The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory may be “settled science”, but the study of solar physics is not so settled and new scientific studies just released show that the Sun is about to do something “highly unusual and unexpected”. Space.com has the story:

The results of the new studies were announced today (June 14) at the annual meeting of the solar physics division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

The studies looked at a missing jet stream in the solar interior, fading sunspots on the sun’s visible surface, and changes in the corona and near the poles. [Photos: Sunspots on Earth's Star]

“This is highly unusual and unexpected,” Hill said. “But the fact that three completely different views of the sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”

“The solar cycle may be going into a hiatus,” Frank Hill, associate director of the National Solar Observatory’s Solar Synoptic Network, said in a news briefing today (June 14).

Some scientists even believe we could have another Maunder Minimum.

Currently, the sun is in the midst of the period designated as Cycle 24 and is ramping up toward the cycle’s period of maximum activity. However, the recent findings indicate that the activity in the next 11-year solar cycle, Cycle 25, could be greatly reduced. In fact, some scientists are questioning whether this drop in activity could lead to a second Maunder Minimum, which was a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 when the sun showed virtually no sunspots.

Now you don’t have to be a scientist to see the implication here. In a nonchalant manner the article informs us that from 1645 to 1715 there were no sunspots. I wonder if anything else happened during that time? Oh yes, I remember. Large numbers of people died from starvation and disease during the Little Ice Age.

At some point you begin to wonder if it is considered the highest form of heresy for any scientist — not just climate scientists — to say that the temperature of the Earth could fall in the future.

Of course this article was not about the climate. But the consequences of another Maunder Minimum would be a pretty big deal and maybe it would be a good idea to let the public know they should start buying more winter clothing.

However at the end of the article we do learn that “the implications could be far-reaching.” That could be the understatement of the decade.

Over at National Geographic they do make the connection between low solar activity and a colder climate:

Three independent studies of the sun’s insides, surface, and upper atmosphere all predict that the next solar cycle will be significantly delayed—if it happens at all. Normally, the next cycle would be expected to start roughly around 2020.

The combined data indicate that we may soon be headed into what’s known as a grand minimum, a period of unusually low solar activity.

The predicted solar “sleep” is being compared to the last grand minimum on record, which occurred between 1645 and 1715.

Known as the Maunder Minimum, the roughly 70-year period coincided with the coldest spell of the Little Ice Age, when European canals regularly froze solid and Alpine glaciers encroached on mountain villages.

Get ready for the big freeze. It might be a good time to invest in property in South America. But wait, what about all of that CO2 we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere? Maybe that would help warm the planet. Let’s ask a NASA scientist:

“We have some interesting hints that solar activity is associated with climate, but we don’t understand the association,” said Dean Pesnell, project scientist for NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Also, even if there is a climate link, Pesnell doesn’t think another grand minimum is likely to trigger a cold snap.

“With what’s happening in current times—we’ve added considerable amounts of carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere,” said Pesnell, who wasn’t involved in the suite of new sun studies.

“I don’t think you’d see the same cooling effects today if the sun went into another Maunder Minimum-type behavior.”

Here is our situation in a nutshell: The Sun may be entering a quiet phase for several decades. Some scientists believe this might result in another Maunder Minimum which could trigger another Little Ice Age. But, according to Dean Pesnell at NASA we have nothing to worry about because “we’ve added considerable amounts of carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere”.

Who knew that man-made global warming could prevent another Little Ice Age? It’s time for everyone who owns a big SUV to gas ‘em up and hit the road. We’ve got a planet to save!

Promoted from the diaries.  Turn those lights on tonight, kids!

Never heard of earth hour? Me neither until I read this article in the LA Times online edition:

Get ready to fade to black. Millions of people around the world are expected to turn off their lights at 8:30 p.m. local time Saturday — no matter what time zone they’re  in — to observe Earth Hour. Never heard of it? It was started in 2007 by the WWF conservation organization to make a statement about energy overuse and how it affects the planet.

Times Square, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Las Vegas Strip, Niagara Falls, the Opera House in Sydney, and many more landmarks around the world plan to douse the lights, according to Earth Hour’s website.

In Southern California, the Queen Mary will blast its horn at 8:30 p.m. to indicate the beginning of Earth Hour. Then the Long Beach landmark will turn off lights on its smokestacks, the string of lights atop the ship and other areas as well as encourage guests staying in staterooms to do likewise.

I’ve decided to celebrate earth hour this year in a slightly different way. I’m going to turn all my lights on. I’m celebrating man’s emergence from darkness. Man’s use of technology that has saved millions from poverty and starvation. Won’t you join me this year in the ritual lighting of an endangered species; the incandescent light bulb?

All kidding aside, no one will be hurt by this silly event designed to make liberals feel good about themselves but the same can’t be said about other liberal policies. From the millions of African children who have died of malaria because DDT was effectively banned to starvation increasing in the third world because we have decided to turn food into fuel. Even something as simple as not allowing people to clear brush around their property which creates a fire hazard. (See this tragic story in the Australian Press) The progressives never give a second thought to the unintended results of their policies.

At least for one hour on Saturday they won’t have to look at themselves in the mirror.

I’m referring to the spirit that John Wayne personified when he played a character based on the life of Red Adair (the legendary oil well firefighter) in the 1948 film Hellfighters? Throughout our history Americans have always considered this nation exceptional, there is no problem we can’t solve, no goal we can’t achieve.

That’s why it was so troubling to see the leader of the free world bowing to the Saudi King and to the Japanese Emperor. It just didn’t sit well with most Americans. And neither did his comment that: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exception­alism.” In other words we are no different than any other country. It seems that President Obama and the progressives in this country have a different view of America. They think we should tone down our exceptionalism and behave more like citizens of the world.

It’s almost as if we are living in two different Americas.

The America that progressives live in is a different place than where we live. It’s a depressing existence in a nation of diminishing resources, where producers of oil, coal and natural gas are demonized, where health care is rationed, where the climate is something to be feared, where people with too many offspring are destroying Gaia. A nation where capitalism creates an unconscionable gap between the rich and the poor. It’s not a place where you and I want to live.

And we don’t have to because the America they live in is not real, it’s fake, let me explain point by point why the left is wrong on every issue:

Anthropogenic Global Warming

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and driving a SUV to your grandma’s house for the weekend will not destroy the planet. NASA’s Argo system of ocean going buoys measured the temperature of the oceans for 5 years and found no warming. In fact during that time the earth cooled slightly, as reported by NPR in 2008: (my emphasis)

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren’t quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

“There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant,” Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. “Global warming doesn’t mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming.”

Is overpopulation destroying the planet?

Many on the left think we are having too many children, you see, people are bad for the planet. This article in the Sunday Times from Feb. ’09 gives us a glimpse into the warped mind of Jonathon Porritt, a “green adviser” to the government in the UK:

COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned.

Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population. [...]

Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.

Well, that’s certainly one way to reduce the population of the earth; more illness and more abortions. To say his comments are disturbing is an understatement but this is the way the radical left thinks. One has to wonder at what point in the future these abortions will become mandatory?

But then, abortions don’t have to be mandatory, do they? Many of the countries where these radical environmentalists live are already in a demographic death spiral. The native populations in the UK, Japan and parts of Europe are not having enough children to maintain their current numbers. Porritt and his colleagues have apparently already succeeded in the western world.

I wonder how receptive people in the Middle East or Africa would be to their ideas? As Mark Steyn reminds us: “Between now and mid-century, Islam and sub-Saharan Africa will be responsible for almost all the world’s population growth…”

Here is an idea that may be too logical and simple for a progressive to understand; instead of abortions to save the planet and wasting billions to reduce the temperature of the Earth by a fraction of a degree why don’t we spend some of that money to feed the 16,000 children who die of starvation every year.

Rationing of Health-care

Will Obamacare bring rationed health care to America? Let’s ask Donald Berwick who was selected by Obama to run Medicare and Medicade and is a fan of the National Health Service in the UK. Here are his own words on the subject: “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision will be whether we ration care with our eyes open.” So, yes Obamacare is rationed health care. This report from the Telegraph shows how it works in the UK:

Cancer sufferers refused life-extending drugs despite Government pledge

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered more than 80 cases in which desperately sick NHS patients have been refused the cancer drugs their doctor sought, in the four months since a £200 million fund was introduced to stop health authorities rationing treatments.

The fund was a key move by the Coalition so that those suffering from cancer would never again be refused drugs on grounds of cost.

Ministers were responding to years of anger over a system which meant patients were unable to secure life-extending drugs because central NHS rationers had decided the treatments were not “cost effective”.

Announcing the fund last summer, Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, promised to end “the scandal” of cancer patients being refused the drugs that their doctors sought, because of restrictions by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

What about poor people?

The rich and the poor have been with us since the beginning of recorded history and until someone invents a replicator like the one on Star Trek the poor will always be among us. If you want to find poor people today look no further than your friendly neighborhood socialist dictatorship. And while capitalism is not perfect, the free market system has done more to lift millions out of poverty than any other system ever devised by man.

The Evils of Big Oil

The left demonizes big oil in part because of the threat of global warming and yet as I noted above NASA tells us that the oceans actually cooled slightly from 2003 to 2008. So, it doesn’t look like the planet is going to turn into a ball of fire anytime soon. With all the record setting cold temperatures we’ve had recently maybe we should be more worried about a little ice age which would be many times more deadly than a slight warming.

But we are running out of oil, aren’t we? Experts have been debating when the world will run out of oil since M. King Hubbert came up with the “peak theory” in 1956. U.S. oil production peaked in 1970 just as Hubbert predicted. It’s interesting to note that U.S. oil production peaked just one year after the Santa Barbara oil spill. California has not granted any new leases for offshore drilling within its jurisdiction since then.

Some experts say the world has already reached peak oil, others say the world won’t reach peak oil until 2020 or later. But with the flurry of drilling activity going on outside of U.S. territory who knows how much oil is out there? New discoveries are being made all the time. The word from other countries around the world is “drill baby drill”. This recent article from Bloomberg is an example of how the rest of the world is moving on without us:

Geologist Bets on $70 Billion Oil Find Chasing Atlantic Drift

Angus McCoss, exploration director and chief geologist at Tullow Oil Plc, which in 2007 discovered one of the biggest oil finds of recent years off the coast of West Africa, is betting more than $100 million that a similar bonanza awaits off South America’s eastern shore, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Feb. 28 issue.

Tullow and partners Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA by the end of March will start drilling their first deepwater test well about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off French Guiana, a sliver of South American rainforest best known as a former penal colony. The prospect field, called Zaedyus, lies 21,000 feet (6,400 meters) below the ocean’s surface.

McCoss, who spent most of his career at Shell, aims to repeat the success of Jubilee, Tullow’s 120,000 barrel-a-day field off Ghana on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. He’s optimistic because of evidence that Zaedyus mirrors Jubilee’s geology, formed in the Cretaceous period when the African and South American land masses began to separate.

Imagine that, they are drilling in 21,000 ft of water off the coast of off French Guiana 100 miles from a South American rainforest. Here in America we’ve had only one permit issued for deepwater drilling since the Obama administration moratorium.

We should be searching for oil everywhere in America right now; in the Gulf, off the Atlantic coast, off the coast of California and in ANWR. Of course we all know the reason why we aren’t. Obama has placed like-minded liberal elites and greenies throughout his administration. America’s natural resources will remain under lock and key until a Republican President occupies the Oval Office.

Liberal policies are like kryptonite to America’s can-do spirit. Europeans may enjoy living in a cradle to grave nanny state but for a nation as exceptional as ours liberalism is just plain wrong and unworkable.

Every year we lose more of our liberty. From unwanted intimate encounters with TSA agents, to calls for limits on free speech after Tucson. Even the freedom of the open road isn’t as free as it once was with the introduction of cameras at intersections and on highways. A discussion of red light cameras may appear to be strictly a safety issue but I believe that the controversy over these cameras is more political than many people realize. It’s somewhat like the anthropogenic global warming theory.

In the beginning AGW wasn’t politicized, it was simply a scientific theory. As time went on those of us on the consevative side read all the articles, looked at the empirical evidence and came to the conclusion that AGW was a hoax. As for those on the left — if they didn’t plan it from the very beginning — they quickly realized that the AGW theory would allow them unlimited power to regulate the economy. As we all know, liberals never let the truth get in the way of government expansion. And who can argue that having cameras on every street corner is not conducive to a larger more intrusive government?

However, the red light camera issue hasn’t become so politicized yet, it’s not a clear cut case of us vs. them. Many conservatives, looking at it from a law and order point of view, might say that the small amount of freedom we give up is worth it to catch those red light scofflaws and make the roads safer and they would have a point except for one small detail. The cameras don’t work as advertised, they don’t make the roads safer. In many cases it’s just the opposite. To back up my outrageous claim I offer three news stories. The first is an excerpt from a recent article from the UK’s Telegraph:

The number of people killed and seriously injured on Britain’s roads continued to fall as speed cameras were taken out of use last year. There were 510 deaths between July and September, compared to 596 in the same period in 2009.

This represented a 14 per cent drop at a time when the volume of traffic fell by only 1.3 per cent. There was also a five per cent reduction in the tally of people killed or serious injured.

The continuing decline in serious casualties coincided with the retreat of the speed camera programme as cash-strapped councils began switching off devices because of spending cuts.

Somerset, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire were among the areas where the number of active cameras was reduced.

The figures will add weight to those who have argued that the proliferation of cameras over the past decade had little to do with fall in casualties during the same period.

“When we have a recession we expect the fatalities to fall because people travel less far, less often and are therefore exposed to less danger,” said Claire Armstrong of the anti camera group, Safespeed.

“Coupled with excessive fuel prices, this is of no surprise to us and any benefit is nothing to do with cameras.”

The next news item is from the The Palm Beach Post, dated May. 24, 2010:

WEST PALM BEACH — Rear-end collisions more than doubled and accidents increased overall in the first 70 days of red-light cameras in West Palm Beach compared to the same period of 2009, traffic records reviewed by The Palm Beach Post show.

In the name of boosting safety, not revenues, West Palm Beach issued 2,675 camera fines worth a third of a million dollars in March alone.

But at the three city intersections from Feb. 21, when fines began, through May 1, The Post found:

–Rear-end collisions increased to five from two. Rear-end accidents sometimes go up with cameras because anxious drivers are more likely to stop abruptly.

–Overall accidents increased to seven from six.

–The only injury in either period came under cameras, in a rear-end crash in March 2010. The injury was “non-incapacitating,” according to records supplied by cities and compiled in Palm Beach County’s accident database.

City officials did not dispute the data but said it was too soon to draw meaningful conclusions.

In the UK they turn the cameras off and accidents are reduced and in West Palm Beach they add cameras and rear end accidents double! How can this be? It doesn’t make any sense. Well, actually it does make sense if you happen to have an old issue of Car and Driver lying around from 2002. Patrick Bedard writes:

When the nation’s No. 1 cheerleader for red-light cameras admits there might be one teensy-weensy downside to the program, you just know it’s going to be a lulu so large it couldn’t be crammed under the carpet without making a bulge the size of a circus tent.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently enthused over traffic-tickets-by-mail schemes for an entire issue of its Status Report. On red-light cameras, however, it did allow that “most studies also reported increases in rear-end crashes.”

It went on to say, “This isn’t surprising. The more people stop on red, the more rear-end collisions there will be.”

Duh! [....]

Spillover effect is IIHS’s trick for giving the cameras credit for reducing fatalities even where they aren’t. It assumes that red-light cameras at a few intersections will cause drivers to stop promptly all over town, or all over the county, or maybe all over the state, so improvements outside the cameras’ ZIP Codes are credited to them nonetheless. As statistical acrobatics go, this one is breathtaking.

But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The obvious way to gauge the payoff of red-light cameras is to compare intersections with cameras to those without, then zoom in on crashes actually caused by drivers running red lights. Instead, IIHS considered all crashes at all 125 signalized intersections in Oxnard and concluded that injury crashes dropped by 29 percent due to the cameras, even though they were installed at only 11 intersections.

Spillover effect, don’t you know.

Skeptics will notice that crashes went down rather randomly all over town, and some ordinary intersections outperformed those with the gotcha equipment. The cameras look remarkably ineffectual until, just in time, spillover effect arrives to snatch victory from the jaws of ho-hum.

In addition to the three articles quoted above, here is a bonus. I know liberals like to think they have science on their side so I decided to include information on a study by Barbara Langland-Orban, professor and chair of health policy and management at the University of South Florida College of Public Health. ScienceDaily reported on this study in 2008:

Rather than improving motorist safety, red-light cameras significantly increase crashes and are a ticket to higher auto insurance premiums, researchers at the University of South Florida College of Public Health conclude. The effective remedy to red-light running uses engineering solutions to improve intersection safety, which is particularly important to Florida’s elderly drivers, the researchers recommend.

“The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don’t work,” said lead author Barbara Langland-Orban, professor and chair of health policy and management at the USF College of Public Health.

“Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections. If used in Florida, cameras could potentially create even worse outcomes due to the state’s high percent of elderly who are more likely to be injured or killed when a crash occurs.”

Looking at the evidence from a safety perspective it appears that speed cameras are ineffective and red light cameras are downright dangerous. At this point it should be noted that this evidence only relates to traffic cameras not security cameras like the blue-light police cameras in Chicago. The jury is still out on those, although this quote from Anthony Daniels at The Corner is not encouraging: “Britain has the highest crime rate in Western Europe, despite having a third of all the closed-circuit television cameras in the world…”

As for traffic cameras, I think I’ve made my case. In summation I would simply add, “cameras bad, freedom good.” What do you think?

Obamacare is a train wreck waiting to happen. Obama has stated that his preference is for a single payer system but as he rightly points out in this video it will take time to get there. Like the Stuxnet virus quietly destroying Iranian centrifuges, Obamacare’s real purpose is to quietly and inexorably destroy what is left of private health care in America.

So, what kind of care can we expect when the government takes over the health care system? One way to find out would be to look at other government entities that we have to interact with. For example, have you experienced exceptional customer service at the Department of Motor Vehicles lately or the Post Office? Or perhaps we could look at Amtrak to see what kind of service we could expect from government run health care.

It just so happens Stephen Tschida a reporter for ABC has just had an interesting experience with Amtrak. Here are a few of his tweets:

En route phili. Train broke down. Terrrible, cold, no info. Better get what can from cafe. Looks like long night ahead.

Really someone here should tell us something. Train gettting colder and colder. Hearing now about a possible rescue train. OMH?

This really is the trip from HELL!

Train stalled again. Pitch black all around, cold air blowing on me. It’s like twilight zone. Or I’ve died and gone 2 hell.

OMG backing up all the way 2 baltimore. Asked what then, conuctor said “don’t know”. Asked about heat, he shrugged. Kinda close 2 crying.

Oh god, lights went out. Train totally dead. No one is telling us anything! Sitting in dark shivering. “Sartre”

Very wierd, everyone wispering. This is so bizarre. Because it’s dark they talk in hushed tones.

Afraid they’re going to back us off a bridge into cold black water. Maybe I’m paranoid, but afraid this isn’t going to end well.

Why will no one tell us anything? People are cold, hungry, and frightened. I hear yelling in other cars.

1 man grabbed intercom demanded answers. Another started screaming we have 2 get home. Now total silence.

Now quiet, people like zombies. Some lined up to get off. Others just blank expressions. Train still stalled.

Oh god all lights went out again. Train dead, it’s like a coffin in here. But less anger and yelling. Exhaustion setting in.

Train MOVING! Spanish lady looked at me with sad eyes said “I want to go to New York”. I said you are YOU ARE!

God I think I’m close to crying again. I NEVER cry. Just want out. This might be a life changer.

This whole night is like some wierd agonizing hallucination. Now they can’t open doors to let people off. What is going on?

Oh god, a half hour out of phili and it stopped again. Please please! Ah it’s moving, slowly but moving.

I just want to get warm and sleep. take off these frozen boots. Can’t wait to step off this train, safe.

Oh god, can see phili, but train stopped again. Really it just does not end!

Oh god, close close close! Almost off this god forsaken train!

Off the train! Ten hours of hell is over. Now warmth and sleep, goodnight.

4 hours off train still can’t get warm. Supposed 2 go back 2day. I don’t know if I can get on train again.

Could Obamacare turn out to be as bad as Amtrak? Who knows? It might be worse.

First, let me point out that I am not advocating that we start a third party. In fact it wasn’t even on my radar screen but apparently someone is thinking about it; namely, conservative thinkers like Tony Blankley and Sarah Palin.

Here are Tony’s thoughts on the subject from Townhall:

It would not surprise me at all to see in 2012 Sarah Palin leading a tea party campaign, Michael Bloomberg lead a middle-way third party, Feingold lead a progressive fourth party of the left, a couple of Republican Party regulars leading a rump GOP campaign, a few more GOP regulars running another rump GOP campaign — while President Obama defends what is left of the Democrats.

Perhaps the public will give the current political order one more regular cycle before breaking loose in 2014 or 2016. But the now-tested availability of the Internet as not only a fundraising device, but as an organizing mechanism really does render the political parties redundant. They exist largely out of historic habit. If they don’t deliver (or worse, if they are seen not to even try to deliver), it would not take much more political energy than now exists to just walk away from them.

And here is Sarah Palin from National Review:

In the next two years, if all we end up doing is adopting some tax hikes here, some Obama-agenda compromises there, and a thousand little measures that do nothing to get us out of the economic mess we’re in, the same voters that put the GOP in office will vote them out in the next election. If that happens, the story of 2012 may well be that of the GOP going the way of the Whigs. No, the American people are expecting us to be bold and big in our economic reform to allow the private sector to create jobs and soar!

The “GOP going the way of the Whigs?” And the internet “does render the political parties redundant.” Strong statements from those two. Of course you need to read both articles to get the full context of what Sarah and Tony are saying. But the gauntlet has been thrown down to the GOP — start treating tea party candidates with respect and start fighting the Obama agenda or else!

The Republican establishment needs to understand that we don’t want to leave the GOP and we probably won’t but with the internet it would be soooooo… easy to start a new party. I’ve even got a name for it, we could call it the Tea Party.

You gotta love Texas, from the Houston Chronicle:

Texas is the only state taking no steps to meet new federal greenhouse gas emission rules that go into effect in January.

The new rules go into effect Jan. 2, 2011. They require the nation’s largest industries to meet more stringent greenhouse gas emissions standards in new or significantly modified structures.

The National Association of Clean Air Act Agencies acts as a go-between to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for state governments. It says 49 states have either changed their laws to allow regulation of greenhouse gases or will allow the EPA to issue permits for them. Texas is doing neither.

The EPA and Texas environmental regulators were not immediately available to comment.

Rick Perry’s got the right attitude, just ignore the regime. If the EPA comes down hard on Texas and jobs are lost Obama’s approval rating will drop to the twenties.

Do you ever feel like someone is watching you? Do you ever feel like someone is studying you and those you associate with from afar? Well guess what, you’re not paranoid it’s real. We’ve been under the microscope for two years now by Berkeley’s Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements. And here you thought those cars driving around your neighborhood with the funny looking cameras on top were from Google.

Okay, I don’t have any proof that they are studying us cloak and dagger style but we are being studied nonetheless. Slate has the story, the subtitle of the article reads: “Lefty academics convene in Berkeley to try to make sense of the Tea Party movement.” To the academic elites at Berkeley we are like an alien species that just landed on Earth and they are naturally curious.

Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Obama and the progressives in Congress gave us all these wonderful things like the Stimulus and Obamacare and Finance reform. They are also trying to save the planet with Cap and Tax. And how do we show our appreciation? We go to town halls and shout at them. No wonder they are confused and perplexed. This calls for some serious research, here are a couple of papers they are working on:

Prospects for an American Neofascism. Initially the project would consist of a review of recent research on American right wing groups (including the Tea Party movement, the Minutemen, and the Christian right); and of trends in national and transnational political economy that bear on our subject (such as cyclical and structural economic crises, corporate/government interpenetration, and the explosive growth of the military/industrial/security complex).

A Macro-Micro Model of Participation in Political Action: The Tea Party and Cognitive Biases in Information Consumption and Processing. Hypotheses were tested using qualitative data obtained from interviews with two groups: protest participants from various Tea Party protests (protesting group, N-15) and non-protesting Tea Party “supporters” (supporting group, N=3). Results show that strongly held pre-existing beliefs (particularly economic and political individualist ideology) heavily impacted levels of dissatisfaction with government policy and choices of information consumed.

Gee, I didn’t know I was a neofascist. I just thought I wanted a smaller less intrusive government based on our founding documents. On the second paper, I’ll admit I’m not as smart as these researchers but I think I know what “Cognitive Biases in Information Consumption and Processing” means. It’s just a fancy way of saying that I listen to Rush Limbaugh too much. I’ll have to plead guilty on that one.

The results of two years of study are in and the participants in this conference have found that the tea party is racist:

“There is that U.S. DNA that goes all the way back and does provide the conceptual source for this lynch mob mentality,” says Steve Martinot, who teaches at San Francisco State University. “And that is white supremacy. Shouldn’t we be looking at the Tea Party through that?”

Perlstein moves around the question. “The thing that makes America different, and this is a very dialectical, paradoxical concept, is that we have a lot of democracy,” he says. “The idea that everyone has an opinion of about what they’re hearing is both the glory and the tragedy of American democracy.”

But the social scientists are more ready than the historians to crunch numbers and prove that racial animosity is key to the Tea Party. It’s cold comfort for people like Hardy Frye, but it does suggest that Obama’s ability to form some grand populist coalition was always limited.

So, there you have it. According to the academics at this conference, “racial animosity is key to the Tea Party. And we have a ” lynch mob mentality.” And apparently it’s a “tragedy” that we have so much opinion in this country.

There is only one small flaw in their logic. If America is a boiling cauldron of racial animosity as they seem to imagine how did Obama become president when only 12.4% of the population is African-American? Is it possible that the sinking popularity of the President has something to do with his failing policies?

And by the way, do these academic types realize that Obama is not on the ticket in this upcoming election? Race has nothing to do with what is going to happen on November 2nd. And all those White Democratic Congressmen and Senators about to be unemployed know it.

There is an unfortunate pattern developing with Obama. It appears that he over thinks many situations. We are told that liberals use nuance and critical thinking in every decision. Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean they get it right. In fact most of their cherished ideas have failed miserably in real world situations.

Obama spent months deciding what to do in Afghanistan and then he got it wrong. Shortchanging his military commanders with too few troops and telegraphing to the Taliban when we would withdraw. Why? Because as he put it: “I can’t lose the entire Democratic Party”.

During the BP oil spill crisis he was offered help from other countries with expertise in containing oil spills but he couldn’t accept. Why? He didn’t want to upset the unions and waive rules imposed by the Jones Act.

Now Obama and his advisers have taken a simple goodwill gesture of a visit to The Golden Temple and created a problem where one didn’t exist. From the New York Times:

Temple officials said that American advance teams had gone to Amritsar, the holy city that is the site of the temple, to discuss a possible visit. But the plan appears to have foundered on the thorny question of how Mr. Obama would cover his head, as Sikh tradition requires, while visiting the temple.

“To come to golden temple he needs to cover his head,” said Dalmegh Singh, secretary of the committee that runs the temple. “That is our tradition. It is their problem to cover the head with a Christian hat or a Muslim cap.”

(While working on this post I went back to read the article again and noticed that the last sentence about the hat and cap had been removed with no explanation. Was Obama considering wearing a Muslim cap?)

Is he trying not to offend Muslims? Why would Muslims care one way or the other if a Christian wears a Christian article of clothing? This is multiculturalism carried to the extreme. Disowning your own religion so as not to offend others and all it shows is weakness to other cultures. With this decision we can add a whole other group of people disappointed in Obama:

H. S. Phoolka, a prominent Sikh lawyer in New Delhi, said he was disappointed that Mr. Obama would not visit the temple.

“We have worked so hard to establish in America that Sikhs have a very different identity than Muslims,” Mr. Phoolka said. “It is very unfortunate that even the White House is conveying the message that there is no difference between Muslims and Sikhs.”

Obama could use some of that Palin “common sense”. Nuanced thinking like this is why his presidency is failing.

The editors at Time missed an opportunity to make the perfect title for their article, Encountering Anguish and Anxiety Across America. They just needed one more A word to make it perfect — Anger.

The “Yes We Can” crowd hasn’t reached the boiling point yet but they are full of “anguish and anxiety” they just don’t know who to blame anymore. The Bush piñata has been beaten to death. But they are starting to suspect that it could be the messiah’s fault. Obama can’t even go to a carefully screened town hall or a backyard barbecue without getting tough questions from his own supporters! The rest of us are just angry watching him shredding the Constitution. So what does Time think the problem is? Here is a taste:

On a blistering evening in Phoenix recently, a group of prominent civic leaders met to talk about America. It didn’t take long for the conversation to get around to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. That’s what happens when smart Americans get to talking about politics these days. Topic A is the growing sense that our best days as a nation are behind us, that our kids won’t live as well as we did, that China is in the driver’s seat.

I’m experiencing deja vu all over again, this is the exact same thing we heard when Jimmy Carter was in office, only then it was Japan in the driver’s seat not China. Back then the MSM was telling us our best days were behind us and we better get used to it. Lucky for us Ronald Reagan came along just when we needed him.

Can you guess what Reagan would tell this group of civic leaders? He would tell them our best days are not behind us and all we have to do is unleash America’s entrepreneurial spirit by reducing regulations and taxes. He would then add: “Government is the problem not the solution.”

When the MSM and the ruling elites tell us that our best days are behind us, that we can’t be the engine that drives the world economy anymore and this is the “new normal”, I just wish I could reach right through the TV screen and slap them silly. Of course we could get out of this recession if the progressives in Washington would just take their boots off of our necks.

So, they tell us the Obama administration is not hostile to business? Really…  Across the board tax increases heading our way in January, Cap and Tax, offshore drilling shut down, threats to insurance companies from Kathleen Sebelius and the latest, a coordinated attack from the White House on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It’s probably too much to ask for some pro-business policies from this administration but could they at least stop the attacks, the government takeovers and the shutting down of industry.

And even if you are lucky enough to be making a profit in this recession, don’t get too complacent Obama has put in place an army of progressive bureaucrats making arbitrary and binding decisions affecting your business. Uncertainty rules the day. Alan Greenspan touched on the subject of uncertainty writing in the Financial Times:

The instinctive reaction of businessmen and householders to uncertainty is to disengage from those activities that require confident predictions of how the future will unfold. For non-financial corporations (half of gross domestic product), the disengagement is best measured by the share of liquid cash flow allocated to illiquid long-term fixed asset investment. In the first half of 2010, that share fell to 79 per cent, its lowest reading in the 58 years for which data are available.

Liberals seem to think the economy is like the weather, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. They fully expected the business cycle to be on the upswing this November, and guess what? It would have been except for the actions of Reid, Pelosi and Obama. That’s karma for you.

Liberals and progressives also have difficulty understanding the concept of “animal spirits” in the business world. They think people are in business simply to provide jobs. What they don’t realize is that jobs are a by-product of profits. And profits come from entrepreneurs risking it all in the marketplace. Keynes defined animal spirits as: “a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction…”

Have you seen any business people acting spontaneously lately?

When Obama famously said now is not the time for profits it put a real damper on the business psyche. But the one thing that Obama forgot or doesn’t know is that without profits there are no jobs.

Obama won’t be in Washington to see the aftermath of the destruction of the Democratic party on November 2nd, he’ll be packing to go on a worldwide tour including a stop in India. He’ll return on November 14th reinvigorated and undaunted in his efforts to transform America.

Congress is increasingly irrelevant to Obama. He couldn’t even get the current Democratic controlled Congress to vote to tax the rich. The Wall Street Journal reports: “Forty-seven House Democrats have signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging that tax rates on capital gains and dividends be maintained at the current level of up to 15% for all earners.” Apparently Obama’s own party isn’t radical enough for him.

Don’t look for Obama to move to the center like Clinton did. Clinton was a politician, Obama is a far left ideologue. If anything he’ll move further to the left. Look for Obama to dust off his tattered copy of Rules for Radicals for inspiration. There are executive orders to sign, recess appointments to make and hundreds, perhaps thousands of regulations and taxes to be unpacked out of that Obamacare monstrosity.

As the Republicans start to bring our fiscal house in order, Obama — playing the role of populist demagogue — will be there every step of the way to thwart their efforts, while at the same time claiming success for himself as the economy improves. Unfortunately success for Republicans in Congress means the possible reelection of Obama in 2012.

I don’t want to end on a pessimistic note but I’m afraid anger, anguish and anxiety will be with us for at least two more years even with huge Republican victories in November. We are in for the fight of our lives. Obama recently said a Republican victory in November will mean hand-to-hand combat. Maybe he’s right. At least now the battle is joined.