PAWaterCooler.com

The demonization of Pennsylvania’s biggest industrial phenomenon in the last 50 years continues. This time, it’s not just hyperventilating environmentalists getting into the act, it’s gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato (D):

First the thuggery…

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato says he’d pressure natural gas drilling companies to hire Pennsylvania residents by threatening to withhold state drilling permits.

snip…

Onorato says he’d be justified to use permits as leverage, arguing, “I think all governors apply pressure on every industry. The whole idea of being governor is you try to bring jobs and improve the economy of your state. We have a golden opportunity here, with the Marcellus Shale find. But we get one chance to get it right.”

The problem is, Onorato’s idea isn’t legal. “It’s not what we do,” says Governor Rendell. “And you might be able to do that, but you’d probably have to change some regulations or get some legislation.”

OK–when Ed Rendell suggests to you that something is illegal, that should be your signal to back away slowly and not make any sudden moves.

Actually, this is a real shame. I like Onorato and have even had some personal dealings with him where I thought he was both fair and open-minded. This kind of thing is, frankly, beneath him, and is exactly the kind of sleazy crap that everybody’s sick of.

Now on to the hype. The P-G never disappoints. From Saturday’s letters to the editor, we get this gem:

The Marcellus Shale drilling plans of the carpetbagger natural gas interests are going to create disasters for many Pennsylvania communities.

Our most precious water supplies are being totally put at risk. Pennsylvania politicians sit idly by, doing nothing to stop this attack upon our commonwealth.

It is not a matter if such disasters occur, but when and how many times.

The promise of economic benefit to Pennsylvanians is only a pipe dream to mollify those who think such financial gain would justify the ecological risks.

Come on, people, wake up! Get our state politicos to get with it and put a complete halt to this; otherwise thousands of Pennsylvanians will have to deal with poisoned water supplies.

This is the Silent Spring of the 2010 decade !

AH HA! AH HA!! THE MARCELLUS SHALE PEOPLE ARE POISONING OUR WATER AND AIR AND SUNSHINE! AND THEY’RE ATTACKING US! ATTACKING US WITH JOBS! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! I’M CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS!

For the love of Pete man, calm down. Zoloft. Seriously. Like 50 mg is all you need. It’s heaven in a little pill.

What amazes me is the accusations of “carpetbagging” that are thrown at natural gas drillers. First of all, has anyone actually looked to see how many jobs are out there because of natural gas drilling? A quick search on indeed.com lists about four pages of natural-gas related jobs in Pennsylvania posted by one company in the last 30 days. And has anyone ever stopped to think about Pennsylvania’s long history of oil and gas drilling? Perhaps if we hadn’t driven all those jobs away to places like Texas, we would still have people living in Pennsylvania who know how to drill.

And finally, reason. Also from Saturday’s P-G:

The Environmental Protection Agency recently held a meeting at Southpointe in Washington County to receive public testimony on the possible negative effects of hydraulic fracturing on fresh water. I spoke and was received with a chorus of boos from the crowd because I presented a factually based argument in support of hydraulic fracturing.

Based on my own research, more than 48,000 wells have been hydraulically fractured to date in Pennsylvania. Other studies have estimated that more than 1 million wells have been fracked throughout the United States since 1960. Yet not one case of fresh water pollution by hydraulic fracturing has been documented. This is a large enough database to conclude that it is highly unlikely that any future contamination will occur.

Physics also dictates that fractures created at depth do not reach the water table, which has been verified in lab and field tests. Upward growth of induced fractures cannot reach above about 2,000 feet in depth — approximately 1,500 feet below the deepest fresh water. Below 2,000 feet, fractures in the Appalachian Basin for geological reasons are propagated vertically in a general northeast-southwest direction. Above 2,000 feet, the basin’s geological characteristics stop fractures by forcing them to move horizontally.

It is physically impossible to force a vertical fracture upward from the Marcellus Shale to shallow fresh water layers. And no matter how hard anti-Marcellus zealots try to connect hydraulic fracturing to the contamination of fresh water, they won’t be able to do so unless they repeal the laws of physics.

GREGORY WRIGHTSTONE
McCandless
The writer is a petroleum geologist

Holy crap! These are actual facts based on real science articulated by someone who has a background in the subject! Sanity–so refreshing ™.

As an aside, I’ve met Greg Wrightstone, and he is a terrific guy. He heads up an organization called the Pennsylvania Coalition for Responsible Government. Check it out.

Email Fred Mullner, Start the discussion or Share This...

Actually, I hate to call it a debate since its really more like a tantrum. As usual, we have the enviro-socialists on one side screaming about how the Marcellus Shale WILL KILL US ALL! and on the other side we have the rest of us who sense that we are witnessing the rebirth of industry in a State whose glory days were thought to be past. Yes, I understand that there can be impacts both to the environment and the communities where gas drilling takes place if these drilling companies mismanage their wells. I also know that we have plenty of laws on the books which require industry–any industry–to minimize its environmental impacts and which hold industries liable when they don’t. The idea that drilling in the Marcellus Shale is unregulated is a myth.

Leave it to the folks in Bradford, where they’ve been producing energy for over a century, to inject reason into the debate.

Is it, or isn’t it?

But we need to know, before we create an environmental disaster. Or nearly as bad, stifle an industry that can replace imported oil and power our vehicles and heat our homes, and bring a certain amount of prosperity to an area where there has never been prosperity since the big timber harvesting days of the early 1900′s.

Amen. Let’s get the facts. And while we’re at it, let’s examine the motives of the players. I think we can safely assume that the drilling companies are motivated by profit. Being a capitalist, I think that’s great. The reason I think it’s great is that the profit motive keeps the drilling companies from doing all the things that the enviro-socialists accuse them of doing: polluting waterways, damaging wildlife, building unsafe wells, and so on. Companies that do that be liable for clean-up costs and civil penalties that will make a healthy dent in their profit. Do it too many times and there will be no profit to speak of and the company will fold. Fine by me.

On the other hand, what are the motives of the enviro-socialists? It isn’t “sustainability” and it isn’t for industry to be “good neighbors”. It’s control. Consider that nothing is good enough when it comes to regulation. We have literally thousands of pages of regulations on the books, and still they are not enough. We need more more more. More regulations on dissolved solids, more taxes, more permits, more everything. Also consider that the enviro-socialists do not seek to educate; they seek to inflame and frighten. I dare you to read the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for one week and not see a letter to the editor calling for regulation, taxes, or an outright ban on Marcellus drilling. If you don’t find a letter like that you will certainly find one that accuses these drillers of wantonly visiting environmental and social destruction upon the landscape. It’s slander, and in a just world these environmental groups would be called to account in a court of law.

It is time for all of us to have a mature conversation about where we are in post-industrial America in the 21st Century. It is a fact that industry does impact the environment, our communities, and our lifestyles in ways that we do not like. We have noise, pollution, traffic, and inconvenience aplenty all thanks to our local power plant, water utility, chemical plant, or steel mill. But we also have a high standard of living, a long life expectancy, and a clean environment because the goods we produce in those same industrial plants generate the money that allows us to afford those things. Do you know how much it costs to install a sulfur dioxide scrubber on a power plant? A lot. Yet we can still afford cheap electricity. Contrast that with the Chinese who have no idea how much one of those scrubbers costs because they don’t have to install them. Instead, people walk around Beijing with masks on to filter out the pollution. Remember the ‘08 Olympics?

Equally important are the the secondary benefits of our industrialized economy. We have cheap reliable energy which allows us to have things like the most advanced healthcare in the world. Solar power is fine, but how would you feel knowing the hospital where you’re having open-heart surgery can only keep the lights on on sunny days? If you’re life depends on getting from your hospital in Philly or Pittsburgh to one in New York or Cleveland, you want to be sure the helicopter can gas up and go, right? Or would you rather there be a shortage of fuel because there aren’t enough oil refineries left to produce a sufficient supply at a reasonable price?

These are the conversations we ought to be having because these are things that might come to pass. It is my firm belief that the enviro-socialists and all their fellow travelers on the left want to control every aspect of our lives. They mean to make themselves our rulers before we figure out what is going on. So open your eyes and fight back. The people in Bradford have figured it out. The rest of us can, too.

Email Fred Mullner, Join the discussion or Share This...

Obama And More Offshore Drilling: The Opportunity Of A Lifetime

They say timing is everything.      

And they are right.

If not for perfect timing, and a near impossible confluence of events, Barack Obama would most certainly not be President.

But he is, and once again, timing has played a huge role in his life.

The question now is whether he possesses true leadership — the internal fire that pushes a man to do great things against almost impossible odds — to turn the largest environmental disaster in American history into one of the greatest opportunities ever to come before a President.

Will Obama have the strength and will to seize this opportunity? If so, he will, more than any other President, free this nation of its dependency on foreign oil, bolster the economy and substantially increase our national security.

*****

The BP oil spill has had tragic consequences, but none greater than the calls to stop drilling, and instead concentrate on “alternative” energy sources.

That would be a huge mistake.

As Freindly Fire noted in a 2008 column:

“Investing in alternative energy is important, to be sure…wind, hydro and solar power initiatives are key, as are battery and electric powered vehicles and machinery. But many of these technologies will require trillions of both public and private funding, and realistically, all are many years away from making a substantial difference. They are all longer-term solutions, and, to be honest, are unproven in how effective their widespread use will be….”

Fact is, we live in something called The Real World, where a tremendous amount of oil is used, with more and more consumed every year. That won’t change, period.

So while “green” solutions are nice, black gold still rules the day.

The quicker we recognize that and focus our primary energies on domestic oil production, the better off we’ll be.

*****

Which national leader innately understands this? 

Would it be the oilman George W. Bush or his Halliburton-affiliated sidekick Dick Cheyney?  Or is it the patriarch of the Bush family, George Herbert Walker Bush?

None of the above.

Ironically, it is Barack Obama.

*****

The elder Bush signed the moratorium on offshore drilling.  His son left it in place for SEVEN years, despite having sizable majorities in both Houses of Congress.  Only after fuel costs skyrocketed to over $4.50/gallon did W. call for the lifting of the moratorium.

Too little, too late. And it never happened.

What could have prevented those crippling spikes at the pump?

Offshore drilling — both off the continental shelves and in ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) — and the construction of new refineries, given that the last one was built in 1976.

And what better time to have pushed it through than right after the September 11 attacks.

In addition to having a Republican congress and nearly 100% of the nation behind him, Bush had the world’s goodwill in his corner. 

Instead, this nation’s reliance on foreign oil — which is a kind way of saying we are pumping petro dollars into the coffers of some who are hellbent on destroying us — has only increased.

*****

Earlier this year, before the BP spill, Obama proposed that we expand our offshore drilling ventures, and freed up millions of acres of coastal water for exploration and development.  In addition, he called for an increase in nuclear power plants across America.

Since Obama is the leader of the Democratic Party, that move took guts.

Most Democrats oppose both initiatives, and some of the Party’s most powerful constituencies, such as the environmental lobby, are stridently supporting their position with millions of dollars and votes.

Nonetheless, Obama pressed on, fighting for issues generally associated with Republicans.

The response from the GOP?   They attacked him.

And why? …..

Read more at http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2010/06/22/barack-obamas-opportunity-of-a-lifetime/

Email Chris Freind, Join the discussion or Share This...

And it looks like “Get out of the way’ is the best option:

Regarding these “homemade” barges that Louisiana launched, Reuters reports:

Last week, the U.S. Coast Guard shut down 16 vacuum barges that were sucking up crude from Louisiana marshes. The units, which consist of trucks and tanks on barges that suck up thousands of gallons of crude, needed to be checked for stability and if they had life jackets and fire extinguishers.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had asked officials to inspect them quickly without bringing them back to dock. But the units sat idle for 24 hours before being allowed to travel back to oil-fouled Barataria Bay, Bay Jimmy and Pass A Loutre.

After 24 hours, the barges went back to work, and according to media reports, no inspections were performed.

Then there is that damnable Jones Act:

Some critics of the Obama administration cite offers by the Netherlands in April to supply sophisticated skimmers and dredging devices, and the administration’s failure to accept the offer. The issue is as murky as the oil slick now threatening regional beaches.

A Houston-based company is now cleaning oil off surface water in the Gulf of Mexico using sweeping arms that attach to a boat and help gather large amounts of oil. These sophisticated devices were provided by a Dutch company with years of experience in such operations, but instead of using the Dutch ships and crews immediately, when The Netherlands offered help in April, the operation was delayed until U.S. crews could be trained.

The Obama administration declined the Dutch offer partly because of the Jones Act, which restricts foreign ships from certain activities in U.S. waters. During the Hurricane Katrina crisis five years ago, the Bush administration waived the Jones Act in order to facilitate some foreign assistance, but such a waiver was not given in this case.

The Dutch also offered assistance with building sand berms (barriers) along the coast of Louisiana to protect sensitive marshlands, but that offer was also rejected, even though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had been requesting such protective barriers.

For those of you keeping score, Bush waived the Jones Act during the Hurrican Katrina clean-up.

So let’s be absolutely clear here: The BP oil spill is NOT Obama’s fault. But the Federal government’s response to it most certainly is. And even conservatives can probably forgive a little government incompetence, because conservatives expect federal government incompetence. Those of us on the right have been making the case against the sloth-like inefficiency of bloated big government for years.

But this? The actual hindering of clean-up operations? This goes beyond mere incompetence and into the realm of not only contributing to the problem, but exacerbating the problem. It is as compelling a case for small, locally controlled government as there ever was.

No wonder Obama cheerleaders like Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman and Howard Finemann are disappointed: if Obama goes down, so too do their dreams of central planning; of a country run by the brightest minds, of the permanent placement of the academic class in a leadership role. As Peggy Noonan notes,

No reason to join the pile on, but some small points. Two growing weaknesses showed up in small phrases. The president said he had consulted among others “experts in academia” on what to do about the calamity. This while noting, again, that his energy secretary has a Nobel Prize. There is a growing meme that Mr. Obama is too impressed by credentialism, by the meritocracy, by those who hold forth in the faculty lounge, and too strongly identifies with them. He should be more impressed by those with real-world experience. It was the “small people” in the shrimp boats who laid the boom.

And when speaking of why proper precautions and safety measures were not in place, the president sternly declared, “I want to know why.” But two months in he should know. And he should be telling us. Such empty sternness is . . . empty.

Are you comforted to know that these same “top men” will be working on your health care? Your energy needs? Your economy?

Email LisaMossie, Join the discussion or Share This...

(1) The UAW wants to “pound” Toyota. Because apparently they don’t want any cars to be made in America, regardless of where the company is domiciled.

(2) Why aren’t foreign ships helping with the Gulf cleanup?  The Obama administration’s servitude to unions:

Had Obama instead waived the Jones Act via executive order — as did Pres. George W. Bush three days after Hurricane Katrina — that S.O.S. would have summoned a global armada of mercy. Who knows how many fishing, shrimping, and seafood-processing jobs this would have saved? Instead, thousands of Gulf Coast workers will endure a long march from dormant docks to bustling unemployment lines.
…
“If there is the need for any type of waiver, that would obviously be granted,” White House spokesman  Robert Gibbs promised  on June 10. “But, we’ve not had that problem thus far in the Gulf.”

Problem? What problem?

(3) Despite his vendetta with public sector unions, Chris Christie’s approval numbers are hanging in there… barely.

(4) Kagan compared the NRA to the Klan?  Looks like it.  As the second Obama SCOTUS nominee, Kagan’s not getting the scrutiny that Sotomayor got despite the presence of plenty of objectionable material.

(5) Hey, I’m for capital punishment, but this is inappropriate: execution decision announced on Twitter. (h/t)

(6) Original Tea Partier — Palin didn’t not inhale:

 Palin has admitted to smoking when it was legal for personal use in Alaska, saying she “can’t…say that I never inhaled.” The state recriminalized the drug in 2006.

Email Joe Collins, Start the discussion or Share This...

Our friends at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette don’t want this crisis to go to waste:

In his speech, the president also promised to avoid a repeat of the disaster at the Deepwater Horizon rig, in part by reforming the failed U.S. regulatory mechanism, the Minerals Management Service, which has been cozy with oil companies.

He then tackled the root of the environmental and economic horror festering in the Gulf, America’s addiction to fossil fuels, which has led to ever-riskier offshore deep drilling. Mr. Obama vowed to dedicate his administration to a clean energy future for the United States and said that inaction was the only outcome he would not accept.

Actually, the cause of “ever-riskier offshore deep drilling” is government regulations which push oil companies many miles out to sea rather than allowing them to drill where they don’t have to go through so much water to reach the seabed.

Obama and the PG propose “clean energy” to stop disasters like this. What kind of clean energy?

Nuclear? Sure, there are never disasters from nuclear power plants. Just ask anyone who lives in Chernobyl.

Hydrogen power, maybe? Ever heard of the Hindenburg?

Solar? Doesn’t produce nearly enough output to maintain modern civilization.

Wind? Hydroelectric? Again, these don’t generate nearly enough power.

There’s always the “electric car”. Except that advocates of said car always seem to forget that the electricity used to power it is created by burning coal, and that has its own hazards associated with it, environmental and otherwise.

I would like Obama to shut up about how he’s going to kick BP’s ass, and how he’s going to somehow magically stop disasters in the future. I would also like him to actually do something about fixing this oil spill, such as waiving Jones Act, which Bush did after hurricane Katrina.

It’s unbelievable how partisan this country has become. This morning I heard a liberal call up the Quinn & Rose radio show and explain to Quinn that Bush’s reaction to Katrina was terrible while Obama’s reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is great. Other than threatening to kick someone’s ass and picking up a few tar balls off the beach, has Obama actually done anything?

Email John Lewandowski, Start the discussion or Share This...

Teaching a child how to ride a bike always involves certain lessons.

How to pedal, how to balance yourself, how to steer.

We teach these things because they are common sense.

But we also teach—stress, actually — the most important aspect of bike riding: how to stop.

Why? Because it defies common sense not to do so.  After all, it would be irresponsible and dangerous to engage in an activity which we couldn’t control.

Teaching someone how to stop a bike can’t guarantee an accident won’t happen, but it certainly lessens the likelihood.

After watching the Gulf oil spill, it’s apparent that common sense is in short supply from both oil companies and the U.S. Government.

*****

So many aspects of British Petroleum’s unmitigated disaster have been discussed.

Why the initial explosion occurred, who is responsible, how much oil is rocketing into the sea, and how to effectively clean the oil-drenched beaches and wetlands, are all still unanswered questions.

By far, though, the issue that continues to dominate headlines, congressional hearings and kitchen tables is how to stop the gushing leak.

Virtually no progress has been made in this area — hence the description “unmitigated” disaster.

We’ve been watching the drama unfold live, as method after method is tried.  Top kill and junk kill. Domes. Caps. Hats.

All failures.

But here’s the kicker in the oil-recovery efforts:

While each new attempt seems to capture a bit more oil than the one prior, we keep learning that the amount of oil gushing from the well is much larger than previously thought.

By a lot.

So for every one step forward, we are taking five back.

Since we are two months into this saga, that’s quite a bit of back-tracking. And oil.

How desperate has the situation become?

Put it this way: anytime Hollywood celebrities start taking center stage in an attempt to offer real-world solutions, you know you have problems.

First it was Director James Cameron, whose oil-recovery credentials include taking a few submarine rides while filming Titanic and, possibly, being told of a magical solution by his Avatar friends from another planet.  Hey, they were space miners in the movie, and we are mining oil, so Cameron is a perfect fit.

And now we have Kevin Costner, who recently testified before Congress on the spill and is now trumpeting his own oil-water separator contraption as an answer.  And why not? He is uniquely qualified after spending lots of time on the ocean filming the epic flopWaterworld, in which he chased down an oil tanker, which, if you look closely, is really the Exxon Valdez.

Fitting.

But wholly unhelpful.

Maybe it’s time to stop masquerading with two-bit “solutions” that don’t have a prayer of succeeding and Hollywood do-gooders who just need an ego-boost.

Maybe it’s time to bite the bullet and admit that there’s only one solution to this problem.

Common sense.

*****

There is nothing more devastating to business than over-regulation. It stifles creativity, kills innovation and results in significant job-loss.

In too many cases, bureaucrats and politicians justify their existence by inventing costly and counter-productive new regulations, often so burdensome that American companies are forced to close their doors and move overseas.

But that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be smart, commonsense regulations on companies doing business in America.

True capitalism is the best economic system the world has ever known, but without common sense protections in place —with adequate enforcement to ensure that they are actually followed—, capitalism gives way to greed and corruption very quickly.  Just look at Wall Street.

The oil industry is no different.

While some regulations on deepwater offshore oil rigs are…

Read the rest at Philadelphia Magazine’s Philly Post:

http://www.freindlyfirezone.com/index.php/national-news/item/72-bp-and-us-government-no-common-sense

Email Chris Freind, Join the discussion or Share This...

Brian O’Connor thinks so, based on this Trib article. I’d tend to agree, given Obama’s reverse Midas touch this year.

WTAE has semi-objective reporting on the presidential visit.

Cross-posted to Renner’s Here.

Email ChrisRenner, Start the discussion or Share This...

Literally.

Upper Merion School District staged a relatively flawlessly executed sequel to the The Day the Lights Went Out, the district’s original tribute to Earth Day last year

On Thursday, things were reportedly going smoothly at the administration building, as copiers, computers, fax machines, coffee makers and microwave ovens were once again unplugged in homage to the dark ages when those essentials of modern life didn’t exist.

I can’t think of a more symbolic gesture to more aptly honor the thinking behind this stupid new age pagan holiday.

Civilization is bad, children.

Email LisaMossie, Start the discussion or Share This...

I haven’t heard anything about Earth Day stuff going down in the schools over here, but I would recommend that everyone ignore Earth Day and celebrate Arbor Day instead. Rather than doing something useless and pompous like unplugging your cell phone charger or watching “Avatar”, try doing something that actually does beautify the planet like planting a tree.

Arbor Day is April 30th this year. On April 30th, turn off the @#$% television, computer, and cell phones and go clean up your neighborhood and plant a tree!

“The cultivation of flowers and trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful, and the ennobling in man, and for one, I wish to see this culture become universal.”

-J. Sterling Morton, founder of Arbor Day

Email John Lewandowski, Start the discussion or Share This...

Balanced-ed.org is working on leveling the playing field, fighting back against bias in environmental education in public schools.

In Pa, they’ve done interviews with Dom Giordano and Bob Durgan.

They’re looking for personal stories about it for publication… thing like showing Al Gore’s “documentary” An Inconvenient Truth & etc.

You might recall that British schools have been ordered to run disclaimers when presenting An Inconvenient Truth in the classroom.

The move follows a High Court action by a father who accused the Government of ‘brainwashing’ children with propaganda by showing it in the classroom.

Stewart Dimmock said the former U.S. Vice-President’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and ’sentimental mush’.

He wants the video banned after it was distributed with four other short films to 3,500 schools in February.

Mr Justice Burton is due to deliver a ruling on the case next week, but yesterday he said he would be saying that Gore’s Oscar-winning film does promote ‘partisan political views’.

This means that teachers will have to warn pupils that there are other opinions on global warming and they should not necessarily accept the views of the film.

I’m told that my local school district, Perkiomen Valley, is not showing the film, nor is there any official Earth Day activity.

Email AlexC, Start the discussion or Share This...

Earth hour is back tonight at 8:30 to 9:30 for those of you on the east coast. Here’s what it’s all about:

On Earth Hour hundreds of millions of people, organizations, corporations and governments around the world will come together to make a bold statement about their concern for climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour. In the U.S. where we are already feeling the impacts of climate change, Earth Hour sends a clear message that Americans care about this issue and want to turn the lights out on dirty air, dangerous dependency on foreign oil and costly climate change impacts, and make the switch to cleaner air, a strong economic future and a more secure nation.

Participation is easy. By flipping off your lights on March 27th at 8:30 p.m. local time you will be making the switch to a cleaner, more secure nation and prosperous America. View the toolkits, to find out what else you can do to get involved including leading the Earth Hour movement in your community.

Sitting in the dark for the rest of our lives is what these greenie weenies want us all to do, for serious environmentalists are not so much pro-environment as they are anti-man and civilization. The real clever ones exploit our self loathing into money making air trading schemes (aka “carbon credit” and “cap and trade” scams) and they nearly got away with imposing their will and taxes upon us—if only those emails about “hiding the decline” not surfaced back in November!

So am I going to sit in the dark for one hour to demonstrate my “awareness” of global warming? I think not.

Like my celebration of Earth Hour last year, this year I will again demonstrate my “awareness” of the global warming hoax by making sure that my house is visible from space. At 8:30 this evening, every light in my house will be ablaze for one hour.

Celebrate civilization. Celebrate humanity. Turn on all your lights at 8:30 tonight.

Email LisaMossie, Start the discussion or Share This...

Head for the hills! Batten down the hatches! Run for your lives! PANIC!

Apocalyptic amounts of water will be FALLING from the SKIES this weekend, landing on the GROUND and generally wreaking HAVOC on your life!

And, of course, make sure to stay tuned to your local news station for reports and advice on common sense actions that you are too stupid to figure out on your own and hard-hitting live reports in front of bodies of water in immediate peril of spilling over their banks.

Whatever would we DO without local news coverage?

How on earth would we survive THE WEATHER?

Email LisaMossie, Join the discussion or Share This...

James Delingpole at the London Telegraph has been on top of the Climategate scandal and the general unraveling of the fraud that is Anthropogenic Global Warming.

In case you need further proof that there is a well-organized group of political types pushing the AGW agenda, Delingpole gives us this:

After two studies refuted President Barack Obama’s assertions regarding the success of Spain’s and Denmark’s wind energy programs, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to attack the studies.

Via the FOIA request, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has learned that the Department of Energy — specifically the office headed by Al Gore’s company’s former CEO, Cathy Zoi — turned to George Soros’ Center for American Progress and other wind industry lobbyists to help push Obama’s wind energy proposals.

The FOIA request was not entirely complied with, and CEI just filed an appeal over documents still being withheld. In addition to withholding many internal communications, the administration is withholding communications with these lobbyists and other related communications, claiming they constitute “inter-agency memoranda.” This implies that, according to the DoE, wind industry lobbyists and Soros’s Center for American Progress are — for legal purposes — extensions of the government.

George Soros! I would never have guessed.

Read the whole thing.

Email Fred Mullner, Start the discussion or Share This...

OH MY GOD!!! AHHHHHHHHHH….KA-BOOOM! Once again the sound of my head exploding echos through the neighborhood.

Take a look at your federal stimulus tax dollars at work. Take a good hard look. But first wrap your frigging skull in duct tape because I guarantee it’s going to explode. You heard of $700 toilet seats from the Pentagon? $500 hammers? That’s amateur hour compared to this. Pictured above my friends is a three thousand dollar trash can courtesy of the City of Philadelphia and Uncle Sam. That’s right. It costs a lot of green to go green.

(more…)

Email Denny Merrigan, Join the discussion or Share This...

CBS3.com

The Army Corps of Engineers is starting the long-planned and controversial project to deepen the Delaware River shipping channel.

The Corps said its contractor will begin deepening a stretch of the river in Delaware at noon Monday.

That’s just 15 minutes before New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie plans a news conference to discuss his plans to try to stop the project.

It’s only controversial because of North Jersey port union interests. A deeper water Port of Philadelphia means more jobs here, as opposed to there. The union guys aren’t for “jobs” as much as they are for “their jobs.”

Email AlexC, Start the discussion or Share This...

Epic fail.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.

Of special note, Professor Jones’ data is critical in backing up the famous hockey stick graph created by Penn State’s Michael Mann.

We’re waiting.

Email AlexC, Start the discussion or Share This...

Bill Nye says that the Snowpocalypse proves manmade global warming. If you disagree, you hate America, you traitor. What these “scientists” won’t say to keep the gravy train rolling in.

Email John Lewandowski, Start the discussion or Share This...

The South Hills of Pittsburgh–18 inches.

Email Fred Mullner, Start the discussion or Share This...

Central Montgomery County…. 16 inches.

Email AlexC, Start the discussion or Share This...