Tale of Two Houses

Energy Use Hypocrisy

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.

HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

Democrats leave Troops in Lurch

See also Troop Funding in Limbo

Environmentalist Hyperbole

My school-age son asserted that 17 species were going extinct per hour, claiming it was true because he read it in a magazine. He has a lot to learn; unless it is in The American Spectator, I'm as cautious with media reporting as when a cold caller announces I've won a sweepstakes. I found the number unbelievable and was sure it was debunked in "The Skeptical Environmentalist" among other places. Sure enough, it is false:

In 1990, the World Conservation Union commissioned a report to investigate rates of extinction, the findings of which can be seen in Tropical Deforestation and Species Extinction by T Whitmore and A Sayers. The report found that the recorded rates for extinction remain 'very small', believing it to be about 2300 species, or 0.8 percent, per decade. Bjørn Lomborg, after studying a number of reports and extinction estimates - including the UN Global Diversity Report - reckons an extinction rate for all species of about 0.7 percent per 50 years is pretty accurate.

But wait, the environmentalists say Lomborg is wrong and it's higher:"Estimates for current species extinction rates range from 100 to 10,000 times that, but most hover close to 1,000 times prehuman levels (0.1 percent per year)." Yet when you peel the data back you find numbers consistent with Lomborg's estimates, for example - "anywhere from one to several bird species go extinct annually ... 0.01-0.03 percent of living bird species are extinguished per year." Even the 'pro-environmentalist' numbers show that the "17 per hour" extinction claims are off by a factor of 100 or 1,000.

Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore questions the extinction numbers that are based on models not measurements:

This gives rise to the obvious concern that if the trees are cut down the habitats or homes will be lost and the species that live in them will die. Indeed, in 1996 the World Wildlife Fund, at a media conference in Geneva, announced that 50,000 species are going extinct each year due to human activity. And the main cause of these 50,000 extinctions, they said, is commercial logging. The story was carried around the world by Associated Press and other media and hundreds of millions of people came to believe that forestry is the main cause of species extinction.

During the past three years I have asked the World Wildlife Fund on many occasions to please provide me with a list of some of the species that have supposedly become extinct due to logging. They have not offered up a single example as evidence. In fact, to the best of our scientific knowledge, no species has become extinct in North America due to forestry.

Where are these 50,000 species that are said to be going extinct each year? They are in a computer model in Edward O. Wilson's laboratory at Harvard University. They are electrons on a hard drive, they have no Latin names, and they are in no way related to any direct field observations in any forest.

Why is such hyperbole tolerated in environmental reporting, and how is it that the loud proponents of such hyperbole claim the mantle of "science"?
Even some environmentalists ask of their own movement's irrationality, "How Sick is That?"

Travis County

Be prepared of shifting political positions come to the forefront when the legislature is completed with their duties of imposing more laws. Two options may come about.
First option maybe a School Board Member who has been groomed by the Dems to replace State Representative Mark Strama, who will run for the State Senate to replace State Senator Kirk Watson who will vacate to run against Congressman Michael McCaul in the 2008 Election year.
Second option maybe a School Board Member who has been groomed by the Dems to replace State Representative Mark Strama, who will run against Congressman Michael McCaul and State Senator Kirk Watson will be grooming for the race to replace Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
With the up coming US Census 2010, all central Texas Judges districts will be redesigned so that the Dems will obtain total control of the courts for years to come. They have made tremendous strides to meet their goals in central Texas.
The Dems are working from bottom up to swallow all the political positions into their hands.

The Gnat

Democrats protest firing of incompetents

As hearings reveal the real reasons behind firing of US Attorneys, Democrats defend incompetent Government employees, as emails reveal that DOJ had real performance problems among the fired US attorneys:

"That Carol Lam can't meet a deadline," Mercer wrote, "or that you'll need to interact with her in the coming weeks or that she won't just say, 'O.K. You got me. You're right, I've ignored national priorities and obvious local needs. Shoot, my production is more hideous than I realized.'"

... Justice Department officials have cited her record on immigration and gun prosecutions as a reason for letting her go.

Democrat's conflict-of-interest exposed

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee: "As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein."

Congress' New Low

IBD editorializes:

"That Democrats want the U.S. to go down to defeat in Iraq can no longer be questioned. The bill they narrowly passed would, in effect, ensure such an outcome by giving both al-Qaida terrorists and Baath Party dead-enders confidence they'll soon be able to rule Iraq through terror."

Defeatism and wasted Government spending, what a combo.

Texas Democrats Vote Against Limiting Spending

RPT reports: "43 Democrats Vote Against Limiting Spending
and Giving Money Back to the Taxpayers of Texas." They voted against the fiscally consrvative rule that disallows any new spending initiatives outside the proposed budget as passed out of the House Appropriations committee without cutting a program somewhere else. While the rule passed by a large majority, it was too constaining for the tax-and-spend crowd.

Door prizes to the first one to tell which of our illustrious Travis Democrat mis-representatives stiff-armed the taxpayer. All of them? Inquiring minds want to know.

House pushes back on HPV Vaccine

The House passed a bill to overturn the Governor's mandate ordering HPV vaccines for girls. Good for them!

Property Taxes

The Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform is not being taken seriously by the Texas Legislature. The recommendations made by the panel are a start, but the bill introduced into the committee may not come out of the committee to be voted on by the house. It may be postponed for the next session. Therefore, expect your property taxes to be going up.

-Jerry Mikus

Rathergate

is more important to our current journalistic condition and current events that Watergate. Yet the oblivious media dwells on Watergate (the Statesmen had two Watergate stories in the past few weeks) and ignores the irony of Dan Rather keynoting SWSX Interactive.

Dan Rather was exposed by Free Republic and internet bloggers as being a biased and dreadfully wrong (to the point of slander and forgery) on an anti-Bush story in 2004. Dan Rather and his crew used forged documents to attempt to affect the outcome of an election - and got caught in a lie. This is more relevent to the dinosaur, falling revenue media today than a 30 year old coverup. Rathergate.com keeps the flames of media watching alive.

A Call to Action

Enquire with The Management.

Islam: Setting the United States up for the fall (using US law to distroy our freedom)

http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/Taylor031907

Federal Prosecutor firings by by AG Gonzales

Hillary knows all about firing U.S. Attorneys: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009784

Democrats Trail of Destruction

Friday night comment line:

In two short months, the Democrats have voted for economic insecurity (higher energy taxes, plan to let a $1 trillion tax hike occur by not making Bush tax cuts permanent), defeat (replacing troop support with "Earmarxist" pork and forcing their defeatism on the DoD in the middle of a battle), Unconstitutional power grabs (DC voting), and partisan witch hunts (the pseudo-scandal over replacing U.S. attorneys). Their own moonbat extremists have taken to occupying the Speaker's office as a 'protest' that they are not doing enough to lose in Iraq pronto. These Democrats are well on their way to creating the Worst. Congress. Ever.

Discuss.

Tale of two AGs

Royal Masset has tales of US Attorney General Bobby Kennedy relevent to the current AG and his issues. Alberto Gonzalez is no Bobby Kennedy ... and maybe that's a good thing.

Sam Adams on our duty as citizens

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."

- Samuel Adams

Kennedy, author of our immigration crisis

Kennedy threatens to bring liberal immigration bill to the U.S. Senate.

Senator Ted Kennedy is more responsible for our screwed up immigration crisis than any other man in Washington. He create the flawed immigration policies we have today, that encourage 3rd world immigration and discourage European immigration - he did that in 1965. Then in 1986 bill he put in the poison pills that made employer verification impossible. He has since continued his efforts to drag America down the wrong path on immigration in every possible way.

CNBC's Jim Cramer in Austin

CNBC Jim Cramer and his "Mad Money" show came to Austin today, with a live show with the UT Austin School of Business. The MBAs there have a fund and gave Cramer some of their fund picks - Schlumberger, Broadcom, Walmart.

What the President Needs to Say

US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, so the latest pseudo-scandal about the shocking news that the President chose to exercise his authority in ways that offends the partisan Democrats is almost post-modern, no, Dada-ist, in its absurdity. In 1993, Clinton summarily fired 93 US attorneys, with nary a blink from the media. Hillary Clinton knows all about sacking Attorneys. Now, we have the legal and appropriate replacement of eight US attorneys, most for real performance-problem reasons, and the Democrats in Congress are shocked - shocked! - that the President dare use his powers as President to decide who works for him. The Democrats are livid that they were fired over Democrat voter fraud inaction:

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

The gall! Didn't they know that the Democrats are in Congress and are ready to be 'co-President' until Hillary becomes Supreme Leader? How dare the White House insist on upon looking into voter fraud cases! Our Democracy (or at least the Democrats' hold on power) is in danger from this behavior!

It's the biggest fake-job since Michael Jackson's marriage. Here’s how Bush should handle it. Tell the press he may fire Gonzalez and announce something important, then say:

"I have spoken with AG Gonzales. I am not happy with his answers to Congress, and with what administration officials have said to the Congress and public. Although prior statements were true, but have been misinterepreted by members of Congress for political partisan reasons, they are not the bottom-line that needs to be made clear … What we should have been saying all along is that the Attorneys serve as a part of the Justice Dept and that these positions are determined through internal hiring processes. Attempts are made to obtain Senate approval for positions but we have the legal right to fill positions as needed to execute the laws and carry out Federal policies. The decisions we made in these processes were appropriate, ethical, legal, and fully within the proper scope of the executive branch. There is no need for Congress to investigate these internal decisions because they are wholly executive branch matters, and to engage in political witch hunt over our internal decisions is to fray our Constitutional separation of powers. I will resist the Democrat Congresses’ assault on the Constitution should they continue in this unwarranted attack, and I will keep Mr Gonzalez to help in defending our Constitution and laws."

But if they looking for a replacement, try this one - bring back John Ashcroft!