On Friday, Secretary of the Interior Salazar praised a new solar project in California, expected to be the largest in the world, as a major milestone in fulfilling President Obama’s promise to expand renewable energy.[i] The first phase of the project, to be completed in 2013, is being supported by a U.S. Department of Energy $2.1 billion loan guarantee. The 1,000-megawatt Blythe Solar Power Project in Riverside County, California claims to be able to power between 300,000 and 750,000 homes and create 1,000 temporary jobs and about 200 permanent jobs. The truth is that solar power alone will dependably serve very few homes because it is too unreliable but will cost up to 5 times as much as the cheapest form of electrical generation. Consumers, businesses, and the taxpayer will suffer.
Comparative Capacity Factors
Of course, Secretary Salazar does not tell the public that this solar plant will provide only a small fraction of the power that a 1,000 megawatt fossil fuel or nuclear plant would provide. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a new solar thermal plant has an average capacity factor of only 18 percent, which compares to a new natural gas combined cycle plant at 87 percent, a new coal-fired plant at 85 percent and a new nuclear plant at 90 percent.[ii]
According to the EIA, a plant’s capacity factor[iii] is the electrical energy it produces compared to the electrical energy that could have been produced if the plant operated at continuous full power during the same period of time. Thus, using EIA’s capacity factors, a 1,000 megawatt solar thermal plant’s annual production is expected to be 1.6 million megawatt hours, which compares to a 1,000 megawatt coal fired plant, whose annual production is expected to be 7.4 million megawatt hours. In other words, the solar plant’s annual production is expected to be 370 percent lower than the coal-fired plant, 380 percent lower than the natural gas-fired plant, and 400 percent lower than the nuclear plant.
Comparative Generating Costs
Not only is the annual production less but the cost of the solar plant is much higher. According to the EIA’s analysis of the cost of new generating plants which begin producing power in 2016, the projected capital cost of a solar thermal power plant excluding finance charges is $4,692 per kilowatt compared to $2,844 per kilowatt for a dual-unit coal-fired plant and $978 per kilowatt for a natural-gas combined cycle plant. [iv] So, the cost for a 1,000 megawatt solar plant would be $4.7 billion dollars, a coal-fired plant would be $2.8 billion, and a natural gas combined cycle plant would be just under $1 billion.
Of course, the capital component is just one part of the total generating cost. According to EIA, the annualized cost of generating a kilowatt hour of electricity from each of these plants is:
* solar thermal, 31.2 cents per kilowatt hour,
* coal, 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour,
* natural gas combined cycle, 6.2 cents per kilowatt hour, and
* nuclear, 11.4 cents per kilowatt hour.
The annualized cost includes the capital component with financing charges (similar to one’s mortgage payment); the operation and maintenance cost; the fuel cost, if applicable; and the transmission cost. It also takes into account the capacity factors of the plants, which is one of the reasons that the solar plant is so much more costly on an annualized basis of generation. Its annualized cost is 5 times as much as the gas plant, over 3 times as much as the coal plant, and 2.7 times as much as the nuclear plant, even though there is no fuel component associated with solar plants. It should be noted that EIA’s annualized cost for a coal plant is increased relative to the other plants by including a 3 percentage point increase in its financing charge, which is equivalent to an emissions fee of $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide. Also, as noted above, all figures provided by EIA are for new plants, and do not reflect the operating costs of current generating facilities, which are quite different.
Conclusion
Solar generating plants have a place as a starter energy source in remote places that do not have access to an electricity grid. Past that, this technology remains radically inefficient and uneconomic. Officials of the Obama Administration mislead the public regarding renewable energy, and solar energy in particular, by touting jobs and power generation without comparison to other technologies. Such frankness would naturally raise questions about why taxpayers and ratepayers are put at such risk.
“The White House will lead by example,” United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said during remarks at the GreenGov Symposium on Oct. 5, 2010. “I’m pleased to announce that by the end of this spring, there will be solar panels that convert sunlight to energy and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House.” But this project now has a completion date of September 2011 or later. [v]
While everyone is briefly fixated on foreign policy questions following the president’s speech on Afghanistan, the White House quietly let slip that it was taking some action on the energy policy front. What’s that you say? Are they issuing new permits or easing EPA restrictions on exploration? No, no, silly rabbit. The president is going to dump off some of the strategic petroleum reserve.
Wary of a new surge in gas prices, the Obama administration has decided to release 30 million barrels of oil from the country’s emergency reserve as part of a broader international response to lost oil supplies caused by turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly Libya.
The release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve will amount to half of a 60 million barrel international infusion of oil planned for the world market over the next month.
“We are taking this action in response to the ongoing loss of crude oil due to supply disruptions in Libya and other countries and their impact on the global economic recovery,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday.
Well, that’s just fabulous, isn’t it? (By the way, is it too early for a martini?) The wapo gets one thing right in their coverage, noting that traditionally the release of SPR stores is done in times of emergency, usually when the flow of oil is abruptly and severely reduced. Typical examples have been when hurricanes mow through the off shore fields and shut down production for weeks or months.
So what is the emergency in this case, since Libya really doesn’t account for all that much of the world supply? The administration may have already given us a hint.
Republicans have repeatedly slammed President Obama over the unusually high prices, and Obama himself has noted his poll numbers appear to rise and fall with the price of gasoline. Many political strategists say that voter anger over near-record oil and gasoline prices could be a determining factor in the 2012 elections.
Oh, yes. We’re doing this in response to an emergency all right. The emergency is that the president’s poll numbers are tanking and angry voters don’t want to continue to lay out 1/4 of their pay check at the pumps. But rather than actually do something to speed up domestic production and make us more energy independent, let’s just flush away some of the reserve we might really need if the you-know-what seriously hits the fan overseas in the next 12 months. Simply fabulous.
The release makes little sense for American markets. Crude and gasoline inventories are above average, and crude and gasoline prices have been trending down for weeks, despite the loss of Libyan oil, which markets have already adjusted to. The SPR was intended to be used for supply emergencies. There is no supply emergency. We don’t know what impacts this might have on markets long term. But we could and should be taking steps that would increase our own production by 2 million barrels a day or more for decades, which is possible if the government would grant much greater access to America’s ample oil and natural gas reserves. This would do vastly more to help consumers, increase energy security, create jobs and deliver more revenue to our government. It’s action that would truly strengthen our energy future, not a temporary gesture that has no lasting benefits.
30 million barrels is about what our nation consumes in a day-and-a-half. 60 million barrels (the total IEA release) is well under what the world consumes in a day.
Bah. I’m off for that martini anyway. Discuss amongst yourselves.
Electric car manufacturer Think Global AS filed for bankruptcy today. IBJ reported:
The electric car maker that launched its North American operations in northern Indiana has filed for bankruptcy protection in Norway, a major creditor said Wednesday morning.
Think Global AS plans to liquidate its assets, according to a statement from its exclusive battery supplier, Ener1 Inc.
Ener1, which engineers and makes its batteries in the Indianapolis area at its EnerDel subsidiary, notified investors Wednesday that the company would take a charge of more than $32 million on unpaid loans and accounts receivable from Think Global.
Think’s spokesman in Detroit, Brendan Prebo, could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.
“I think the car is quickly becoming a historic footnote,” said J. William Moore, publisher and editor of the Nebraska-based EV World, which covers the electric vehicle industry. “There’s a whole bunch of big, serious competitors hitting the market soon.”
Think’s sputtering performance has already dragged down Ener1′s stock price, but it’s not clear what affect the bankruptcy will have on the company. Spokesman Brian Sinderson would not answer a question about the impact on local operations. He issued a statement via email this morning saying, “Ener1 estimates that the amount of the charge is $32.6 million, although the amount could change based on the extent to which funds are recovered as a result of the liquidation of Think Global.”
House Republicans, including Majority Leader Eric Cantor, are pulling out of negotiations being led by Vice President Joe Biden on the budget because Democrats insist on pairing spending cuts with at least some tax increases.
Cantor, from Virginia, said it’s time for President Barack Obama to weigh in directly.
The Hill has part of the statement released by Cantor:
“Regardless of the progress that has been made, the tax issue must be resolved before discussions can continue,” Cantor said. “Given this impasse, I will not be participating in today’s meeting and I believe it is time for the president to speak clearly and resolve the tax issue,” he said.
Cantor said that the talks so far have established a “blueprint” for going forward.“I believe that we have identified trillions in spending cuts, and to date, we have established a blueprint that could institute the fiscal reforms needed to start getting our fiscal house in order,” he said.
“That said, each side came into these talks with certain orders, and as it stands the Democrats continue to insist that any deal must include tax increases. There is not support in the House for a tax increase, and I don’t believe now is the time to raise taxes in light of our current economic situation,” he said.
“Once resolved, we have a blueprint to move forward to trillions [in] spending cuts and binding mechanisms to change the way things are done around here,” he said.
Cantor said the Republican-dominated House simply won‘t support tax increases and that he won’t participate in a meeting scheduled for Thursday. Cantor says that plenty of progress has been made in identifying trillions of dollars in potential spending cuts.
UPDATE: According to ABC News, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is following suit:
…[Kyl] will also drop out of the debt talks, a source within his office confirms today. The Arizona Republican’s office will issue a formal statement shortly.
The judges in the Court of Amsterdam delivered their verdict Thursday morning in the heresy trial of Dutch Freedom Party politician Geert Wilders. Wilders has been found not guilty of all charges of inciting hatred against Muslims. The judge, Marcel van Oosten, and the other Dutch authorities ended up doing the right thing, no matter how cowardly and compromised they may have been. They must have known how history would view them if Wilders had been found guilty: as troglodytes who ushered in the return of the Dark Ages.
When do the Islamic supremacists go on trial for inciting hatred against non-Muslims?
“I am delighted with this ruling,” Wilders said. “It is a victory, not only for me but for all the Dutch people. Today is a victory for freedom of speech. The Dutch are still allowed to speak critically about islam, and resistance against islamisation is not a crime. I have spoken, I speak and I shall continue to speak.”
The charges against Geert Wilders were that he had made statements that were intentionally offensive to Muslims; incited hatred against Muslims; incited discrimination against Muslims; and incited hatred of non-Western immigrants.
The Islamic supremacists who initiated the case told the Dutch dhimmi judges that the things Wilders said had led to a rise in discrimination and violence against Muslims. They had no proof, of course, of anyone committing any act of violence against any Muslim, or discriminating against any Muslim, because of anything Geert Wilders said. They just wanted to compel the Netherlands to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws.
This has been dragging on for a good while. The Wilders heresy trial began last October 4, but fell apart just a few weeks later after a special legal panel determined that the judges were biased against Wilders. No kidding. But they found more dhimmi judges and kept going.
The Islamic supremacist “plaintiffs” were seeking a one-euro fine. But it was of course never about a fine, symbolic or otherwise. The Wilders case has always been an attempt to win an Islamic supremacist triumph over the tenets of Western law and free speech. They said if they didn’t get their symbolic one-euro fine, they didn’t get it, but they said they were considering taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Ah yes, take it to the anti-humans under the guise of human rights.
This was a seminal case. Last fall Wilders explained what was really at stake in Holland, and in the entire Western world, in his case: “I am standing trial,” he said, “because of my opinions on Islam… and because the Dutch establishment – most of them non-Muslims – wants to silence me. I have been dragged to court because in my country freedom can no longer be fully enjoyed. In Europe the national state, and increasingly the EU, prescribes how citizens – including democratically elected politicians such as myself – should think and what we are allowed to say.”
Wilders was our proxy – the West was on trial. And while this was a great victory, the fight isn’t over. Even as Geert Wilders is justly acquitted, the noose of the sharia grows ever tighter around neck of the West. Attempts to silence freedom fighters – by legal action as well as through threats – will continue. Let’s take a step back ourselves and understand the price that Wilders and others really are paying, and will continue to pay. Former Muslim and author Wafa Sultan, former Muslim and Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, scholar Robert Spencer, former Muslim and scholar Ibn Warraq, scholar Bat Ye’or, former Muslim Nonie Darwish, cartoonist Lars Vilks, cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, Danish newspaper publisher Flemming Rose, South Park producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Salman Rushdie and countless others, myself included, receive horrible threats all the time. Wilders himself lives under round-the-clock tight security because of the hundreds of death threats he receives every year. And that will not end with his acquittal; if anything, he is in even more danger now.
In his closing remarks before the court a few weeks ago, Wilders said: “Mister President, members of the Court, you have a great responsibility. Do not cut freedom in the Netherlands from its roots, our freedom of expression. Acquit me. Choose freedom.”
They did. Thank Gd. And now we must keep on choosing freedom, and defending freedom, no matter what.
James “Whitey” Bulger, the notorious Boston mobster accused of murdering 19 people, is in custody in California after an epic 16-year manhunt that turned him into a global sensation.
The FBI finally caught up with the 81-year-old Bulger on Wednesday at a residence in Santa Monica, Calif. He was apprehended along with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, just days after the government launched a new publicity campaign to locate the fugitives, said Steven Martinez, FBI’s assistant director in charge in Los Angeles.
A tip generated by the campaign led to the arrest, Martinez said.
Bulger and Greig were scheduled to appear in Los Angeles federal court Thursday. He faces a series of federal charges including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, narcotics distribution, extortion and money-laundering. She is charged with harboring a fugitive.
Known as “The Irish Godfather” of Boston, Bulger has been on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted posters for years and was an inspiration for the 2006 movie The Departed.
Along with Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, he allegedly led the violent Winter Hill Gang, a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area. U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern said in 2000 that the two were “responsible for a reign of intimidation and murder that spanned 25 years.”
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In the 1970s, Bulger became a top-secret FBI informant in Boston but later corrupted his handlers.
The agents “tipped him off to investigations by other police agencies and they also tipped him off to other people who were informing against him so that he could and did murder them,” said David Boeri, a reporter from member station WBUR in Boston who has followed the Bulger case for more than two decades.
When state and federal investigators finally closed in on Bulger in January 1995, he fled Boston with his girlfriend after being tipped by his FBI handler. Two former FBI agents were later charged with plotting murders with Bulger, and one is now serving a life sentence in prison.
“This is what makes this such a treacherous story,” Boeri said. “It is corruption within the FBI.”
In 2003, a congressional committee draft report blasted the FBI for its use of Bulger as an informant, calling it “one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement.”
But on Wednesday, it was the FBI who took Bulger down. Agents swarmed around the Santa Monica apartment building where he and Grieg, 60, were staying.
Bulger lived on the third floor of The Princess Eugenia, a three-story, 28-unit building of one- and two-bedroom apartments three blocks from a bluff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean.
Federal agents had been conducting surveillance in the area where the arrest was made, said police Sgt. Rudy Flores, who gave no details of the arrest.
The FBI said guns and a large amount of cash were found in the apartment, according to The Associated Press. Investigators declined to say how Bulger raised enough money to live on.
Barbara Gluck, who lives on the same floor as Bulger and Greig, told the AP that she didn’t know their names but recognized them from photos on the Internet after she heard about their arrest.
Gluck described Greig, a dental hygienist, as “sweet and lovely” and said they would have “girl talk” when they ran into each other in the building. But she added that Bulger became angry whenever he saw the two of them talking.
“He was nasty,” Gluck said. “At one point, [Greig] said [Bulger] has a rage issue.”
The arrest brings an end to a manhunt that received worldwide attention as the FBI received reported sightings of Bulger and Greig from all over the U.S. and parts of Europe. In many of those sightings, investigators could not confirm whether it was Bulger who was spotted or a lookalike.
The investigation also touched the highest level of Massachusetts politics. Bulger’s younger brother, William, was one of the state’s most powerful Democrat politicians, leading the Massachusetts Senate for 17 years and later serving as president of the University of Massachusetts for seven years. William Bulger told a congressional committee that he had spoken to his brother shortly after he went on the run in 1995 but had no idea about his whereabouts.
He declined to comment to the Boston Globe about his brother’s arrest.
Federal officials said they have linked James Bulger to a series of ruthless killings. One victim was shot between the eyes in a parking lot at his country club in Oklahoma. Another was gunned down in broad daylight on a South Boston street reportedly to prevent him from talking about the killing in Oklahoma. Others allegedly were taken out for running afoul of Bulger’s gambling enterprises.
“He left a trail of bodies,” Tom Duffy, a retired state police major in Massachusetts, told the AP. “You did not double-cross him. If you did, you were dead.”
After 16 years on the lam, Wednesday’s arrest was a stunning reversal for Bulger.
“This guy used to look out at Boston from Southie – the old town – and say, ‘I own this town,’ ” WBUR’s Boeri said.
More Americans than forecast (by people who never get their forecasts right) filed first-time jobless claims last week and consumer confidence fell, highlighting Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s concern that the slowdown in the economy may persist.
Applications for unemployment benefits increased 9,000 in the week ended June 18 to 429,000, Labor Department figures showed today. The level of claims exceeded the highest estimate in a Bloomberg News survey in which the median projection called for 415,000 filings. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index dropped to minus 44.9 last week from minus 44.
Stocks slumped and Treasury securities rose as the figures, combined with a drop in new-home sales, showed the “recovery” was struggling. Bernanke said yesterday that joblessness above 9 percent and weakness in housing show the economy’s “headwinds” may be stronger than Fed policy makers initially estimated.
“The jobless claims numbers are troubling,” said Maxwell Clarke, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal in New York. “The Fed is a little nervous,” he said, and the economy is “going to start next quarter out on a weak note.”
Purchases of new homes dropped 2.1 percent in May to a 319,000 annual rate, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The median price of new properties sold declined from a year earlier.
“Things are still going to be weak for a while,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida. “We need to see much better job growth and more confidence in general,” he said, adding that new-home sales are “still sort of bouncing around the bottom.”
They are swooning, and crooning like love struck teenagers. He is handsome, smooth, well spoken, he reminds them of JFK, and on and on. All I know is this, if the media love Huntsman that much, it is because they think he will lose to Obama. Do not fall for it! Michelle is not falling for the younger, better looking “Maverick” either
Jon Huntsman wants you to know he rides a dirt bike. On real dirt! He’s Salt of the Earth. Grease of the Garage. Dragster on the Dunes. Huntsman’s runnin’ and gunnin’ for president. But underneath the Steve McQueen costumery, this made-for-cable-TV Moderate Speed Racer is a creaky old John McCain on Wheels.
The former Utah Republican governor and Obama ambassador to China is the answer to an election-year problem that doesn’t exist. The quadrennial “problem,” in the minds of Beltway GOP strategists and liberal media chin-pullers, is that the Republican Party isn’t moderate, civil, self-critical or inclusive enough.
Read the whole thing, it is well worth your time. Again, if the media is this infatuated with Huntsman…………….
UPDATE! Rush, apparently, is sort of puzzled by the “huntsman as Reagan” lie. In short, Rush rightly points out that Reagan went after Jimmy Carter in 1980. The whole Huntsman is Mr Civility line the media is playing up is an attempt to sway GOP voters into believing that they can win by being nicer, more civil, and softer. AGAIN, if the media is spinning it that way, we ought to go the opposite direction.
The average monthly casualty rate for U.S. military forces serving in Afghanistan has increased 5-fold since President Barack Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009.
1,540 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since Oct. 7,2001, when U.S. forces began action in that country to oust the Taliban regime that had been harboring al Qaeda and to track down and capture or kill al Qaeda terrorists.
During the Bush presidency, which ended on Jan. 20, 2009 with the inauguration of President Obama, U.S. troops were present in Afghanistan for 87.4 months and suffered 570 casualties – a rate of 6.5 deaths per month.
During the Obama presidency, through today, U.S. troops have been present in Afghanistan for 29.1 months and have suffered 970 casualties – a rate of 33.3 deaths per month.
This evening President Obama is expected to announce the scope of U.S. troop withdrawals set to begin next month.
Of the 1,540 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan, according to CNSNews.com’s database of all casualties in the war, 1,340 have resulted from enemy action and the other 200 have resulted from non-combat accidents, illnesses and other non-combat causes.
The 970 U.S. casualties that have occurred while President Obama has been commander in chief equal 63 percent – or almost two-thirds – of all U.S. casualties that have taken place in the nearly-ten-year-long war.
889 of the 970 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan that have occurred during the Obama presidency – or about 92 percent – have been combat-related casualties.
During Obama’s presidency, U.S. troops have given their lives in the service of their country in Afghanistan at an average rate of more than one per day.
CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan is derived from official casualty reports issued by the Department of Defense (DOD) augmented by information taken from media accounts.
The database includes all U.S. troops who died in and around Afghanistan while supporting military efforts against terrorism under Operation Enduring Freedom. It also includes some Americans who died in Pakistan and others who died in the Arabian Sea while supporting operations in Afghanistan.
In December 2009, President Obama announced that he was increasing the U.S. presence in Afghanistan by 30,000 troops. Currently, the U.S. has a force of 100,000 in the country. Tonight, the president is expected to outline his plan for beginning the withdrawal of some of those forces.
U.S. military officials have indicated that despite the expected reduction in forces, the U.S. will maintain a military presence in Afganistan beyond 2014. Gen. David Petraeus, the top-commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has also told Congress that he would be open to maintaining a jointly-operated military base in Afghanistan.
New emails obtained by The Daily Caller contradict claims by the Obama administration that the Treasury Department would avoid “intervening in the day-to-day management” of General Motors post-auto bailout.
These messages reveal that Treasury officials were involved in decision-making that led to more than 20,000 non-union workers losing their pensions.
Republican Reps. Dan Burton and Mike Turner say that during the GM bailout, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner decided to cut pensions for salaried non-union employees at Delphi, a GM spinoff, to expedite GM’s emergence from bankruptcy.
At a Wednesday hearing, the House Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending started pushing the Treasury Department for answers on the effects of the bailout and on how much of a role the department played in picking winners and losers.
The key point of the Wednesday hearing was to show that the Obama administration advised GM on how to eliminate the Delphi workers’ pensions. The evidence suggests Geithner’s team played a significant role in that process, despite claims to the contrary.
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In 2009 congressional testimony, senior Obama administration official Ron Bloom said the president told the Treasury Department to stay out of the management of these companies and downplayed any administration intervention.
“From the beginning of this process, the President gave the Auto Task Force two clear directions regarding its approach to the auto restructurings,” Bloom said then. “The first was to behave in a commercial manner by ensuring that all stakeholders were treated fairly and received neither more nor less than they would have simply because the government was involved. The second was to refrain from intervening in the day-to-day management of these companies.”
But the emails TheDC obtained show high-ranking Treasury Department officials, including Matthew Feldman of Treasury’s Auto Task Force, corresponding with senior GM officials on how to make certain decisions regarding who was going to win and who was going to lose.
“Have you guys begun a dialogue with the UAW over your desire to see the hourly plan terminated?” Feldman asked GM’s Rick Westenberg and Walter Borst in June 2009. This email shows Feldman and the Treasury Department were involved in GM’s day-to-day management.
“One concern I have is that while the PBGC [Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal agency that handles private-sector pension benefits issues] is likely to agree to terminate, it’s not clear what position they will take on the Benefit Guaranty,” Feldman continued in that email, demonstrating his involvement in union negotiations. “At a minimum this could get messy and the UAW should probably be brought into the loop.”
A new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that President Obama’s economic stimulus program helped nearly double U.S. debt.
The 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook, released Wednesday morning, reports that the “the combination of automatic budgetary responses” and Obama’s stimulus “had a profound impact on the federal budget.” According to CBO projections, before Obama’s stimulus became law, federal debt equaled 36 percent of GDP and was projected to decline slightly over the next few years. Instead, thanks in large part to the stimulus, debt reached 62 percent of GDP by 2010.
Other lowlights from the report include:
* Debt will reach 70 percent of GDP by the end of this year – the highest percentage since World War II.
* Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will reach 15 percent of GDP by 2035 – spending on all government programs has averaged 18.5 percent over the past 40 years.
* Total government spending is set to hit 27 percent of GDP by 2035.
* Taxes are set to grow from 19 percent of GDP in 2013, to 23 percent by 2035.
* Americans “at various points on the income scale would pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than people at the same points do today.”
* The effective marginal tax rate on labor income would rise from about 25 percent now to about 35 percent in 2035.
In the name of combating “sexual harassment” on college campuses, those “Elevtaor Eyes” have simply got to go. Confused? Well you should be, since political correctness can be very confusing to anyone with an IQ above say, five, so,Stacy McCain is here to explain
The OCR letter includes a requirement that universities adopt a “preponderance of the evidence” standard of proof for deciding cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault. In other words, in every case of alleged sexual harassment or sexual assault, a disciplinary board must decide on the basis of more likely than not. That’s far short of the requirement in criminal law that charges must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. And these disciplinary proceedings sometimes involve charges that could also be criminal, as in cases of alleged rape. But more often they involve alleged offenses defined in vague terms and depending often on subjective factors. [Foundation for Individual Rights in Education president Greg] Lukianoff notes that campus definitions of sexual harassment include “humor and jokes about sex in general that make someone feel uncomfortable” (University of California at Berkeley), “unwelcome sexual flirtations and inappropriate put-downs of individual persons or classes of people” (Iowa State University) or “elevator eyes” (Murray State University in Kentucky).
OH BOY! Talk about a can of worms we should never seek to open. I could go on and on about the inherent dangers of unleashing what Stacy McCain labels the “Flirting Police”, but, he sums it up in succinct fashion.
Wait a minute! We’re talking about college students. If young people on our nation’s university campuses aren’t permitted to tell “jokes about sex” or engage in “sexual flirtations” without risk of a federal civil-rights action, who among us is safe?
BINGO! This is so misguided, as most things the political correctors are, and will only serve to empower the whiners and easily offended to try to force everyone else to embrace their standards. It will also endanger any student who ism well, being a college student. Tell a joke, and risk your educational future if the wrong person overhears you and is, Heaven forbid, OFFENDED! Flirt with the wrong person, and UH-OH, here come the Feds! Or perhaps theSexual Harassment Panda?
(Reuters) — Fast-food chain Jack in the Box has pulled toys from its kids’ meals, a spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday.
The move, which managers at Los Angeles outlets said took effect on Thursday, comes as fast-food companies are under pressure to stop using toys to market children’s meals that are high in calories, sugar, fat and salt.
Lawmakers in San Francisco and nearby Santa Clara County have passed laws that will require kids’ meals to meet certain nutritional standards before they can be sold with toys.
So, who wants to start a pool on which fast food chain caves next?
The Left has actually become so pathetic and predictable. Their mantra seems to be when in doubt, race bait! Enter Rep. Barbara Lee and Planned Parenthood, who are terribly offended over this ad
A new pro-life campaign in California seeking to combat abortion in the black community is drawing charges of racism from Planned Parenthood and pro-choice advocates.But Planned Parenthood and California pro-choice groups are calling the ads racist. They say the “black & beautiful” slogan is too close to the “black is beautiful” cultural-pride campaign made popular in the 1960s.
“The fact that this has been co-opted is something that is obviously only meant to divide us. I think our community can see right through it,” said Alicia Walters, with Trust Black Women California.
Note the paragraph in red there. Alicia Waters bemoans an attempt to “divide us”, but then talks of “our community”. Our community, as in the Black community? What is that but divisive? Look, the Left should stop labeling and dividing everyone along racial lines, rather than dishonestly accusing everyone who disagrees with them of doing it.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., has also spoken out against the billboards.”I am deeply offended by the race-based billboards that are being displayed in my congressional district by the Radiance Foundation and Issues4life,” she said in a statement.
Deeply offended? Over so-called race-based signs? Barbara Lee has made a career out of race baiting, and dividing has she not?
“These billboards stigmatize women of color and perpetuate myths about parenting skills and the types of women who seek and use abortion services,” Lee added.
No, Ms Lee, these signs are trying to save the lives of Black babies, babies that it seems you care not one damn about frankly!
Barack Obama’s radical (green) Energy Secretary Steven Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. So, like a good socialist, Chu proposed indoctrinating the nation’s youth on global warming junk science. And he’s not shy about it.
This wasn’t a joke… Yesterday, Maryland because the first state to require students to pass a green test before graduating. The kids can’t read or write but at least they can pass an enviro-Marxism test.
Well, the least Free State – literally – is outdoing itself in the idiocy department.
In an historic vote today, the Maryland State Board of Education provided specific guidance to all public schools to require that each student be environmentally literate before he or she graduates from high school. The vote cements Maryland as the first state in the country to approve a graduation requirement in environmental literacy, a credit to Governor O’Malley, to board members, and to Dr. Nancy Grasmick, State Superintendent of Schools.
In other words, despite the growing evidence of fraud within the global warming/climate change debate, Maryland schools will, by law, force feed enviro-propaganda in the classroom. And your kid will swallow it whole, or not graduate.
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
