Tea parties are going nationwide on the 15th. The organizers for the San Antonio Tea Party have put together one of the best invites I have ever seen (Hat Tip: The Bobo Files.)

The Bobo Files also have a custom made table for finding Tea Parties in your state or neighboring states. Great resource.

By: Alan Caruba

My friend, the internationally famed climatologist, Dr. S. Fred Singer, calls them “the CO2 wars.” It is the last ditch attempt by the Greens, under the aegis of the Obama administration, to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant and thus open the door to its regulation.

Singer says such regulation “would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the U.S. economy—all without any scientific justification.”

I am increasingly of the opinion that the main goal of the Obama administration through CO2 regulation, exploding deficits, punishing taxation, and any other means at their disposal is the destruction of the economy and the complete control of impoverished Americans.

This is an administration that exists to impose an Orwellian socialist utopia after the smokescreen clears.

When it comes to CO2, Obama, his so-called science advisors, and the Environmental Protection Agency are all lying. It is governmental gangsterism.

As reported in The Wall Street Journal, “The Environmental Protection Agency has sent the White House a proposed finding that carbon dioxide is a danger to public health, a step that could trigger a clampdown on emissions of so-called greenhouse gases across a wide swath of the economy.”

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind about carbon dioxide:

• CO2 is not a “pollutant.” It is a trace gas necessary for all life of Earth because it is essential to the growth of all vegetation.

• Without CO2 all vegetation—grasses, forests, jungles, crops such as wheat, corn and rice—dies. Then herbivores die. Then you die.

• The CO2 produced by human industry or activity is a miniscule fraction of a percentage of greenhouse gases. It constitutes a mere 0.038% of the atmosphere.

• The oceans emit 96.5% of all greenhouse gases, holding and releasing CO2 as it has down through the millennia of Earth’s existence.

• In past millennia, CO2 levels were often much higher than the present.

• CO2 levels rise hundreds of years after temperature rise on planet Earth.

• The Sun is the primary source of warmth on Earth. Rising CO2 is an effect of global warming, not a cause.

• Both global warming and cooling are natural phenomenon over which humans have no control.

• The Earth is not currently warming. It has been cooling for a decade and likely to continue for at least another twenty years or longer. If a new Ice Age is triggered, it will last at least 10,000 years.

• Polar ice is now at record levels and still growing.

If you had a choice, would you prefer a warmer or colder Earth?

And consider this, if only the United States was to significantly cut its CO2 emissions, how much effect, if any, would that have in a world where most other nations, including China and India, have no intention of doing so? Both are exempt from the UN Kyoto Protocol. The answer is zero!

The EPA proposal is not about science. It is about power and it is about money. As the Wall Street Journal noted, “The administration has proposed a cap-and-trade system that could raise $646 billion by 2019 through government auctions of emission allowances.”

The federal government, though the aegis of the EPA, would have control over the destinies of an estimated 13,000 facilities if this regulatory obscenity were to become law.

“Coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and domestic industries, such as energy-intensive paper, cement, fertilizer, steel and glass manufacturers, worry that increased cost burdens imposed by climate-change laws will put them at a severe competitive disadvantage to their international peers that aren’t bound by similar environmental rules.”

Such industries would flee the United States as the most toxic place on Earth in which to do business.

This would be the fulfillment of the Obama administration’s goal and explains in part why this new assault on science, industry, and common sense has been put forth by the EPA.

One of the best sites for information about carbon dioxide is http://www.ilovemyco2.com

I recommend you visit and browse through its extensive data.

A tip of the hat as well to http://ilovecarbondioxide.com/2009/01/about.html.

(Also published at WesternFront America)

There is a way to make a point without making defaming the military serving in Germany and Japan.  I understand the point Maher is trying to make.  I just don’t see the need for the comment about rape.  It’s as if he couldn’t talk about the military without smearing them all at the same time.

You get your weekend links late today. I spent yesterday in Omaha searching for Mark Levin’s new book, watching Monsters Vs. Aliens in 3D (very cool by the way) and by the time I got home with the fam, it was bedtime and I was beat. So, here I am after work putting together a batch of speed links to keep you informed. Starting with:

• As I wrote before, Barack Obama’s national health care system is based on the system set up in Massachusetts.  However, that system isn’t doing too well.  In fact, spending is so high, they are already to the next step in government run health care…price controls.  And I have written about what happens when a government institutes price controls.
• Apparently, John McCain thought President Obama was serious about working with Republicans.  Bipartisanship?  What bipartisanship?
• Want to get Mark Levin’s autograph in his new book.  According to Instapundit, there was a 5 hour wait with no guarantees.  Gateway Pundit has video.  Tell me again that conservatism is dead.
• The United States Navy is moving into position to watch the launching of a North Korean rocket.  Japan is also preparing for the launch, with some fancy missile interceptors. 
• A confessed and unrepentant domestic terrorist, and accused cop killer has been invited to speak to high school students about social justice.  More here on how to stop it from happening. Hat Tip to Knowledge is Power.
• Why does Obama need the resumes of 45 top Muslims?
• The Washington Post and the New York Times are “now officially in favor of not only expanding a war and an expensive nation building gamble in Afghanistan but curiously in Pakistan as well.”  What a difference a Democrat in the White House makes, huh?
• Bill Quick at Daily Pundit has an article about a spy ring that is targeting 103 nations.  Looks like those industrious Chinese are behind it.
• five feet of fury writes about the protesters who “mourn death of cop-killing child rapist.”  
• Jimmie at the Sundries Shack details why British MEP Daniel Hannan is being heard in America.  If you have not seen the verbal beatdown click the link and watch it.  Somebody out to put that to music. 
• Andrew Ian Dodge weighs in on it also at Pajamas Media.
• GayPatriot lists what Barney Frank could learn from Oedipus at Right Wing News.

And finally, Crowder takes on the Koran:

By: Alan Caruba

Does it sometimes seem like everything you read, see or do has the word “Green” attached to it?

We have a Green President and a Green Congress. More and more products and services tout themselves as Green. We are paying more and more with greenbacks—dollars—that are in danger of losing what value they once had.

Green was not always the great, amorphous dream of achieving oneness with Mother Earth. People still talk about being “Green with envy” or “Turning Green” just before a projectile vomit attack.

We have reached this nauseating time in our society as the result of a vast environmental movement, truly worldwide, that are masters of propaganda and possessed of the millions necessary to brainwash a lot of people into accepting an endless assault on all the advancements in science, engineering, and technology we accept as part of our everyday lives.

So, naturally, the World Wildlife Fund has come up with “Earth Hour”, an event in which at 8:30PM, Saturday night, in everyone’s respective time zone, people will be asked to turn off their lights and, presumably, the use of all electricity to increase awareness of “energy conservation.”

Two questions: What does this have to do with wildlife? And why should anyone bother?

What need is there to “conserve energy?” One either uses it or does not. You can’t “conserve” it. You can use more or less of it, but you cannot save it up for later. Electricity is always “now.”

Is the Earth running out of coal? Hardly, the Chinese can’t build coal-fired plants fast enough to generate the electricity to grow their economy. In India, they’re launched on a huge program to build nuclear plants for the same reason. A nation without adequate electricity is strictly Third World.

Nor is the Earth running out of oil? The rumor is that there’s vast amounts in the Arctic and both the U.S. and Russia are making nasty noises at one another to ensure that neither one or the other gains control of it. Brazil just struck oil way offshore of its beautiful beaches and you don’t hear them complaining about it.

The U.S., of course, has vast untapped reserves of oil offshore and an estimated 3 to 4.3 BILLION barrels of it in the Bakken Formation under North Dakota and Montana. There’s oil under Utah as well. We’re not running out of oil in the United States. We just can’t drill for it thanks to Congress and the White House.

We can’t build coal-fired plants either because the Greens keep telling us that coal is “dirty.” The electricity it provides—just over half of all that’s used nationwide—isn’t dirty. Soon, though, they’re won’t be enough of it because our Green President thinks that solar and wind can provide it. It can’t and it won’t. Ever.

There’s just one way to “conserve” energy. Don’t use it. Don’t turn on the light. Don’t turn on the computer. Don’t turn on the television. Unplug your refrigerator, your heating and cooling system. Don’t wash and dry your clothes in a machine. Don’t use it.

Otherwise, the next moron that talks about conserving energy should be stuffed in a barrel and allowed to float over the Niagara Falls which, during Earth Hour, will not be lighted.

We will all be treated to the idiotic sight of a darkened Empire State Building and other similar structures around the world such as the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, Las Vegas strip, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the London Eye Ferris wheel, and the Pyramids of Egypt.

For a whole hour they will go dark to remind us to “conserve energy” that does not need conserving. It needs to be expanded into parts of the world where there is no electricity and, as a result, there is no economy which is another way of saying there is a lot of poverty, sickness, and early death.

(Also published at WesternFront America)

I was sent this by one of my StumbleUpon friends. As I was watching it, I knew I had to share it on the blog. I questioned the translation at first, because it was SO over the top, by I trust memritv.org, and this video bears their tag.

If you think America is safer with Obama reaching out to talk with the radicals Bush tried to kill, watch this video and tell me in the comments what you think.

This whole global warming scare isn’t about preventing the planet from bursting into flames, or preventing hurricanes, or anything else. It’s about the transfer of wealth from the rich, industrialized countries to the poorer countries (see here and here.)

Now, more information is revealed about the next Kyoto Protocol. It’s a doozy.

A United Nations document on “climate change” that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.

This will not reduce carbon dioxide emissions by even a little bit. The first one didn’t. All it was successful in doing was moving large sums of cash from rich countries to poor countries, just like this plan will try to do.

In the same bland manner, the note informs negotiators without going into details that cap-and-trade schemes “may induce some industrial relocation” to “less regulated host countries.” Cap-and-trade functions by creating decreasing numbers of pollution-emission permits to be traded by industrial users, and thus pay more for each unit of carbon-based pollution, a market-driven system that aims to drive manufacturers toward less polluting technologies.

The note adds only that industrial relocation “would involve negative consequences for the implementing country, which loses employment and investment.” But at the same time it “would involve indeterminate consequences for the countries that would host the relocated industries.”

There are also entirely new kinds of tariffs and trade protectionist barriers such as those termed in the note as “border carbon adjustment”— which, the note says, can impose “a levy on imported goods equal to that which would have been imposed had they been produced domestically” under more strict environmental regimes.

Another form of “adjustment” would require exporters to “buy [carbon] offsets at the border equal to that which the producer would have been forced to purchase had the good been produced domestically.”

The impact of both schemes, the note says, “would be functionally equivalent to an increased tariff: decreased market share for covered foreign producers.” (There is no definition in the report of who, exactly, is “foreign.”) The note adds that “If they were implemented fairly, such schemes would leave trade and investment patterns unchanged.” Nothing is said about the consequences if such fairness was not achieved.

Indeed, only rarely does the “information note” attempt to inform readers in dollar terms of the impact of “spillover effects” from the potential policy changes it discusses. In a brief mention of consumer subsidies for fossil fuels, the note remarks that such subsidies in advanced economies exceed $60 billion a year, while they exceed $90 billion a year in developing economies.”

But calculations of the impact of tariffs, offsets, or other subsidies is rare. In a reference to the impact of declining oil exports, the report says that Saudi Arabia has determined the loss to its economy at between $100 billion and $200 billion by 2030, but said nothing about other oil exporters.

One reason for the lack of detail, the note indicates, is that impact would vary widely depending on the nature and scope of the policies adopted (and, although the note does not mention it, on the severity of the greenhouse reduction targets).

Obama will agree to this, but will it be popular with the people? There is a growing number of Americans who are doubting the Church of Global Warming’s teachings. If the consequences of this move are shouted from the rooftops, it could be the thing that makes Barry a one termer.

Gateway Pundit has this story, via Little Green Footballs.

When President Obama was in Denver to sign the Stimulus Bill, he toured a solar panel manufacturing plant.  He then bought a bunch of them, or rather, we bought a bunch of them.  It will take 110 years for them to pay for themselves, but the things will only last 20-25 years, tops.

Before signing the $787 billion stimulus package into law on Feburary 17, 2009, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden toured an array of solar panels on top of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The photo-op allowed the President to once again extol the virtues of the coming “green” economy.

According to the Denver Post’s article on the event, “The sun generates enough energy on the museum rooftop to power about 30 homes.” However, that claim cannot be verified at this time, and in fact, seems to be belied by the scant information provided by the museum and other sources.[1] Laura Holtman, Public Relations Manager for the Museum said in an email, “Because the array generates less than 5 percent of the Museum’s power, [the purchased energy] is not a particularly large bill.”

The Independence Institute asked the Denver Museum of Science and Nature to provide certain statistical information regarding the now-famous solar array. Specifically, the Institute asked for:

1 ) Two years worth of electric bills prior to the installation of the solar array,
2 ) All electric bills following the completion of the installation.

The Museum denied those requests.

The solar array is not owned by the Museum, however. It is owned by Hybrid Energy Group, LLC. HEG owns the solar array, sells the electricity to the Museum, and receives tax incentives from the state and federal governments, while also receiving “rebates” from Xcel Energy. The rebates are funded by a surcharge collected on the monthly bill of every Colorado Xcel customer.

A 2008 article in the Denver Business Journal sheds further light on the subject. The article notes the total price of the solar array was $720,000. And Dave Noel, VP of operations and chief technology officer for the Museum, was quoted as saying, “We looked at first installing [the solar array] ourselves, and without any of the incentive programs, it was a 110-year payout.” Noel went on to say that the Museum did not purchase the solar array because it did not “make sense financially.”

Additionally, most solar panels have an expected life-span of 20 to 25 years.

So, in order to save a few pounds of CO2 from being emitted by some dirty coal fired power plant, the brilliant Obama will have a solar panel plant spewing who know what into the atmosphere.  Wait, I know what.  Check out what gets put in the air when you make a solar panel:

Weiss’ research focuses on trace gases like nitrogen trifluoride, or NF3, a greenhouse gas 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide. NF3 is commonly used in the manufacture of electronics and some solar panels. The gas is confined but a fraction often escapes during the process. In October, Weiss and other scientists found NF3 levels were increasing at 11 percent each year, although the cause is unclear. Production of some other panels involves another gas called sulfur hexafluoride — the most potent greenhouse gas known to science.

Meanwhile, nuclear power plants built in the 1970s are still running, create very little carbon dioxide and produce far more electricity than those little solar panels.

Brilliant.

When President Obama overturned President Bush’s ban of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, some were already wondering if it was a waste of time.  Using embryonic stem cells was obsolete.  Even U.S. News and World report explained “Why Embryonic Stem Cells are Obsolete“:

That report came out on March 4th. On March 9th Obama not only authorized the federal funding of embryonic stem cells, but dismissed the idea as being an ethical matter. He said, “Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values.” To Obama, the destruction of an embryo, regardless of whether President Clinton thinks it’s fertilized or not, is sound science. Even when it’s obsolete.

Mr. President, allow me to lay down some sound science for you. From the University of Wisconsin-Madison – “UW researchers find safer way to reprogram cells “:

Stem cell pioneer James Thomson and his colleagues reported Thursday that they have developed a safer way of turning cells from the foreskins of newborns into something very similar to embryonic stem cells.

Previous methods accomplished the trick but left behind viruses and outside genes, remnants of which could cause mutations, block the cells from growing into more specific types and even lead to tumors.

The UW team bypassed this obstacle by delivering the special genes with a plasmid, a small, very stable circle of DNA. This package reprogrammed the skin cells and was eventually diluted out of them. What remained were cells that appear to have the healing potential of embryonic stem cells, Thomson and his colleagues reported in the journal Science.

“You don’t need to make viruses. You don’t need to have special precautions. This is a technique any basic molecular biology lab can use,” said Stephen Duncan, a stem cell researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research, but has been working along similar lines.

“I think we’re getting to a position where we can start to think about using these cells therapeutically.”

Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, called the new paper “very interesting work,” and predicted the new method “will be recognized as another important step forward on reprogramming cells.”

“Science,” he said, “is alive with opportunities in the area of stem cell biology and medicine.”

In the last few years, cell reprogramming has proved one of the most dynamic areas of biology with a growing number of researchers pursuing what could be an alternative to embryonic stem cells.

There really isn’t a need to destroy embryos in the name of sound science. And the evidence shows that adult stem cells are more successful at solving medical issues than embryonic. There simply is not a reason to expend federal tax dollars to destroy these embryos.

Photo Credit:

You know, maybe they are right.  Maybe we just aren’t giving Obama a chance.  I mean, he’s only been in office for like 60 days or so.  We shouldn’t be so critical.  I mean, it’s not like he’s setting Gitmo detainees loose in the country or anything:

President Barack Obama’s intelligence chief confirmed Thursday that some Guantanamo inmates may be released on US soil and receive assistance to return to society.

“If we are to release them in the United States, we need some sort of assistance for them to start a new life,” said National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair at his first press conference.

“You can’t just put them on the street,” he added. “All that is work in progress.”

So….what exactly does that mean? Not only are we going to let them go free in America, but you and I, Joe Taxpayer, get to set them up with an apartment and a job? Oh, that is rich!

How about we ust let them go on the island paradise of Cuba? That’s a left wing dream come true. How could the Dems argue with that?