Steam Valve

Zogby: McCain Now Leads

According to Drudge.

No Criticism Allowed

Voter Fraud

Here are some videos where Hillary supporters describe the Chicago-style voter fraud that helped Obama get the Democratic nomination. And with the FBI investigating ACORN's role in voter fraud across the nation, we naturally wonder whether this is going on in Minnesota.

Well, Minnesota Majority obtained voter rolls from the Secretary of State and found evidence of possible voter fraud in thousands of voter records. Mark Ritchie retaliated by accusing a Minnesota Majority volunteer of voter intimidation for contacting a voter. Apparently, Mr. Ritchie is not concerned about voter fraud in Minnesota.

I called the Secretary of State's office to ask what it is doing about the red flags raised by the Minnesota Majority. I was transferred from one person to another, and told that I needed to talk to someone in the "voter fraud" division, but that person was out of the office but would call me back.

The person who called me back told me that the Secretary of State had no authority to investigate voter fraud, and that it was the counties that had that responsibility. The obvious next question was why does the Secretary of State's office have a "voter fraud" division. Maybe they're changing the name of that division to "voter intimidation."

Cross posted at Truth v. The Machine

Solar Panel Manufacturing Pollutes our Atmosphere

Courtesy of Anthony Watts, we read that solar panel manufacturing could create a far greater danger of increased greenhouse gases than anything anyone had imagined so far. Because of a greenhouse gas emitted in the cleaning of electronics that is a part of manufacturing solar panels:

On Lubos Motls The Reference Frame he has as pointed out that a greenhouse gas emitted during the production of solar panels and HDTVs, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) that is used for cleaning the electronics, is about 17,000 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The concentration of NF3 in the atmosphere was artificially increased by a factor of 20 during the last two decades. The measurements of the concentration surpassed the previous estimates by a factor of five.

According to the Scripps Institute; “ the present 5,400 tons in the atmosphere…is on the rise at 11 percent per year” - that will stay there for 700+ years - creates the equivalent warming of all Finland’s CO2 emissions.

According to Lubos, given the fact that the solar panels produce about the same percentage of the global energy as Finland, it is reasonable to guess that the state-of-the-art solar panels that would replace fossil fuels would cause a comparable amount of warming per Joule as fossil fuels.

So let’s just say - everything causes global warming, and leave it at that.

From the source that Watts quotes from:

Given the fact that the solar panels produce about the same percentage of the global energy as Finland, it is reasonable to guess that the state-of-the-art solar panels that would replace fossil fuels would cause a comparable amount of warming per Joule as fossil fuels. ;-)

Cross-posted at Truth v. The Machine

Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States

Philip Berg's lawsuit against Obama, the DNC and the Federal Election Commission has been dismissed by the federal district court judge in Philadelphia on the basis of standing. (A poor copy of the court's decision is here, if you can read it). This means that the judge refuses to rule on the actual facts at issue because he doesn't think that Berg has demonstrated, even assuming that Obama is not a natural born citizen, that he individually has been injured by that fact.

Which leads to the question, if a voter can't challenge a presidential candidate's qualification under the US Constitution, then who can?

The so-called standing doctrine is intended to ensure that the plaintiff has a personal stake in a lawsuit. That's an over-simplification of the issue, but that's how it's usually put.

Whether Obama is a "natural born citizen" is important because the US Constitution requires that as a pre-requisite to becoming President.

The Pennsylvania court took a pass on this question, and I think it's a very serious issue. Consider this:

• What if Obama is elected president, and later is found to not be a "natural born citizen?"

• What happens to whatever bills he has signed into law? Are they enforceable?

• And the bigger questions: What happens while the courts are deciding whether Obama is qualified to be president under our constitution? Who will have undisputed authority as commander in chief? Would this be an opportune time for our enemies to attack?

• Remember what happened when the courts got involved in the Gore/Bush election? This will be much worse.

The lawyer that brought this lawsuit in Pennsylvania is a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. He has been criticized for being a "9/11 truther," detracting from his credibility.

Here's a video of him talking about his case.

Here's a link to documents filed in the case.

Mr. Berg alleges that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and that even if he was born in Hawaii, his citizenship was changed to Indonesia, the country of his stepfather, when he moved there and entered an Indonesian school, because in order to do so he would have had to have been an Indonesian citizen.

The defendants asked the court to dismiss Berg's complaint. The law requires the court to assume that all of Berg's allegations are true when ruling on that motion. The district court did so, and still dismissed the lawsuit on the basis that Mr. Berg would not be individually harmed by a presidential candidate that was not a naturally born citizen.

A birth certificate for Obama has been posted on the internet. It has been challenged as "a horrible forgery."

Mr. Berg is appealing to the US Supreme Court.

Why aren't we reading about this in the mainstream media?

Cross-posted at Truth v. The Machine

The Big Lie

How did it come to pass that liberals are perceived as more humanitarian than conservatives?

Who said that the only downside of $4 gasoline was that it was going up too fast?  This guy.

Who's cheering the layoffs and financial losses? These guys. Because they believe that we need to lower our standard of living in order to save the earth.

So who is it that really cares about us folks?

Not these guys

or these guys

The only ones I've heard talk about strengthening our economy for the benefit of all of us have been conservatives like Thomas Sowell. And he should know. He recently wrote:

When one thinks of all the men who have put their lives on the line in battle to defend and preserve this country, it is especially painful to think that there are people living in the safety and comfort of civilian life who cannot be bothered to find out the facts about candidates before voting to put the fate of this nation, and of generations yet to come, in the hands of someone chosen because they like his words or style.

Of the four people running for president and vice president on the Republican and Democratic tickets, the one we know the least about is the one leading in the polls — Barack Obama.

Some of Senator Obama’s most fervent supporters could not tell you what he has actually done on such issues as crime, education, or financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — much less what he plans to do to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear nation supplying nuclear weapons to the international terrorist networks that it has supplied with other weapons.

The magic word “change” makes specifics unnecessary. If things are going bad, some think that what is needed is blank-check “change.”

But history shows any number of countries in crises worse than ours, where “change” turned problems into catastrophes.

In czarist Russia, for example, the economy was worse than ours is today and the First World War was going far worse for the Russians than anything we have faced in Iraq. Moreover, Russians had nothing like the rights of Americans today. So they went for “change.”

That "change" brought on a totalitarian regime that made the czars' despotism look like child's play. The Communists killed more people in one year than the czars killed in more than 90 years, not counting the millions who died in a government-created famine in the 1930s.

Other despotic regimes in China, Cuba, and Iran were similarly replaced by people who promised "change" that turned out to be even worse than what went before.

Yet many today seem to assume that if things are bad, "change" will make them better. Specifics don't interest them nearly as much as inspiring rhetoric and a confident style. But many 20th century leaders with inspiring rhetoric and great self-confidence led their followers or their countries into utter disasters.

These ranged from Jim Jones who led hundreds to their deaths in Jonestown to Hitler and Mao who led millions to their deaths.

What specifics do we know about Barack Obama's track record that might give us some clue as to what kinds of "changes" to expect if he is elected?

We know that he opposed the practice of putting violent young felons on trial as adults. We know that he was against a law forbidding physicians to kill a baby that was born alive despite an attempt to abort it.

We know that Obama opposed attempts to put stricter regulations on Fannie Mae-- and that he was the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. We know that this very year his campaign sought the advice of disgraced former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines.

Fannie Mae and Raines were at the heart of "the mess in Washington" that Barack Obama claims he is going to clean up under the banner of "change."

The public has been told very little about what this man with the wonderful rhetoric has actually done. What we know is enough to make us wonder about what we don't know. Or it ought to. For the true believers-- which includes many in the media-- it is just a question of whether you like him or not.

Cross-posted at Truth v. The Machine

Government Track and Bill

With gas tax revenues declining with more fuel efficient vehicles and less driving, governments are looking for ways to increase their revenues. In Texas, some counties have been invited to participate in a study where GPS devices will be placed on participants' vehicles, to measure their mileage. Then the government will send them a "make believe bill" to show them how much they might be taxed under the proposed mileage tax.

Just think of it: if this mileage tax becomes law in your part of the country, you will have the opportunity of paying more in taxes even though you're using less gasoline, at the same time that the government will have records of where you've been at any given moment.

Cross-posted at www.steamvalveblog.com

Good Economic News

Thank goodness for Mark Perry bringing to light the plain facts generally ignored by the mainstream media unless they support the media's agenda.

For example -- now this we can see with our own eyes just by watching the falling prices at the pump, but Dr. Perry crunches the numbers and shows us that the falling prices will save consumers between $156 and 188 billion annually.

Falling Gas Prices Over The Last Month Will Save Consumers $156 to $188 Billion Annually

  

And then there's the dollar. I remember seeing news stories about it when it was falling, but I haven't heard much in a while. Does that mean there's good news out there?
Turns out the dollar is at an 18 month high.

 
Cross-posted at Truth v. The Machine

Plumbing for Dollars

Only the "Little People" Need to Cut Their CO2 Emissions

Like Leona Helmsley, some elitists believe that as long as you have a lot of money, you needn't worry about your carbon footprint.
Check this out. The starting price for this little jaunt is $64,950:

Join us on a remarkable 25-day journey by a luxury private jet. Touch down in some of the most astonishing places on the planet to see the top wildlife, including gorillas, orangutans, rhinos, lemurs and toucans. Explore natural and cultural treasures in remote areas of South America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa.

To reach these remote corners, travel on a specially outfitted private jet that carries just 88 passengers in business-class comfort. World-class experts – including WWF's director of species conservation – will provide a series of lectures en route, and a professional staff will be devoted to making your global adventure seamless and memorable.

Yes, it's sponsored by WWF, the World Wildlife Fund. Another page on its site reminds us of the seriousness of climate change:

Climate change is the number one environmental issue of the 21st century. And the United States is one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases, with nearly five times the world average in carbon emissions

But never mind that if you have enough bucks to pay to the WWF to go on its "luxury private jet" to see amazing wildlife.

Reminds me of the film, "Mine Your Own Business," a film begun by filmmakers who initially wanted to serve the environmental goals that they believed environmental organizations were pursuing, but who, in the process of making the documentary, uncovered appalling inhumanity. They capture in their film the incredible condescension of WWF bigwig who showed off his yacht, while talking about how the quaint natives really didn't need progress to lift them out of poverty. Watch the trailer.

Author Paul Driessen comments on the documentary:

"There's a highly capitalized and organized opposition funded mostly by big foundations that oppose any development." He likened the effort, which he said includes Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Federation, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and Christian Aid, to a destroy all the traditional, blue-collar industries and turn the West into "a playground for the rich."

cross posted at Truth v. The Machine