The American Spectator

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Eyeful in Gaza

3.9.09 @ 6:01AM

(Page 2 of 4)

The same practice is going on with the attacks on Rush and the "far right" by the likes of David Frum (listen to his argument on Mark Levin's March 4th show - the podcast is free) that think the problem with the GOP is the evil conservatives that stick to principle. You see, Frum knows you can't sell liberty, freedom and limited government to the morons coming out of our public schools so he thinks we should stop.

Pure hacks like Frum and David Brooks don't give a rat's behind about principles because they are no different from Democrats -- power hungry [men] that just want to win elections for their own personal gain.
-- Greg Barnard
Franklin, Tennessee      

HOT, EXPENSIVE AIR
Re: Will Yeatman & Jeremy Lott's O'Malley's Hot Air:

Let us fill in some blanks of this financial lunacy that is emission reductions. First Americans must be told that global warming is a natural phenomenon that has occurred many times before and there is no scientific fact that points to man as the cause of this, if it exists at all trend. That is fact.

Second, let us look at the new Obamanation: the cap and spend marketplace that he will create. It is a simple concept. The government in its infinite wisdom decides how much carbon can be emitted. To create the market that amount must be less than is emitted today. There are industries that emit that the government favors. These will have their emissions quota raised. Those increases will be the "credits" that are sold. So those industries will be able to increase their financial wellbeing by selling a valueless asset namely pollution they don't make.

Then industries the government doesn't like, utilities for example, will have their permitted emissions cut well below what they need to provide you with power. They will have to shut down or buy these "credits". How will they retain their financial viability? They will pass the cost of the credits, likely to be in the trillions of dollars, to you.  As the President said while he was campaigning "utility bills are likely to skyrocket."  Using a model -- admittedly a guess because we only know this is coming, not how big the freight train that flattens us will be -- I calculate consumer electric bills will rise by about $1,000 to $1700 a year depending on whether your electricity is provided by nuclear and natural gas or coal and oil, the latter being the most costly under these rules.  These numbers are only the projected increase not the total bill.

Then I believe it is safe to bet that this socialist government that sees working Americans as ATMs will add an additional cost on middle income families' electric bills to help the lame and lazy pay theirs. Let's do a guess that is $350 a year. 

Now, we're not finished with this analysis yet because the stated purpose for this draconian energy tax on citizens is to make utilities convert to cleaner fuels. That will be difficult because the only cleaner fuels are wind, very unreliable in terms of always being ready to spin blades and photovoltaic which is hugely expensive because it is so inefficient and would require a huge land mass to set up a commercial sized production facility. Photovoltaic plants would be a very good source of electricity in places where Democrats run wild -- like Massachusetts. No sun no electricity. 

But Congress is not a deliberative body that permits reality to intrude on its desired outcomes so let's slice and dice this. I got this information from a major utility company and I am rounding for ease of explanation. Let's say one of these new plants using non-existent technology will cost about what a combined cycle oil and gas fueled plant costs -- about $1, 000,000,000 for 1600 megawatts. (I want to point out that this is a very rosy assumption, because utilities could rebuild conventional power plants on the existing sites in many case but would have to acquire vast tracks of land for photovoltaic plants --perhaps a million acres for replacement of their fleet of plants.)

So now let us add the cost of replacement of their generating fleet with these yet-to-exist technologies. This is a huge number, so big I am frankly unable to calculate it. But let's again be minimalists and say the cost to a consumer is $200 a month for 30 years or another $2400 a year on your electric bill. Let's also add in a component to take care of the lame and lazy at the same $350 a year we used above and we can project your electric bill to rise by about $5,000 dollars a year in 2012.

Then to conclude, remember everything you buy requires energy to make. All this will be subject to the same tax.  As will gasoline and heating oil. It is not unreasonable to project the cost of living will double very quickly in the next five years due to this huge confiscation of your wealth. This also is likely to plunge us into a catastrophic depression so severe that we will wish for the good old days of the 1930's when unemployment was only abut 20%.   
-- Jay Molyneaux
North Carolina

LIVING UP TO EXPECTATIONS
Re: George Neumayr's The Big Ten in the Wilderness:

Re: George Neumayr's recent piece, it is insightful as ever, and seems precisely to summarize the mess we are in. It also points out an essential truth: Apparently, the American people, as they exist today, are easy to hoodwink. We elected Obama, in spite of the fact that anyone willing to look could see who and what he was. Now he is just being himself, and doing exactly what a radical left, Alinsky-trained community organizer would be expected to do. The fundamental problem seems to be either an indifferent population, or an ignorant one. To paraphrase Jefferson, to expect to be free, and ignorant, is to expect what never was, and never can be.
-- David Reich
Auburn, New York

UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS
Re: Peter Ferrara's Obama's Fantasy Budget: 

Letter to the Editor