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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Observations From the Back Row: 8-8-11

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“De Omnibus Dubitandum”


Everthing we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!
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Question: What could a climate scientist bring to the debate among physicists over the interaction of cosmic rays with the Earth’s atmosphere?

Answer: the coffee.
Physicists have long maintained that the question of climate change was properly within the realm of physics rather than that of those glorified weathermen who call themselves “climatologists.” Last week we got confirmation of that. It came in the form of a study by physicists in Switzerland.


The claims of those who worry about human damage to the climate become ever more strident despite, or perhaps because of, the real world data rapidly diverging from that which they anticipated……They ask us to believe many impossible things:

Report finds that taxpayer dollars support the ‘Big Green’ agenda

Lawsuits against a power-hungry government agency like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are inevitable. The lawsuits come from all sides and all entities. For example, citizens and states might sue the EPA for overregulation of an industry that could lead to lost jobs and revenues. Green groups might sue the EPA because they feel it hasn’t done enough to over-regulate businesses or to expand enforcement of current environmental laws.

But it is important to note that in many cases the EPA and Treasury Department are required to award attorney’s fees to those plaintiffs that successfully dispute the EPA. And because the Justice Department is what defends the EPA in court cases, your tax dollars are what are used to pay the opposing sides’ attorneys……What was discovered is jaw-dropping. The GAO report found that in addition to attorney’s fees awarded, the Justice Department spent at least $43 million in taxpayer dollars defending EPA in court from 1998 to 2010. That doesn’t include the fact that Treasury paid about $14.2 million from fiscal year 2003 through 2010 and the EPA paid approximately $1.4 million from fiscal year 2006 through 2010……The three primary beneficiaries from 1998 to 2010 were: Sierra Club, Earthjustice and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Total amounts these organizations received from all attorney fees paid to EPA litigants combined was at least 41 percent of the total payouts. Earthjustice alone received 32 percent, as indicated by this report.

Go figure that the primary beneficiaries of statutes set to protect citizens and private industries would instead be awarded to environmental groups that want nothing more than to extend the power and grasp of the federal government’s EPA. Even more striking was the payout to all environmental groups (ENGOs), which in total was 82 percent.

“This fund has turned into nothing more than a taxpayer slush fund designed to pay environmental attorneys whose sole function is to further the scope and power of environmental laws, which kill industries and those jobs vital to America,” says Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government (ALG).....

If organizations like NRDC, which had a reported $181,427,464 in net assets in 2009, want to sue the EPA, it should do so with its own funds, not those of the taxpayer. It makes little sense to reward environmental groups with taxpayer money to file lawsuits directed at putting taxpayers out of work.

Besides, in this administration these environmental groups and the EPA have too much power as it is.



With the economy stagnating and unemployment high, where are the jobs of the future going to come from? A few years ago, it seemed as though the Green Economy could be a big part of the answer. (NYT)


President Obama arguably spurred the development of the Tea Party, helped hand the Republicans the House majority and, best of all, put an end, we hope, to the green-jobs fetish…..Politicians are not particularly well-equipped to identify market trends or spot investment opportunities. They are, however, very adept at rewarding politically connected friends and using taxpayer money to in essence reimburse their donors (and then some) for the generosity shown in helping the pols get elected. You dress it all up with high-minded phrases (“a 21st-century economy,” “green jobs,” “private-public partnerships”), and it sells like hot cakes. I mean who wants a 19th-century economy? And goodness knows we don’t want dingy jobs, we want bright green ones (with that little recycling logo on every product).

My Take – I would like for someone to name one politician, one bureaucrat or one government agency that picked Microsoft to be a winner. There is a reason for that. They don’t have a clue about economics or what works or doesn’t work. Why would we think that people who went to college and then into government…or never ever had a real job could do anything right involving economics?

By Alan Caruba

Not only is President Obama’s forthcoming “jobs” speech a self-inflicted embarrassment when he was told he could not deliver it to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday—the first time any President was refused the day and time of his choosing—but it is essentially D.O.A.; dead on arrival……Obama has also become well known for his advocacy of “green jobs” and, one day after Wayne Crews was lamenting the regulation explosion, Stephen Moore was writing in The Wall Street Journal that “President Obama is expected to seek another $250 billion or so in new stimulus funds next week, with plenty of money for clean energy and the creation of so-called green jobs.”


Stuff You Won’t See on the News

Eliminate the minimum wage prop to big business:

"Walmart has pushed for a higher minimum wage. But Walmart already pays above minimum wage, so raising it would barely affect them. But it would impose costs on various Walmart competitors. So Walmart gets to advocate for what looks like social justice, while hobbling its competition."

My Take - Those of us who really believe in capitalism have to come to an understanding that there is capitalism and then there is big business….and there is a difference. The bigger the company the more they like regulations and taxes. Why? Because it prevents smaller companies from getting bigger. Who was the greatest pusher of the tobacco deal with the states Attorneys General some years back? Big tobacco! Why?

What most of us don’t realize that there are actually a lot of tobacco companies out there and not just the big three or four of which we are all aware. The deal they struck kept the small companies small and the penalties the bigger companies had to pay became de-facto “un-voted on“ excise taxes because they could be passed on to the consumer. This has been a practice since the
Whiskey Tax of 1790, (this link doesn't tell the whole story, but it supplies useful information and is worth reading. This event is pivotal to everything we deal with today. This is foundational information for understanding the issues of overreaching government) which was a favorite of Alexander Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury who wanted support for the new government and new Constitution (1789) by business, and was a big advocate of military enforcement. Sort of ironic isn't it. Through taxation he wanted to destroy the rights of some in order to defend the document that said their rights should not be abridged. Regulations and taxation has been a Constitutional bypass mechanism from the beginning. We do need to get that!


The recent US government raid of Gibson Guitars' Tennessee manufacturing facility is now receiving widespread media coverage, thanks to a flood of reports that have appeared across the web in recent weeks, including here at NaturalNews. But beyond simply the raid itself is the reality of the new environmental police state that appears to be taking over, where personal wood products of all kinds -- whether they be furniture, hand tools, or even guns made with rare wood stocks -- are now threatened with arbitrary confiscation……You see, Gibson's import of rosewood and ebony from India was not illegal under either US or Indian law. FWS merely decided to interpret Indian law in its own illogical way, and invoke the Lacey Act as justification for its illegal raid. And if the agency gets away with doing this to Gibson, they will surely do it again to others…………..The American police state truly is growing at an unprecedented rate, which is evidenced by the unveiling of this new environmental police force that is eager to confiscate personal property in the name of enforcing (fictitious) laws. If it is not stopped now, it will continue to grow until not a shred of freedom remains.


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