OK, ESPN

On your bottom-of-the-screen crawl, do we really need a "Manny Update?"

A chance to intensify our fight in the war declared against us.

Fortunately for we suffering citizens of the United States, the Senate has delayed discussions of the disgusting cap-and-trade. For now:

President Barack Obama’s push for quick action by Congress on climate change legislation suffered a setback on Thursday when the U.S. Senate committee leading the drive delayed work on the bill until September.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer said her self-imposed deadline of early August for finishing writing a bill to combat global warming has been put off until after Congress returns from a recess that ends in early September.

“We’ll do it as soon as we get back” from that break, Boxer told reporters. Asked if this delay jeopardizes chances the Senate will pass a bill this year, Boxer said, “Not a bit … we’ll be in (session) until Christmas, so I’m not worried about it.”

But Boxer did not guarantee Congress will be able to finish a bill and deliver it to Obama by December, when he plans to attend an international summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

A good rule of thumb holds that if Barbara Boxer supports something, it's probably a bad idea.

And, no, Babs, I'm not calling you "senator." "Disgrace to Western Civilization," maybe, but never "senator." There is no requirement that I or anyone else call you "senator." Do something about it.

Hot Air has analysis:

Two weeks ago, when the House barely pushed this through a vote, Barack Obama’s poll numbers still looked good enough to imply that there may not be consequences for hobbling the economy with ludicrous taxes, fees, and penalties for energy production. With his poll numbers eroding quickly and the electorate losing patience with high unemployment and Porkulus’ failure, that doesn’t seem like a safe bet any more. As the economy continues to drag, cap-and-trade will look more like a disaster than the mythical one it purports to avoid.

The Democrats simply don’t have the votes now on cap-and-trade, and unless the economy suddenly lurches back to life, the political situation will be worse in September. That doesn’t mean we can let up on the pressure, as Michelle says. Keep calling your Senators to tell them that a vote for cap-and-trade means adding to the unemployment lines — starting with themselves.

Once again, let's be clear on this, children. Cap-and-trade is the most vile piece of legislation ever considered by Congress. By cap-and-trade, Congress has declared war on you, the American people.


Every single lawmaker who supports cap-and-trade is an enemy of the Republic.

Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy.

Via Michelle Malkin, Temple of Mut has a list of Key Cap and Trade Senate Targets. Keep the pressure on them. Let them know that a vote for cap-and-trade, or even a vote for cloture on cap-and-trade, will be a betrayal of the American people of the highest order, amounting to treason, because cap-and-trade is designed and is even fully intended to hurt the American people.

Because that's what it will be.

Passage of cap-and-trade by our elected officials in Washington, who hold themselves out as servants of the American public, is utterly inexcusable.

it would be a declaration of war on the same people they purport to serve. Fight now to stop them.

A necessary antidote

I could not believe it when I saw coverage of the Michael Jackson funeral when I turned on ... ESPN!!! ESP effin' N!!! My Gawd, is it actually possible for Michael Jackson to be more annoying in death than he was in life? Was he trying to pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi?

I liked his early music, but he actually peaked before Thriller (think "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You"), and by 1988's "Dirty Diana," his last decent (notice I did not say "good") hit, he was already on fumes. Everything since has been mediocre to bad, though not even approaching John Mellencamp depths of musical terrorism. Michael Jackson was pretty damn good, but for a guy whose last decent hit was 21 years ago, this is ridiculous.

There is only one antidote for all this Michael Jackson. Only one thing can save us. You need it. I need it. We all need it. That's right, children -- we need Emmanuelle Vaugier.


ALL EMMANUELLE VAUGIER, ALL THE TIME!!!

Houston, Exeter or something else?

While we are on the subject of identifying pictures, may I add the following:


The web site of the USS Houston CA-30 captions this picture with the following:

Above is Feb 4 photo of air attack on DeReuter (sic) (R) and Houston (L). USS Marblehead, in same action was damaged so badly she was sent back to CONUS for repairs.

The excellent Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941-1942 web site has a similar caption:

A picture taken during the bombing of Striking Force off Kangean on 4 February 1942. On the right the Dutch light cruiser De Ruyter, on the left USS heavy cruiser Houston.

On February 4, 1942, by dumb luck, a force of Japanese bombers on a mission to attack the ABDA naval base at Soerabaja (Surabaya), Java intercepted a US-Dutch task force under the command of Dutch Rear Admiral (so to speak) Karel W.F.M. Doorman that was trying to intercept the Japanese invasion force headed for Makassar, Celebes. The bombers called in their friends, and Doorman's little fleet was pounded. The US light cruiser Marblehead was permanently disabled. The Houston took a bomb hit that disabled her aft turret for the remainder of the campaign -- and, as it unfortunately turned out, her career. The Dutch light cruiser De Ruyter, Doorman's flagship, was damaged as well. After this series of air attacks, Doorman's force was compelled to retreat, adn the Japanese landings at Makassar went on unopposed. This was typical of the pattern of Allied naval fortunes in the Netherlands East Indies Campaign.

While there are several photographs out there of the damaged Houston and Marblehead after this attack when they returned to Tjilatjap (look, for the last time it's pronounced "CHIL-a-chap;" if you don't understand why, ask the Dutch) for repairs, the picture above represents the only picture that I have personally seen anywhere that purports to be of the actual attack on February 4, 1942, though I have bene told there are others.

Keeping these aforementioned captions in mind, look at this picture of the USS Houston, taken at Darwin, Australia in February 1942, shortly after the bombing off Kangean:

Now, compare it to the following pictures:

This is the British heavy cruiser Exeter, which took part in the Battle of the Java Sea.
This is a picture of the Exeter under Japanese air attack in the Bangka Strait, off Sumatra, on February 15, 1942 . The picture is sometimes said to be of the Exeter under attack during the Battle of the Java Sea on February 27-28, 1942 -- the British Imperial Museum, for one, state as much -- but several other sources state that this was taken during the series of air attacks off Bangka, and I am aware of no surviving pictures taken during the daylight phase of the Battle of the Java Sea.

Now, this is a picture of the rather strange little Dutch light cruiser Java, during that same action off Bangka on February 15, 1942. It is also sometimes identified as taken during the Battle of the Java Sea. Once again, I am aware of no surviving pictures taken during the daylight phase of the Battle of the Java Sea.

Where am I going with all this? I got into an oddly snippy discussion last year on the message boards of the Dutch East Indies Campaign site last year about that top picture. Let's refresh:


To me, the ship on the left might be the Houston, but not necessarily. The blob at the top of the mast could be the Houston's top mast crow's nest, but it need not be -- it could be, for instance, the giant navy jack that British ships flew in battle. Further, if you look below that, there is what looks to me like a "crossmast" on the foremast. I have been told that this is the result of pixellation of the photograph, but I am not convinced. There is a black blob toward the right side of the cruiser's image, which might be of a burning aft turret. Or not.

The alleged crossmast should not be there if the cruiser is the Houston, but it would be if the cruiser was instead the Exeter.

Further, to me, at least, the picture looks a lot like the other pictures shown above that came out of the February 15 action in the Bangka Strait.

And just because, this is a picture of the Dutch Admiral Doorman. For 67 years, the man has been unfairly maligned for his performance during the Dutch East Indies Campaign, during which he gave his life. The criticism is unjustified. His performance was far, far better than his critics have alleged. I'll deal with that in a later post or even a book, but for the time being show him some love. He deserves it. But I digress ...

Any thoughts on the pictures?

Once again

we must ask the question, because:

1. In the revolt against the Iranian mullahs, Barack Obama's muted (at best) denunciation of the mullahs' tactics and lack of support for the Iranian people shows a support for the mullahs and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, sworn enemies of the United States;

2. In the legal removal by the Honduran Supreme Court of its president, Manuel Zelaya, who was trying to illegally get around constitutional restrictions to have himself named dictator for life, Obama is not siding with the Honduran people, who appear to support Zelaya's removal, but with Zelaya -- and his patron, Venezuela's argument-for-retroactive-abortion Hugo Chavez, both of whom intend to hurt the United States;

3. Obama is determined to get a nuclear arms reduction with the Russian government, who also intends to hurt the United States -- so determined that he is willing to give up missile defense and is even willing to dispense with the usual constitutional requirements ... er, details of, you know, Senate ratification; and

4. Obama is determined to spike the F-22 Raptor fighter, which every single military individual I know insists is the best superiority fighter in the world, on spurious claims of performance and cost -- which will weaken the United States air defenses.

So, we must again ask the question:

WHOSE SIDE IS BARACK OBAMA ON?

What to do?

With national and international politics too depressing to discuss right now because they're both complete disasters thanks to our incompetent and treasonous POTUS and his allies in Congress, what am I supposed to do?


The solution is obvious, children. That's right: go ALL EMMANUELLE VAUGIER, ALL THE TIME!!!


I recommend everyone else do the same. This world will be a much better place with more Emmanuelle Vaugier. Thank you so much, CSI:NY, for helping to ruin the world by killing her off. Bastards.

But I'm not bitter ...

An abuse of public trust

That is what National Review calls cap-and-trade. A snippet:

The stimulus bill was the legislative equivalent of the famous cantina scene from Star Wars, an eye-popping collection of the freakish and exotic, gathered for dubious purposes. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), is more like the third panel in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a hellscape that disturbs the sleep of anybody who contemplates it carefully.

Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. The inclusion of carbon offsets, which can be manufactured out of thin air and political imagination, will eliminate most of the demands that the legislation puts on industry, though in doing so it will manage to drive up the prices consumers pay for every product that requires energy for its manufacture — which is to say, for everything. Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life.

Read the whole thing. Like I said, cap-and-trade is a declaration of war by Congress on the American people.

What is this picture?

I ask, of what is this picture?

In a post last year, I identified it with the following caption:

The US destroyer Pope sinking by the stern in the Java Sea March 1, 1942 under gunfire from the Japanese cruisers Ashigara and Myoko. Note the four stacks, characteristic of the World War I-era class of destroyers of which Pope was a member. Taken from the Japanese cruiser Ashigara, who filmed the action.

This particular picture, however, has always been the subject of some controversy. There has always been a theory that this picture does not show the Pope, but instead the US destroyer Edsall. Donald M. Kehn, Jr., takes this view in his new book A Blue Sea of Blood: Deciphering the Mysterious Fate of the USS Edsall.

The Edsall was returning to Tjilatjap, Java (pronounced "Chilachap") after her escort mission of the tender Langley ended in disaster. She never reached Tjilatjap and was never heard from again.

It was later determined that the Edsall was attacked in the Indian Ocean south of Java by the surface escorts of the Imperial Japanese Carrier Striking Force Kido Butai - battleships Hiei and Kirishima, heavy aircraft cruisers Tone and Chikuma -- and sunk by gunfire with all hands. One old destroyer against two modern battleships and two modern cruisers.

The Japanese propaganda film from which this picture was taken (and modified) identified the ship as the "HMS Pope." Obviously incorrect, but the Pope had been sunk with two British ships, the heavy cruiser Exeter and the destroyer Encounter, when she was chased down by seaplanes, an aircraft carrier and four heavy cruisers.

Kehn has long argued that this is a picture of the Edsall. Based on my first skim of the section of his book discussing this picture, I am not so convinced, but I haven't dived deeply into it yet. Any confusion is understandable - the Pope and Edsall sank under similar circumstances and both were sister ships.

I am anxious to dig further into this book. Kehn is performing a valuable service to history in highlighting the fate of the Edsall, which has been largely obscured by the other disasters occuring in the Far East at that time.

Just because

I like Emmanuelle Vaugier.

Channelling me

Remember when I said this?

Never before in the history of the Republic has Congress (or even
Parliament before independence) considered a new law or program that
is as vile or even remotely as vile as cap-and-trade.

It's nice to know that Robert Zubrin of Roll Call agrees with me:

In the 220 years of our republic, there may have been worse pieces of legislation enacted by Congress than the Waxman-Markey bill, but none readily comes to mind. The Senate needs to take a stand and stop this disastrous act from passing into law.

A vote for cap-and-trade is inexcusable, a declaration of war by Congress on the American people.

It was fun while it lasted.

233 years, children, since the Declaration of Independence. 222 years since the ratification of the US Constitution. A noble experiment at representative democracy. It was a nice run.

But it all ended on June 26, 2009.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. On June 26, 2009, Congress declared war on the American people.

June 26, 2009 is the day the US House of Representatives passed cap-and-trade. Warren Buffett says "it's a huge tax and there's no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax. So it -- and it's a fairly regressive tax." Rep. John Boehner calls it a "pile of shit." But it is far worse than that.

Like I said Thursday, cap-and-trade is the most vile piece of legislation ever considered by Congress. With its passage on Friday, it has become a declaration of war by Congress on the American people.

Boehner had this to say after the vote:

"Today, in what will be remembered as the defining vote of the 111th Congress, House Democrats passed a 1,500-page national energy tax bill that no one even had the chance to read. The American people have the right to know what is in this legislation and, more importantly, what impact it will have on middle-class families and small businesses. In just an hour, we raised serious questions about the true consequences of this legislation for Americans' jobs and all of our economy.
"Speaker Pelosi's national energy tax is a bureaucratic nightmare that will cost families more than ever for electricity, gasoline, food, and other products, and cost millions of American workers their jobs. This is a tax on anyone who drives a car, buys an American-made product, or flips on a light switch. It will drive up energy costs, send millions of jobs overseas to countries like China and India, and place an especially heavy burden on rural America. Republicans believe there is a better way. Our American Energy Act is the fastest route to a cleaner, more reliable energy future. By increasing environmentally-safe energy production, promoting alternatives like nuclear and clean-coal technologies, and encouraging increased efficiency, this alternative legislation will create more jobs, lower energy costs, and clean up our air and water.

"There's a big difference between the heartland and San Francisco when it comes to Speaker Pelosi's national energy tax. Today, House Democrats made the decision to stand with left-wing special interests rather than with families and small businesses in their districts that will lose so much because of this national energy tax. The American people will not forget this vote."

But that's not all:

In the hours before passage, Rep. Geoff Davis, a Republican from Kentucky, said the cap-and-trade bill represented the "economic colonization of the heartland" by New York and California. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) called the bill a "scam" that would do nothing but satisfy "the twisted desires of radical environmentalists." Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) called it a "massive transfer of wealth" from the United States to foreign countries.

So what will this POS do?

America’s biggest oil companies will probably cope with U.S. carbon legislation by closing fuel plants, cutting capital spending and increasing imports.

Under the Waxman-Markey climate bill that may be voted on today by the U.S. House, refiners would have to buy allowances for carbon dioxide spewed from their plants and from vehicles when motorists burn their fuel. Imports would need permits only for the latter, which ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Jim Mulva said would create a competitive imbalance.

“It will lead to the opportunity for foreign sources to bring in transportation fuels at a lower cost, which will have an adverse impact to our industry, potential shutdown of refineries and investment and, ultimately, employment,” Mulva said in a June 16 interview in Detroit. Houston-based ConocoPhillips has the second-largest U.S. refining capacity.

The same amount of gasoline that would have $1 in carbon costs imposed if it were domestic would have 10 cents less added if it were imported, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie in Houston. Contrary to President Barack Obama’s goal of reducing dependence on overseas energy suppliers, the bill would incent U.S. refiners to import more fuel, said Clayton Mahaffey, an analyst at RedChip Cos. in Maitland, Florida.

“They’ll be searching the globe for refined products that don’t carry the same level of carbon costs,” said Mahaffey, a former Exxon Corp. refinery manager.

Prices Seen Rising

The equivalent of one in six U.S. refineries probably would close by 2020 as the cost of carbon allowances erases profits, according to the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington trade group known as API. Carbon permits would add 77 cents a gallon to the price of gasoline, said Russell Jones, the API’s senior economic adviser.

“Because it’s going to be more expensive to produce the stuff, refiners will slow down production and cut back on inventories to squeeze every penny of profit they can from the system,” said Geoffrey Styles, founder of GSW Strategy Group LLC in Vienna, Virginia. “We will end up with less domestic product on the market and a greater reliance on imports, all of which means higher, more volatile prices.”

U.S. motorists, already facing the steepest jump in gasoline prices in 18 years, would bear the brunt as refiners pass on added costs, Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson told reporters after a May 27 meeting in Dallas.

Democrats in the House plan to bring the climate bill to a vote as soon as today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, stopped short of predicting victory at a press conference yesterday, saying she was making progress in building support for the bill.

Carbon Allowances

“U.S. refineries get 2 percent of allowances to cover any increases in costs they may incur,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi.

Drivers, airlines and trucking companies would pay an additional $178 billion annually, or about $560 for each man, woman and child in the U.S., according to the API, whose 400 members include Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil and the U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company.

“That kind of price impact would significantly hurt the competitiveness of U.S. refiners versus importers,” said Glenn McGinnis, chief executive officer at Arizona Clean Fuels Yuma, a Phoenix-based company that’s attempting to build the nation’s first new refinery in three decades.

Such estimates and talk of rising imports are scare tactics that oil companies are using to wheedle concessions from lawmakers, said John Coequyt, the Sierra Club’s chief lobbyist in Washington. Refiners are trying to gain relief on carbon- permit costs that’s meant for manufacturers such as steelmakers that are threatened by foreign competition, he said.

‘Saber Rattling’

“It’s definitely saber rattling, and it’s a hell of a threat,” Coequyt said. “The strategic value of this is pretty obvious. They want to qualify for rebates under the competitiveness test, which of course they do not.”

GSW’s Styles, a former Texaco Inc. refinery and trading manager, said the risks are real. Plants unable to turn a profit under the new rules would be closed, he said.

The permit-cost imbalance would open the door for overseas refiners, such as India’s Reliance Industries Ltd., owner of the world’s largest crude-processing complex, to ship more fuel to U.S. oil companies, said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association in Washington.

“It’s going to give domestic refiners a distinct disadvantage,” said Holbrook, whose trade group represents such fuel makers as Chevron Corp. and Valero Energy Corp.

Acquisitions Possible

Companies such as San Antonio-based Valero, the biggest U.S. refiner, will respond by stepping up efforts to acquire overseas plants that can ship fuel to their home market, said Brian Youngberg, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. in Des Peres, Missouri. Valero said last week that it will continue to seek acquisition opportunities after Total SA bought the stake it had agreed to purchase in a Netherlands refining venture.

Carbon costs will stress fuel makers already coping with slumping fuel demand and higher costs to meet a federal mandate for increased ethanol use, said Roger Ihne, an energy client portfolio leader at Deloitte Consulting in Houston. Stricter mileage standards that take effect in 2011 will squeeze demand further, he said.

About 2 million barrels of daily U.S. refining capacity will shut down because carbon costs will be several times the operating profits for some plants, Ihne said. That’s equivalent to 12 percent of the nation’s fuel-making capacity. Jones, the API economist, said there could be as much as 3 million barrels of idled processing capacity.

Plants at Risk

“There’s no question there are some marginal refiners that probably will not survive,” said Exxon Mobil’s Tillerson, whose company has the largest worldwide refining capacity. “They may go out of business.” Exxon Mobil derived 18 percent to 24 percent of its profit from refining in the past five years.

Neither Tillerson, 57, nor ConocoPhillips CEO Mulva, 63, said how their companies would respond to climate rules like those in the Waxman-Markey bill. The legislation would cap emissions and create trading of allowances that polluters would need to meet their requirements.

Chevron CEO David O’Reilly, 62, said in a June 11 speech that the bill is “unnecessarily complex” and would be more damaging and less transparent than a carbon tax.

Chevron, based in San Ramon, California, fell 92 cents to $65.95 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and has dropped 11 percent this year. Exxon Mobil, down 14 percent for the year, slid 83 cents to $69.05. ConocoPhillips fell 14 cents to $41.62, extending its year-to-date decline to 20 percent. Valero is down 24 percent for the year after dropping 21 cents to $16.48.

Reliance on Imports

Refiners and brokers already import 3.12 million barrels of gasoline, diesel and other fuels each day, enough to supply every car, truck, train, airplane, boat and oil-burning power plant in Africa, U.S. Energy Department figures showed.

Those cargoes are in addition to the 9.76 million barrels of raw crude delivered to U.S. ports daily to supply refineries and chemicals plants. Foreign shipments of crude, gasoline and other fuels provide 66 percent of the petroleum burned in the world’s largest economy, according to the Energy Department.

Carbon prices will soar as U.S. refiners compete with each other and other industrial companies for a limited number of allowances, said Bill Durbin, head of carbon research and global energy markets at Wood Mackenzie.

Durbin, a former policy official in the Energy Department during the George H.W. Bush administration, said permit prices may top $100 a ton. Oil companies and their products emit more than 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year in the U.S., according to the Energy Department.

“If you can import fuels without the same carbon costs as domestic refiners, you will have an advantage,” Durbin said. “Does that open the door for offshore refiners? I think it does.”

The Heritage Foundation had this to say:

It is clear that cap-and-trade is very expensive and amounts to nothing more than an energy tax in disguise. After all, when you sweep aside all the complexities of how cap and trade operates--and make no mistake, this is the most convoluted attempt at economic central planning this nation has ever attempted--the bottom line is that cap and trade works by raising the cost of energy high enough so that individuals and businesses are forced to use less of it. Inflicting economic pain is what this is all about. That is how the ever-tightening emissions targets will be met.

The only entities directly regulated by Waxman-Markey would be the electric utilities, oil refiners, natural gas producers, and some manufacturers that produce energy on site. So, the good news for the rest of us--homeowners, car owners, small-business owners, farmers--is that we won't be directly regulated under this bill. The bad news is that nearly all the costs will get passed on to us anyway.

What are those costs? According to the analysis we conducted at The Heritage Foundation, which is attached to my written statement, the higher energy costs kick in as soon as the bill's provisions take effect in 2012. For a household of four, energy costs go up $436 that year, and they eventually reach $1,241 in 2035 and average $829 annually over that span. Electricity costs go up 90 percent by 2035, gasoline by 58 percent, and natural gas by 55 percent by 2035. The cumulative higher energy costs for a family of four by then will be nearly $20,000.

But direct energy costs are only part of the consumer impact. Nearly everything goes up, since higher energy costs raise production costs. If you look at the total cost of Waxman-Markey, it works out to an average of $2,979 annually from 2012-2035 for a household of four. By 2035 alone, the total cost is over $4,600.

Beyond the cost impact on individuals and households, Waxman-Markey also affects employment, and especially employment in the manufacturing sector. We estimate job losses averaging 1,145,000 at any given time from 2012-2035. And note that those are net job losses, after the much-hyped green jobs are taken into account. Some of the lost jobs will be destroyed entirely, while others will be outsourced to nations like China and India that have repeatedly stated that they'll never hamper their own economic growth with energy-cost boosting global warming measures like Waxman-Markey.

Since farming is energy intensive, that sector will be particularly hard-hit. Higher gasoline and diesel fuel costs, higher electricity costs, and higher natural gas-derived fertilizer costs all erode farm profits, which are expected to drop by 28 percent in 2012 and average 57 percent lower through 2035. As with American manufacturers, Waxman-Markey also puts American farmers at a global disadvantage, as other food-exporting nations would have no comparable energy-price raising measures in place.

Overall, Waxman-Markey reduces gross domestic product by an average of $393 billion annually between 2012 and 2035, and cumulatively by $9.4 trillion. In other words, the nation will be $9.4 trillion poorer with Waxman-Markey than without it.

It should also be noted that the costs are not distributed evenly. Low-income households spend a disproportionate share of their incomes on energy, and thus would be hit harder than average by Waxman-Markey. Of course, the bill has provisions to give back some revenues to low-income households, but it is likely that these rebates will amount only to some portion of each dollar that was taken away from them in the first place in the form of higher energy costs and higher costs for other goods and services. Waxman-Markey also disproportionately burdens those states, especially in the Midwest and South, that still have a substantial number of manufacturing jobs to lose, as well as those that rely more heavily than others on coal for electric generation. In addition, because the bill raises energy costs, it hurts rural America much more than urban America. Rural Americans, farmers and non-farmers, spend an average of 58 percent more on energy as a percentage of income than their urban counterparts, and those costs would go up.

In conclusion, it's not surprising that support for Waxman-Markey is heaviest in those parts of the country, the urban centers in the West Coast and Northeast, that are least harmed by it. Even there, the economic damage would be bad enough, but the citizens in the rest of the country and their representatives should really be asking many tough questions about the economic impact of cap and trade.

Boehner tries to simplify this new slavery legislation, as much as it can be simplified:


And all as the "science" behind global warming ... er, "climate change" is proving to be even more fraudulent than Barack Obama's election by ACORN, so fraudulent that the EPA has had to silence analyses that rip the "climate change" theory to pieces.

Which explains the rush to pass cap-and-trade:

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.

The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed.

Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.

This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter.

Power Line puts it more succinctly:

Global warming zealots are a bit like Iran's mullahs. They are fanatically devoted to a series of false propositions. Unable to win an open scientific debate, they consistently resort to bullying and brute force to suppress their opposition. Once again, we see the Obama administration taking the lead in this regard, putting political ideology above scientific truth and demanding that all others do likewise.

Stephen Green paraphrases Churchill to put it even more succinctly: Never Have So Few Stolen So Much From So Many to Achieve So Little.

And yet, though cap-and-trade will impoverish the American people -- but not lawmakers in Congress -- and is based on fraudulent science, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman are insistent on ramming this down our throats. And these people are supposed to be looking out for you? Supposed to protect you? Not now. They are no different from the Iranian mullahs, using the force of arms of the state to impose a religion on you, in this case, radical environaziism.

This is a declaration of war on the American people by Congress. By cap-and-trade, Congress and the White House now seek to hurt you, reduce your standard of living, to make your life much more difficult. And for what? Environaziism.

So now we must fight back.

RedState identifies Democrats now thought vulnerable because of their vote on cap-and-trade, many of whom should have known better. So, too, should these eight Republicans who voted for cap-and-trade:


So, let's be clear on this, children. By cap-and-trade, Congress has declared war on you, the American people. Time to invoke Darth Sidious:


Every single lawmaker who supports cap and trade is an enemy of the Republic.

Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy.

Just because

I like Emmanuelle Vaugier.

Simple truths

Tomorrow the US House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on cap-
and-trade legislation. Let's be clear on what cap-and-trade actually is.

Never before in the history of the Republic has Congress (or even
Parliament before independence) considered a new law or program that
is as vile or even remotely as vile as cap-and-trade.

Never before in the history of the Republic has Congress considered a
measure that is so fully designed and intended to punish and hurt the
American people as cap-and-trade.

Never before has Congress so willfully considered using its power
against the American people as with cap-and-trade.

Make no mistake. Cap-and-trade is evil, the closest this country will
come to slavery since the Civil War, only this time it will be the
entirety of the American people who will be reduced to destitute
slaves to serve an imperial government and an environmental Naziism
that has become for all intents and purposes a religion.

Supporting cap-and-trade is utterly inexcusable. Any congressional
representative who actually votes for cap-and-trade will effectively
renounce their oath of office and declare themselves an enemy of the
American people and our way of life for which we have worked, fought
and died for over 200 years.

It has come to this.

Govern yourselves accordingly.