Morning Wood: New Bond Girl

And I hear the movie aint bad either.

Her name is Olga Kurylenko.

More: not safe for work!. Link 1
My goodness this lady is hot.

Senate Leader: We Must Stop Using Fossil Fuel - It Makes Us Sick

Sir, you make me sick.

So, backed with no facts and the country heading into a recession, the Senate leader calls on this country to fuck it's economy up even more. Listen to this stumblebum..you can tell he is making it up as he goes.

Bill Clinton to Obama: He will have to kiss my ass

According to a report in The (London) Telegraph Bill Clinton reportedly told close friends Obama can “kiss my ass” to get his support.

In April, Bill Clinton had a fiery exchange with a public radio reporter, who asked him about a controversial statement he made on South Carolina on the day the state held its primary, and whether he regretted comparing Obama’s campaign to Jesse Jackson’s campaigns.

Clinton responded: “No, I think that they played the race card on me, and we now know from memos in the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along.

“Do I regret saying it? No. Do I regret that it was used that way? I certainly do. But you’ve really got to go some (distance) to portray me as a racist,” Clinton said, adding that he has an office in Harlem, and Jackson told him personally he was not offended.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd take a third Bill Clinton term right about now.

Morning Wood: Cool New House Includes a Womb Room

With the intensity and determination of migrating salmon, men spend their entire lives trying to get back to the "womb."

Now Bill Massie has designed a new home to help men return to the origin.

Case in point...if you open the large skylight above the shower in Massie's master bath some winter's morn, you could bathe midst the falling snow.

The shower egg -- it feels like a well-lit womb inside -- is separated from the other half of the master bath by a narrow hall. When stepping out of the curved egg, you cross the hall and enter a door whose concave shape, and that of its wall, exactly mirrors the egg's curved surface --

So going from the shower to the bedroom is like being reborn...every day.

From the look of the interior, the only think missing is the phallic statue that Alex used to great effect in Clockwork Orange.

Hobo Hunting: Global Warming and Cleveland Don't Mix

Clearly all of this talk of drilling in ANWAR and the potential melting of the ice cap have left these kids in Cleveland emotionally disturbed.

Cars Slow to Watch as Teens Beat Homeless Man to Death

CLEVELAND — A group of teenagers beat a homeless man to death as passers-by slowed to watch the attack, some of which was caught on videotape, police said.

Anthony Waters, 42, suffered a lacerated spleen and broken ribs and died at a hospital, police said.

The children were applauded by local environmentalists, however, for causing drivers to slow down and use less energy. They see this as a potential pilot program that could be expanded to other cities during this summer. Said one, "sacrificing some homeless people is a small price to pay for reducing Cleveland's carbon footprint."

The attackers, who appeared to be between the ages of 14 to 17, robbed Waters of a music player and headphones, police said. No arrests have been made.

What they took was worth a few dollars, what they gained was a lifetime of memories and a renewed sense of community.

The image that reportedly set these kids off.

Change you can BEE-lieve in

Michigan honeybees are back in town

After two bad years, honeybee population thrives.

This summer, consumers swarming to farm stands and supermarkets may find the local produce extra succulent, thanks to a resurgence in the honeybee pollination. Beekeepers in New Jersey say it's part of positive trend in other areas around the country.

"One-third of the food you and I eat is directly affected by honeybee pollination," said Tim Schuler, New Jersey's chief bee expert.

Unfortunately, the other two thirds of the food we used to eat is now going into our fucking gas tanks while your grandma doesn't have enough money to buy a gallon of milk.

Bee pollination was limited during the past two years because of the destructive presence of Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious phenomenon that killed a large number of honeybee colonies.

Hearing that Colony Collapse Disorder was ending, Nancy Pelosi called Barry Obama in a panic, worried that their election year strategy of destroying our nation before November was in jeopardy.

But seriously, having the bees come back is a good thing. Only, it's one less thing we can blame on that bastard George Bush.

Morning Wood: Jennifer Love Hewitt

For all the guys who DON'T like skinny girls.

Book Review: Makers and Takers... by Peter Schweizer

Peter Schweizer has elevated the national debate again. Rising above the he-said/she-said din of cable news debates, Peter has produced a well-researched and fascinating analysis of the psychology that is inherent in liberalism. As in his last book Do As I Say..., Peter avoids the name calling and bitter politics that seem to be part of almost every discussion.

By reviewing scores of peer-reviewed, large-scale public surveys; Peter quantifies a pathology and redefines factitious disorder syndrome to include the type of liberalism practiced by the far left today. Better known as Munchausen syndrome, these disorders are characterized by exactly the same self-delusional and malingering traits exposed in Makers and Takers.

If Munchausen by proxy means inflicting the disorder on others, then surely the United States is the left's proxy.

If the present lurching towards the proven failure of socialism isn't self-explanatory enough, then this research becomes self evident: Those who are naturally inclined to resist personal responsibility and accountability find a happy and willing enabler in liberalism. If the primary motive of a Munchausen patient is to obtain sympathy, nurturance and attention; then the message of liberalism is surely a sirens song.

The question I have is this: If one man, researching publicly available data on his own can produce this work, how could the thousands of so-called political science professors and researchers have missed it all this time?

The book is currently #2 on Amazon non-fiction.

Morning Wood: Alligator Eats Drunk Teens Arm

I highlight this story because, as a parent, you are always looking for new material to scare your kids out of doing stupid things. Most times I have to make this shit up. Other times, drunken teens write it for me.

Case in point. Kasey Edwards, 18, of Okeechobee, Fla., lost his left arm after grappling with the 11-foot long alligator.

"I felt something lock down and had the sensation of needle nose pliers, just a gigantic set of them, clamping down."

It could happen to anybody, right?

Well, it was 2 am, he was drunk and he was swimming in a drainage canal. Edwards admits he and his friends were drinking before he decided to jump in the 25-foot-deep canal in Nubbin Slough in Okeechobee County.When the alligator grabbed his arm, he remembered that gators spin their prey, so he told WFLX-TV that he grabbed a buoy line and didn't let go.

"I was just like holding on with everything I could for this gator was trying to pull me under," he told the station. "I'd surface, get a gasp of air and he'd just shake again and pull me under.

In my version of this story, this guy's name will be "Timmy" and his mom will cry all the time.

Morning Wood - Lost Amazon Tribe...a Krippendorfian Hoax!

NICE. Once again major newspapers are duped by a photoshop.

THE UK Guardian reports that "Tribal guardian admits the Amazon Indians' existence was already known," but he hoped the publicity would lift the threat of logging.

"They are the amazing pictures that were beamed around the globe: a handful of warriors from an 'undiscovered tribe' in the rainforest on the Brazilian-Peruvian border brandishing bows and arrows at the aircraft that photographed them."

And try this for some logic. "Meirelles, one of only five or so genuine sertanistas (think Krippendorf), has no regrets, arguing that the pictures and video released to the world were powerful and indisputable evidence to those who say isolated tribes no longer exist. 'Alan García [the President of Peru] declared recently that the isolated Indians were a creation in the imagination of environmentalists and anthropologists – now we have the pictures.'


Where have we seen this before? Well, before Richard Dreyfuss did it in Krippendorf's Tribe. I think we saw this type of reporting in the Israeli/Lebanese conflict where the "power" of the imagery was more important that having factual stories. Of course this all dovetails nicely into a MSM narrative, so being duped is easy when you are a willing accomplice.

Who Wants Lower Gas Prices?

Well, apparently some of our representatives in congress are pretty happy with the current situation. Just in the last week, with everybody's hair on fire over the issue, here's what they have done.

Proposed to raise taxes on oil and gas companies. Nope that doesn't lower prices.

Threaten to socialize oil companies. Wrong again. That only works if you already own the land the oil is under. And then only for a short while.

Worst of all. Investors and speculators alike have a no risk investment right now with the supply/demand imbalance. And given that these guys trade FUTURES contracts, additional oil supply IN THE FUTURE would make traders consider the possibility that prices WILL come down. That would take a lot of the froth out of the market today. But guess what.

Congress won't even open up areas in the Gulf of Mexico where CHINA and freaking CUBA are already drilling.

John Peterson (R VA) tried to lift domestic offshore drilling restrictions, which was killed by the House Subcommittee of Interior and the Environment. Let's see, all the dems voted to continue the drilling ban and all of the republicans voted to allow our companies to do what China and Cuba are doing.

Dems:

Ben Chandler (KY) voted NO
Norman D. Dicks (WA)voted NO
Maurice D. Hinchey (NY)voted NO
James P. Moran (VA)voted NO
Dave Obey (WI)voted NO
John W. Olver (MA)voted NO
Alan B. Mollohan (WV)voted NO
Tom Udall (NM)voted NO
Ed Pastor (AZ)voted NO


Rep:

Ken Calvert (CA) voted YES
Jo Ann Emerson (MO) voted YES
Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (VA)voted YES
Jerry Lewis (CA) voted YES
John E. Peterson (PA) voted YES
Todd Tiahrt (KS) voted YES

The democrats have seen the polling data: They are 15% ahead among people who have gas prices as the No.1 issue. They have no reason to help make gas get cheaper until they have been elected. This is the lowest form of politics.

And don't tell me these guys don't understand speculating in markets. Clinton made a killing in beef/cattle futures and Obama made a killing speculating in real estate with his friend Resco.

Pope of Environmentalism Speaks

And he wants some nonbelievers sent to the tower.

Proving once again that environmentalISM has turned into a cult-like movement that is completely unfounded in science, James Hansen today called for crimes against humanity trials for CEO's of energy companies.

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Ugh, where to begin? First, scientists trying to test a hypothesis do not usually try to stop competing ideas and experiments by having those people executed - political thugs and religious cult leaders trying to silence opponents do.

Second, comparing studies from serious researchers to that of tobacco company hacks is the science equivalent of calling a politician "Hitler" or "racist."

But again this is not about science. It's about settling an issue before the science is complete.

To turn a phrase, zealots like Hansen are the McCarthy's of science: shouting down those who dare oppose him with slurs that damn without rebuttal. The Hansen's of the science world have always bowed to the most powerful political masters of their time: whether it was to support the sun revolving about the earth, to prove that evolution did not happen, or to help devise the solution for the "Jew" problem; men like Hansen will always find a lucrative and comfortable spot within the embrace of tyrants looking for legitimacy.

If he is so sure about his science that he is willing to call for the execution of others: why not put his own neck on the line? Let's say that if the man-made component of global climate change turns out to be less than 25%, would he be willing to take his own life. Of course not, because it's no longer about being right, it's now about being on the right side.

Vero possumus: Translating Obama

Vero possumus
Literally, it means "in truth to be able." Which is not even close to, YES! WE CAN.

But like most things Obama, the translation never seems to mean (in plain English) what they tell us it does.

Reducing green house gasses really means reducing our way of life to make it fair for the rest of the world.

Reducing global poverty with his "millennium act", really means increasing our poverty, which makes it look like we have reduced theirs.

Increasing tax fairness will mean a massive redistribution of earnings, from those who do to those who do not.

Increasing corporate fairness actually means massive new government control of private enterprise. It won't be any fairer, or cheaper, or efficient - probably less - but it will be under government control: which is the whole idea.

This silly seal really translates into more of his "bitter people, clinging to their God and guns" philosophy. There is a basic distrust, uneasiness, and probable dislike of traditional Americans and "their" traditions. Translating "Coming Together", looks like it's going to mean, "join my way or be considered part of the old evil ways."

For the fans of the TV show Jericho, I had to think of the "new" flag when I first saw this Vero possumus' seal.



The new flag from Jericho.



But hey, if you can get this far promising higher gas prices, higher taxes, a guaranteed depression, and a Marxist redistribution of earnings (now referred to as Obamunism) - who is going to argue over a latin phrase.

Morning Wood: You Killed Grandma! Naw, She's Breathin'

Cops: Drunken Arkansas Woman Fatally Runs Over Her Mother

Lisa Ann Casteel, 40, was charged with negligent homicide and driving while intoxicated. She was booked Wednesday for the May 17 accident and released on $3,000 bond.

Sheriff's deputies were told by witnesses that Casteel backed over her mother, Mary Jane Donn, 56, as Donn sat in a plastic chair in the driveway of a home where relatives had gathered, according to an arrest affidavit.

Casteel's sister, Lisa, told the deputies that Casteel thought her Chevrolet Blazer was in drive, not reverse, according to the affidavit.

Witness Michael Carey, who was named in the affidavit, said the group was at his house. He said people in the yard yelled "You killed grandma" at Casteel. Casteel got out of her SUV, checked on her mother, said "she's breathin'", then drove off, the affidavit said.

Casteel later returned to the house but was blocked by deputies when she tried to turn around and leave at the sight of their cruisers.

This incident should be called, "ya'll killed grandma."

Bush's Lack of Energy

The development of energy resources (natural gas and oil) along the US continental shelf is currently blocked - most everybody knows that. Much of this area is very far offshore and, as I noted several days ago, the Cubans and Chinese are already out there drilling.

What most people don't know is that the ban has two components: The congressional ban and a Presidential Executive Order from 1990.

That's right, Bush called for congress to lift the offshore ban yesterday, while leaving his father's ban in place. In the history of laughable presidential politics, this ranks right up there with Nixon naming Elvis his drug czar.



The Wall Street Journal correctly pointed out that -

The Administration has botched a prime political opportunity. Lifting the Presidential ban would have been symbolic for now, because Congress's ban would still apply. But it would have put the spotlight on Congress as the last political obstacle to exploiting domestic reserves, just as public support for more drilling is rising.

Anticarbon Democrats are on the defensive for once. Their default position – doing nothing – doesn't have the best resonance amid $4 gas. They've been reduced to arguing that more exploration would merely make a difference over the long term. The GOP plan, in other words, is too pragmatic

Botching opportunities is nothing new for this Administration: Since 2005 the President has had "ZERO" domestic agenda items and has ceeded so much ground that almost anything a candidate says now sounds like a good idea.

McCain Calls for Nuclear Power

FINALLY! A presidential candidate takes a position based on something other than hope, dreams, and change. I said the same thing two weeks ago when blogging about the Climate Security Act. Gee, choosing to succeed with proven technology rather than gambling on a 7 trillion dollar tax scheme seems like a no-brainer unless you are in D.C.

It's virtually zero carbon. It doesn't take massive carbon taxes to make it cost-effective. And thanks to the French and Japanese engineers - it's safe. If it hadn't been around for 60 years we would call it a miracle.

Nuclear Power.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030...

McCain said the 104 nuclear reactors currently operating around the country produce about 20 percent of the nation's annual electricity needs.

Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over thirty years," he said. "And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone."

Even so, he said he would set the country on a course to build 45 new ones by 2030, with a longer-term goal of adding another 55 in the future.

One additional thing that politicians and bureaucrats have a hard time with is placing these things in context of our population. Oh, and we have not built a new oil refinery in those same 30 years.

US population (US Census Bureau)

1978 222 million
1988 245 million
1998 270 million
2008 301 million

Kyoto-type math - pegging our carbon emissions to a year (e.g. 1995) instead of some ratio of our actual population will make energy prohibitively expensive if the Pew research center estimates of our population (450 million) by 2050 are accurate.

Morning Wood

Scientists reverse vasectomy on endangered horse

For me, the news that a horse had a vasectomy was actually more shocking than the reversal.

WASHINGTON - Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo revealed Monday that they have reversed a vasectomy on an endangered horse to allow it to reproduce naturally — the first-known operation of its kind on an endangered species.

Luis Padilla, the zoo veterinarian who performed the reversal surgery in Washington, said the procedure was a first for this species and likely for any endangered species. A similar surgery was successfully performed while Padilla was a resident at the Saint Louis Zoo in 2003 on South American bush dogs, which resemble Chihuahuas. They are classified as vulnerable but not endangered.

Look, anytime someone down there you are classified as "vulnerable."

Here's a picture of the happy fellow.

The Price of Things

I posted the rate of growth for the Federal Government here, over the last 30 years.

Federal Government Budget (Current Dollars):

1978 446 Billion
2008 2.651 Trillion

593% increase.

Oil (Current Dollars):

1978 $48
2008 $135

281% increase.

Gas (retail current dollars):

1978 $2.10
2008 $4.05

192% increase.

Over the last 30 years, our Federal Government has increased at 3 times the rate of gas prices.

So where is the concern about the growth of the federal government?

Data Source: Inflationdata.com

Obama Gives His "Freedom From" Speach

Today Obama pitched his version of economics to a friendly group in Flint, MI. In it we heard about freedom. Freedom from responsibility, freedom from paying your bills, and freedom from making good decisions. What we didn't hear was Freedom to...

The difference in those little prepositions couldn't be larger. The freedom from people see government as a nanny that prevents bad things from happening to you regardless of your actions. The freedom to people see government as an obstacle (more often than not) to a free people achieving their dreams in life.

Freedom from people see private enterprise as source of tax revenue while the freedom to people see private enterprise as a path to personal prosperity.

Here's a short laundry list of Obama's government-centric view of how the economy works.

Obama talked about his $1,000 tax cut for working families

Free tuition for students who pledge to teach in their communities.

A $4,000 scholarship for college students

A foreclosure prevention fund.

A crackdown on deceptive lending.

100's of billions for green energy jobs.

His vision of universal health care.

Let's start at the top. His planned tax cuts really amount to a redistribution of earnings since most of the targeted people don't pay federal taxes today.

Free tuition for teachers. How about ending a union that has kept real wages for teachers below market value for decades. That way, they can pay for their own tuition when they get one of the plentiful jobs. Let's stop subsidizing poverty wages for teachers and give them the opportunity to succeed based on their own talents.

Foreclosure prevention fund is another way of saying, "go ahead and take a loan for too much, we got your back." Subsidizing risky loans only guarantees more risky loans.

Crackdown on deceptive lending probably means that Uncle Sam will have a greater role during your loan closing - meaning you will pay more to close a home loan. Maybe we can get another subsidy for the higher costs of home loans?

Universal health care. Ugh. All I can say is the proper phrase is rationed health care - except of course if you are really famous or rich.

The "green" jobs come about after he takes 7 trillion in new taxes from private enterprise and kills millions of our old jobs via the "Climate Security Act."

When this speech is placed in context with his only piece of legislation - the Millenium Act (S 2433) - I can only call this philosophy a creeping form of Marxism.

Morning Wood

The Federal Government Windfall

After 3 government inquiries into the growth of oil company revenue and profits, I have noticed that NO ONE has asked about the explosive growth in Federal Government revenue.

The data:

Federal Government Revenue (current dollars - in billions)

1978 $446.5

1988 $997.2

1998 $1844.2

2008 $2651.0

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

For the kids in the back, that's a 593% increase in federal revenue over a 30 year period. This is an obscene growth rate. Where is the outcry for a windfall tax revenue investigation?

Here is the conclusion from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)(125-Year Picture of the Federal Government's Share of the Economy, 1950 to 2075). This report sees government spending as a share of GDP growing from the long-term average of 19% to 39.7% by 2075. With no change in current tax policies, this rise in spending means exploding budget deficits, eventually reaching 20% of GDP by 2075.

The conclusion from our own government is that current policies are unsustainable and given the push for massive new government spending programs, we can expect a total federal collapse well before the 2075 end date of this analysis.

Morning Wood: Unicorn Found in Italy

Morning wood and a unicorn, they go together like...pretty good.

Single-horned 'Unicorn' deer found in Italy
By MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 11
ROME - A deer with a single horn in the center of its head — much like the fabled, mythical unicorn — has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.



"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."

Wrong. This is fantasy becoming reality. Your unicorn is cool. That's it.

Morning Wood: Mad Cow Scares Man to Death

Korean man sets self on fire during protest of imported US beef. Check that, two guys go flambeau to protest safe beef imports. THEN, the entire S. Korean Cabinet offers to resign. The issue...fear of mad cow disease.

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea's entire Cabinet offered to resign Tuesday following a public uproar over the planned resumption of U.S. beef imports, despite concerns of mad cow disease.

Earlier in the day, a South Korean man died two weeks after setting himself on fire during a rally, according to Hangang Sacred Heart Hospital in Seoul.

Another protester set himself ablaze in a protest last week but his condition was not life-threatening, said Kim Tae-hyung, an official at a civic group that has organized demonstrations.

Let me get this straight. You kill yourself to protest something that hasn't killed anybody in your country? Now I'm no mad cow disease expert, but there seems to be something wrong here that is a little more dangerous than some funky beef.

Let's do a little google research to check out where this lies on the hypocrite/hypochondriac monitor. According to the WHO, Koreans males smoke at a rate of 67%. That number is 25% for the US. Yup, that's a 10 on the H/H meter.

I won't call Koreans stupid, but saying their worries are a bit misplaced is an understatement.

LINK to story

Here's the Grade A beef without any mad cow worry.

Ethanol Mandate Update

More from the files of good intentions and unintended consequences.

Here is the chart for corn since the ethanol blending madate went into effect.

LINK TO CHART

The 2005 energy bill mandated that 4 billion gal­lons of renewable fuel (mostly corn-based ethanol) must be added to the gasoline supply in 2006. That amount rises to 4.7 billion gallons for 2007 and 7.5 billion in 2012. These targets represent a large per­centage increase in ethanol use but are still only a small fraction of the 140 billion gallons of gasoline that the U.S. currently uses every year.

Heritage Foundation

G-8 Energy Ministers: Hatch a plan to make it worse

So the G-8 got together and invited Russia, China, and India to talk about world energy demands, production and the soaring prices of the last 6 years. Their conclusion? We need SPECTRE Industries to build us 45 trillion dollars worth of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) units to suck carbon dioxide out of the air. The IEA (International Energy Agency - part of the UN) has determined that even though they can't quantify any cause and effect, it's time to move forward with the plan to make energy and the cost of living a lot more expensive. No one could foresee any unintended consequences with that idea....

Reuters sums up the G-8 energy ministers problem:

Caught between mounting popular discontent at home and the need to invest billions in greener energy to cut world carbon emissions, the G8 ministers offered few new ideas for heads of state to consider at their summit next month.

Not a single mention in the article about nuclear power. Not a single mention that the restrictive EU and US energy development policies that prevents additional energy development. And not a single mention of the huge run up in energy use by China and India. But hey, we have this great plan to make things worse!

The little guy is going to get crushed as these bureaucrats play with these energy markets over the next decade.

And here's the winner for the take home message.

"...but oil prices have carried on rising as investors rush into commodities as a hedge against the dollar's fall and inflation."

"In the end, some ministers conceded they were powerless to fight the flow of financial capital."

Capital is flowing into energy markets because these morons are making it a no-lose proposition - not as a "hedge" to the US dollar. With this logic, the run up in food prices could be seen as a hedge against the end of the Atkins diet instead of the horrible decision to force corn into our gas tanks.

So, they can't do anything positive, but can make things worse? Sounds like a typical UN meeting.

Climate Security Act: The Talking Killer

Turns out the great climate act of 2008 wasn't going to be quite the political football Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid had hoped for. In a not too stunning reversal, the Senate punted the issue until next year when they hope to avoid the scrutiny of a debate. I guess a 7 trillion dollar tax hike on energy the same weekend gas hits 4 bucks a gallon would have come off a little "uncaring" for the plight of the little people who pay to drive to work every day.

The bill died without actually dying; sort of the Senate's version of the talking killer that has been shot in the shoulder. You know he is going to get up as soon as the girl (who picked up the gun) turns her back on the killer to check on her witless boyfriend.

Jun 6, 2008 9:03 AM Senate On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Boxer Amdt. No. 4825 ) Cloture Motion Rejected 48-36, 16 not voting (3/5 required).

In other words. Since only 84 Senators voted on the Cloture Motion, it would have taken 51 (3/5) to end the presumptive filibuster. Since only 48 did so, the Bill is now on the floor with a winged shoulder.

Of note: 16 senators no-voted...McCain skipped this one...Obama continued a stellar history of not putting himself on the record.

Morning Wood: Down and Out in Sauderton PA

Homeless man accused of swindling 13 women
SOUDERTON, Pa. - A homeless man accused of duping 13 women by posing as a millionaire on an Internet dating service was arraigned Wednesday in this Philadelphia suburb.
Paul Krueger, 50, used a laptop computer to meet the women on Millionairematch.com, prosecutors said. He is accused of stealing more than $100,000 from the women after convincing them he was a Grammy-nominated record mogul who needed investors for a new business venture that manufactured DVDs, CDs and other videos. He showed one victim false stock reports detailing the success of his nonexistent new business, according to court papers.

Charges were filed in Souderton because that is where he told women to send him money; the address is the home of his ex-wife, authorities said.

Authorities say Krueger used the money to fuel his gambling addiction. He was arrested last week at a casino in Atlantic City, N.J., and did not fight extradition to Pennsylvania.

Krueger declined to comment to reporters as he was arraigned on charges of theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, deceptive or fraudulent business practices and Pennsylvania Securities Act violations.



Recent photo:

OK, that was millionairematch.com. I know what I'm doing next week.

Climate Security Act (2191/3036)

Looking at the list of subject terms for the Climate Security Act was enlightening. Read through the list and you will know just how far-reaching this bill will be when passed - and becomes law next year.
Link to Gov Track

Here are some subject terms that are missing: guaranteed recession, junk science, socialism, unintended consequences.

Actions and defenses
Administrative procedure
Agricultural pollution
Agricultural research
Agriculture
Air conditioning
Air pollution
Air pollution control
Airports
Alternative energy sources
Animals
Armed forces
Auctions
Automobile industry
Automobile repair
Biomass energy
Budgets
Building laws
Business
Carbon cycle
Carbon dioxide
Cellulose
Clean coal technology
Climate change
Coal mines and mining
Coastal zone
Colleges
Commercial aviation
Congress
Congressional reporting requirements
Cooperative societies
Coral reefs
Corporations
Defense policy
Diesel motor
Earned income tax credit
Economic impact statements
Economic policy
Ecosystem management
Electric appliances
Electric power distribution
Electric power plants
Electric utilities
Electric utility rates
Electric vehicles
Electronic benefits transfers
Emergency management
Emissions trading
Employee training
Endangered species
Energy
Energy conservation
Energy efficiency
Energy prices
Environmental law enforcement
Environmental protection
Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental research
Environmental technology
Estuaries
Executive departments
Executive reorganization
Federal aid to education
Federal aid to Indians
Finance
Fire fighters
Fire prevention
Fishery management
Flood control
Fluorocarbons
Foreign policy
Forest conservation
Forest fires
Forestry
Forestry research
Forests
Fuel cells
Fuel consumption
Gas companies
Geology
Geothermal resources
Government information
Government liability
Government paperwork
Government publicity
Government trust funds
Greenhouse gases
Habitat conservation
Hazardous substances
Heating
Higher education
Import restrictions
Income tax
Industrial buildings
Information disclosure (Securities law)
Infrastructure
International affairs
International environmental cooperation
Investments
Job training
Labor
Labor statistics
Landfills
Law
Manufacturing industries
Marine ecology
Marine mammals
Marine pollution
Marine resources
Mercury
Methane
Minorities
Montana
Motor vehicle pollution control
National security
Natural gas
Natural resources
Negotiations
Nitrogen oxides
Nonprofit organizations
Ocean energy resources
Petroleum industry
Petroleum refineries
Pipelines
Potable water
Presidential powers
Presidents
Public lands
Recycling of waste products
Research centers
Rural affairs
Science policy
Scientific education
Social security
Social security taxes
Social services
Solar energy
Solid wastes
Standards
State and local government
State laws
Sulphur dioxide
Taxation
Technological innovations
Technology
Telecommunication
Tidal power
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Morning Wood: The New Club Drug: Preparation H

Yeah, there are a lot of assholes hanging out at bars and clubs across the country, so this kind of makes sense.

Preparation H, the topical medication used to treat hemorrhoids, reportedly is catching fire as the latest "drug" to hit the New York City club scene.
The topical solution contains a medication called phenylephrine HCL, which shrinks the swollen tissues of hemorrhoids. It works by constricting the nearby blood vessels that surround the area. But the ingredient will shrink other tissue as well.
The method has been hailed on the Internet and has long been used by body builders in need of a quick fix for a problem area prior to competition, as well as women looking to reduce puffiness around their eyes.

But one doctor said the off-label usage of the drug is ludicrous.
"It doesn't even work that well for hemorrhoids," said Dr. Marc Siegel.

LINK

New York bouncer, blogger and author Rob Fitzgerald told ABCNews.com that men are slathering up their torsos with the hemorrhoid cream to make themselves look "ripped."

Gents, I'm not sure that being "ripped" will help when you smell like a 50 year old guy with a bad case of piles and a nasty rash. You just know some fair skinned dude has hit the club and taken his shirt off, and those UV lights....oh my.

Supply Side Environmentalism

Barbara Boxer (D. CA), the main author of the hideous S. 2191 climate bill defends a new concept - supply side environmentalism, defined as: Shrinking the economy to get less environmental impact. The idea is that if we are not working, we are not creating green house gasses. Of course the upside (less global warming) is undefinable and not practical using this approach, but the actual science is no longer important: it's the belief that we are doing something based on assumptions made by people who choose to fail when success is an option.

I, like many others, have been covering S 2191 for a while because this is the most far reaching legislation since the War on Poverty in the 1960's. And this legislation is the perfect vehicle to have the BIG discussion about the role of government, good intentions and all of the unintended consequences created by legislation like S.2191.

Unfortunately, the current political environment probably means that we have this discussion after we are in the middle of a nasty depression. So for now I can have hope that some day, the adults will have a seat at the table of power again - and 2191 certainly brings that date closer to fruition.

Morning Wood: Tuesday

Police say red dye pack exploded in man's pants

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Staffers at a pawn shop in Fort Lauderdale thought the shopper with a goatee looked suspicious. Their instincts were confirmed Monday when, two minutes later, a red dye pack exploded in the man's pants. He fled the store, ditching a stolen wad of cash that contained the theft-detection device.

Fort Lauderdale Police Department spokeswoman Kathy Collins said the man matched descriptions of a robber who pilfered a bag of money from a Pompano Beach bank about an hour earlier.


LINK

Authorities are still looking for him.

Hmmm. Steal money from bank then put cool pack thingy in pants pocket as a souvenir. I'm guessing here that an exploding dye pack an inch or two from your manhood is a little painful and probably reorganized the DNA in his nuts. Hopefully this genius was taken out of the gene pool, but I'm sure it's probably too late for that.

And about that police line-up. Six guys with goatee's, no problem. Finding six guys willing to let you spray paint their balls red...

...and a little something to clear the palate...

Climate Bill: A Spiderweb of Bureaucracy

Click below for the graphic representation of the Regulations and Mandates for S. 2191 - it is perhaps the only way to demonstrate what a remarkable reorganization of our economy this legislation promises.


Link to the Chart

Morning Wood: Drunk Kissing Girl Has a Soulmate

Iowa man says he planned to compost pot, not smoke


Here's the link to the story from a few days ago.

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Police in Iowa say a man caught with a large quantity of marijuana claimed all he had in mind was recycling. A complaint by the Johnson County Sheriff's Office says the 30-year-old man told police in Iowa City that he planned to turn several large bags of marijuana into compost.

Officers report the bags he had when he was arrested early Saturday held a "gallon" or more of marijuana each.

The complaint says officers didn't buy the compost story.

Put these two in the same jail cell and film it for 6 months. Now that's TV I would watch. Wait a minute, I already do every Saturday night on Cops.

More on the Climate Bill

Good summary from an interesting website
Global Warming.Org put together by scientists calling for cooler heads and a reasoned approach to managing our planets' resources.


William Yeatman
May 20, 2008
E&E News has an advance copy of Senate EPW Committee Chair Barbara Boxer’s summary of the newly revamped Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, and it is much, much worse than I had thought it would be.

Titles II-IV (“Capping Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Reducing Emissions through Offsets and International Allowances; Establishing a Greenhouse-Gas Emissions Trading Market) describe how a “cap and trade” program will take $5.6 trillion from American energy consumers through 2050.

Titles V-XI (Federal Program to Prevent Economic Hardship; Partnerships with States, Localities and Indian Tribes; recognizing Early Action by Companies; Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Low Carbon Electricity and Advanced Research; Future of Coal; Future of Transportation) apportion the $5.6 trillion to every conceivable special interest.

I had thought at least she would leave out those twin evils of modern society, oil and coal, but they are in fact well positioned at the trough ($34 billion and $16 billion, respectively, in adjustment payoffs). And it never occurred to me that the truckers would get 4 billion, or that natural gas processors would get $20 billion. This later giveaway is especially egregious because natural gas is a huge winner under any cap and trade, as coal—its main competitor for electricity generation—is priced out of the market.

In reworking the Congress’s leading climate bill, Senator Boxer’s staff took the spineless Farm Bill approach: print enough money to placate every objection. Woe to us all for having such crummy leaders.

US to Nationalize Hurricane Insurance

Well, that's the Wall Street Journal headline and it is a bit misleading, but the stupid idea is the same.

WASHINGTON -- As hurricane season begins, Democrats in Congress want to nationalize a chunk of the insurance business that covers major storm-damage claims.

The proposal -- backed by giant insurers Allstate Corp. and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., as well as Florida lawmakers -- focuses on "reinsurance," the policies bought by insurers themselves to protect against catastrophic losses. The proposal envisions a taxpayer-financed reinsurance program covering all 50 states, which would essentially backstop the giant insurers in case of disaster.
Link to the WSJ Article

The program could save homeowners roughly $500 apiece in annual premiums in Florida, according to an advocacy group backed by Allstate and State Farm, the largest writers of property insurance in the U.S.

But environmentalists and other critics -- including the American Insurance Association, a major trade group -- say lower premiums would more likely spur irresponsible coastal development, already a big factor in insurance costs. The program could also shift costs to taxpayers in states with fewer natural-disaster risks.

"This bill makes it a little bit too easy for the state to go to the federal government for a bailout," said Eric Goldberg, associate general counsel at the American Insurance Association, an insurers' trade group.

If we disconnect risk from action we get riskier actions.

The proposed plan is roughly analogous to the National Flood Insurance Program, which has been criticized for encouraging construction in risky floodplains. Nevertheless, in recent weeks the Senate voted to renew the flood-insurance program, and also to forgive $17 billion in disaster debt.

UGH

U.S. troop deaths in Iraq at wartime low

Democrats and US media hit hardest.

OK that's a twist on the old joke about the NY Times (when they make headlines into an editorial), "Earth to be destroyed by meteor tomorrow, minorities and women hit hardest..."

Anyway
BAGHDAD, June 1 (Reuters) - Nineteen U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq in May, the U.S. military said on Sunday, the lowest monthly death toll since U.S. forces invaded to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the same month plunged to 505... Click title for link to story.

Great. The surge has worked well enough for us to claim "good enough" and we can get the hell out of there.

We can save that money and get busy tanking our economy with
S. 2191: the carbon cap and trade bill so we can maybe reduce our carbon emissions to 2002 levels while only reducing our economy by a few trillion.