed to create ethanol, also used for transportation.
So let’s recap: these carbon dioxide scrubbers would clean the air of “excess” CO2, which could be used to grow vast amounts of algae, which could then be used to create biofuels, lessening our need for foreign oil and creating jobs in America plus fueling millions of cars which create more CO2, which could be trapped, fed to algae…you see where I’m going with this.
While I don’t subscribe to the idea that carbon dioxide is causing an increase in global temperatures, I can see how trapping carbon can be useful for America, and the world. However, it seems that the desire to transform American lifestyles may prevent some from seeing the possibilities created with this technology. When you are fighting a war against carbon, what does it mean when you refuse to accept a tool that reduces the amount by tons a day?
It means that to the enviro-mafia, reducing carbon isn’t as important as changing how you live.
Slavery, in any form, is a very bad thing. There was a time in part of our country when black men and women were slaves. Slavery ended in the 1860′s, and about 150 years later the United States House of Representatives has formally apologized to black Americans for the horrible things that happened to their great-great-great-grandparents and the generations preceding them.
The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.
“Today represents a milestone in our nation’s efforts to remedy the ills of our past,” said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. [source]
I’m sure “Cheeks” Kilpatrick and her friends in Congress have only the best of intentions when they, our representatives, apologize to people who have been dead for over 100 years for something that only a small portion of Americans did.
Don’t get me wrong, I think slavery is absolutely horrible. I believe that black Africans who were forced into slavery deserve at least an apology from the people who were involved in enslaving them. But I don’t think today’s congress has any business apologizing for anything. They represent the entire U.S., not just the states where slavery was practiced. Congress represents me, and I have certainly never owned a slave. I can only speak for myself on this, but I wasn’t involved in slavery, and my representatives in congress don’t speak for me when it comes to apologizing for things I had no part of.
The resolution of apology was spearheaded by Tennessee Democrat Ira “Steve” Cohen. The apology also covers the issue of segregation, which as we all know is the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group.
Cohen became the first white to represent the 60 percent black district in Memphis in more than three decades when he captured a 2006 primary where a dozen black candidates split the vote. He has sought to reach out to his black constituents, and early in his term showed interest in joining the Congressional Black Caucus until learning that was against caucus rules.[source]
Cohen, who was not allowed to join the Congressional Black Caucus (because of the color of his skin) has apologized for the racial segregation. That’s what I call humor.
So again, slavery and segregation were bad. But those times are over. Today we have a black man running for President with a real chance of winning. Today I live in a neighborhood composed of white, black, and Latino families and we all get along just fine. Today, people of all colors share the same rights and responsibilities here in the United States.
It’s time to stop dwelling on things that happened in the past.
Black people, I love you, but I don’t want my politicians wasting time and money on something that is over and done with. The past can’t be changed. If congress wants to apologize for something, they can apologize for running up trillions of dollars of debt and then stealing money from the paychecks of Americans of every color.
As far as race goes, let’s stop looking backward and start looking forward.
I was listening to Rush Limbaugh this morning, and I heard him say something that made me laugh, gasp, and then laugh again. I was able to get it recorded, so I’ll just let you listen to it. I suppose it can and will be considered offensive to some people, so if you’re easily offended… don’t listen, don’t read any more of this post, and just go away.
The resolution of apology was spearheaded by Tennessee Democrat Ira “Steve” Cohen. The apology also covers the issue of segregation, which as we all know is the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group.
