Posts Made By: Dave Snope

Bottom Line: As much as politicians and other advocates of the minimum wage might pretend otherwise, the laws of supply and demand (like the law of gravity) are NOT optional.



http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/06/job-killing-impact-of-minimum-wage-laws_18.html

From Pierre Gosselin today in Germany:

Mark this as the date that Germany’s global warming movement took a massive body blow.

Today, not one, but two of Germany’s most widely read news media published comprehensive skeptical climate science articles in their print and online editions, coinciding with the release of a major climate skeptical book, Die kalte Sonne (The Cold Sun).

Today Germany’s national tabloid Bild (which has a whopping circulation of 16 million) devoted half of page 2 on an article called:.

“THE CO2 LIES … pure fear-mongering … should we blindly trust the experts?”

That’s what Germany’s leading daily Bild (see photo) wrote in its print and online editions today, on the very day that renowned publisher Hoffmann & Campe officially released a skeptic book – one written by a prominent socialist and environmental figure.

This is huge. More than I ever could have possibly imagined. And more is coming in the days ahead! The Bild piece was just the first of a series.

Germany has now plunged into raucous discord on the heated topic of climate change

What has set it all off? One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, “Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?”

Vahrenholt decided to do some digging. His colleague Dr. Lüning also gave him a copy of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. He was horrified by the sloppiness and deception he found. Well-connected to Hoffmann & Campe, he and Lüning decided to write the book. Die kalte Sonne cites 800 sources and has over 80 charts and figures. It examines and summarizes the latest science.

Conclusion: climate catastrophe is called off

The science was hyped. The book started hitting the bookshops today and has already hit no. 1 on the Amazon.de list for environment books. Indications show that it will climb very high in the overall bestseller charts. It’s published by a renowned publishing house and is now sending shock waves through the German climate science establishment. The first printing will produce 20,000 copies. I expect they will sell out rather quickly.

http://notrickszone.com/2012/02/06/body-blow-to-german-global-warming-movement-major-media-outlets-unload-on-co2-lies/

H/T WUWT

Looks like he'll get the death penalty for what, to outside ears, appears to be a mild declaration of lack of faith.

The Guardian reports:

Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation's red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport "following a request made to us by Interpol" the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities.

Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet on the prophet's birthday that sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats. The posting, which was later deleted, read: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you … I will not pray for you."

More than 13,000 people joined a Facebook page titled "The Saudi People Demand the Execution of Hamza Kashgari".

Clerics in Saudi Arabia called for him to be charged with apostasy, a religious offence punishable by death. Reports suggest that the Malaysian authorities intend to return him to his native country.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/10/interpol-journalist-arrested-muhammad-tweet?newsfeed=true

Iowahawk lays it out as only he can:

We've heard about the $275K/yr lifeguard in N.B. and the $400K/yr jail nurse in S.F. Here's another fine example of the level of corruption that has bogged down California's economy, in no small part due to the immense spending power of government worker labor unions.

Few kids grow up dreaming of becoming a parking lot attendant, but the job can be quite lucrative — at least if you land one at the L.A. Department of Water and Power. According to a report in Bloomberg News, garage monitors at the DWP made, on average, $74,408 a year; nationally, the average salary for this position is $21,250.

That's just one of many eye-popping figures unveiled by Bloomberg, which found that DWP workers make on average 40% more than other city of Los Angeles employees, even when they're doing nearly identical jobs. For example, carpenters at the DWP averaged $102,732 in 2010, compared with $65,201 at the general services department. DWP auto painters pulled down an average of $109,192, compared with $59,901 at the Fire Department. Overall, utility employees had an average salary of $96,805, while other city employees averaged $68,822.

The reason for these inflated salaries isn't mysterious. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is among the biggest campaign contributors in Los Angeles, which means that at contract time, the DWP union finds itself in the enviable position of negotiating with city politicians who may owe their own jobs to the union

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-ladwp-20120210,0,7115922.story

The Most Transparent Administration Ever continues to hide behind the curtains and obfuscate at every possible turn on every possible topic.

On Tuesday Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform, took a major step toward holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for his failure to provide subpoenaed documents and other information about Operation Fast and Furious.

In a Jan. 31 letter, Issa had threatened Holder with such a move if he failed to provide all the subpoenaed documents relating to the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal by Feb. 9. That deadline has come and gone, and Holder’s Department of Justice still hasn’t provided most of those documents. Issa’s subpoena dates back to Oct. 12, 2011.

On Tuesday in a seven-page letter, Issa revealed that Deputy Attorney General James Cole begged Congress to extend the Feb. 9 deadline. Issa wrote that the request was “ironic” and “ignores the reality that the Department has unreasonably delayed producing these documents to the Committee.”

“On its face, the requested extension demonstrates a lack of good faith,” Issa wrote to Holder. “With one exception, the Department has only produced documents responsive to the subpoena on the eve of congressional hearings in which senior Department officials testified. The Department appears to be more concerned with protecting its image through spin control than actually cooperating with Congress.”
...
It is impossible to end our investigation with the current level of cooperation we are receiving from the Department. Rather, the Committee requires the full cooperation of the Department Of Justice. This is not an “election year political ‘gotcha’ game,” but rather a bipartisan sentiment. As Ranking Member [Elijah] Cummings (D-MD) promised the family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, “we will not rest until every single person responsible for all of this, no matter where they are, are brought to justice.” I applaud his revolve, and I want to make it clear that Congress will not give up until this accountability has been achieved. (note: bold is Issa’s) http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/14/issa-takes-step-toward-holding-holder-in-contempt-of-congress/

It'a all class all the time from the Dimmicats. This is the senior ranking House member on the Financial Services Committee? What an embarrassment she is, to the Democrats and to America. Again. Is she really any different than Hugo Chavez and his speech about Bush and his smell of sulfur? Well, I'll give her this much credit: unlike the outgoing ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, she didn't have a gay prostitution ring being run out of her apartment. So that's an improvement, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrn5TYSbFGM&feature=player_embedded#!

Christopher Horner reminds us that dirty tactics are rampant among the environmentalists:

It was spring. Young men’s hearts turned to fancy. And Greenpeace started stealing my trash.

I noticed that my garbage was getting collected much more efficiently than normal—and at about midnight. I also noticed that soon, private memos of mine were showing up in the media, revealing a secret cabal I orchestrated from my basement. At least, that’s how London’s left-wing Guardian wrote the story, cobbled together from unrelated, offal-smeared notes plucked from my refuse and promptly handed over to them. If I ever questioned the hippies’ dedication to their cause, no more: in those summer months of mystery trash disappearance I had rededicated myself to strict obeisance of local requirements to collect the weekly out- put of my two large breed dogs.

“You too!?” howled the amused wife of a White House aide when we realized we were experiencing the same, selectively hyper-efficient, midnight garbage service. Apparently Greenpeace was just certain that her husband, who in fact hardly spoke to me, was part of my cabal.

Soon, European Greenpeace franchises were issuing press releases in German about who had lunch with me in Brussels, and spinning phony tales to Spanish newspapers of secret meetings I supposedly had with pretty much anyone they found problematic.

I had arrived. If they would spend so much energy to beat me up, I must be important, right?

But I soon learned from others that this is standard operating procedure for the global warming industry—and they often do much worse things. They have ruined careers, blacklisted scientists, knowingly spread lies about dissenters, called for the imprisonment of skeptics, and used government pressure to cut off rivals’ funding. One associate has had the lug nuts on his tires secretly loosened when his rejection of climate orthodoxy became public.

Which got me thinking: shouldn’t the public know about this? Are these tactics consistent with the environmentalists’ image as philanthropic, self-sacrificing, earth-lovers? Doesn’t their desperation reflect a fundamental weakness in the truth of their arguments and the soundness of their proposals? Wouldn’t the media expose such tactics by the other side?

Isn’t it relevant to the debate about global warming—what to do about global warming—that the alarmist side engages in this systematic campaign consisting of intimidation and threats, wheels falling off cars, abuses being inflicted on schoolchildren, demands of censorship, revising history, and telling flat-out lies?

Well, yes. People should know. And now they will.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/21/fakegate-its-what-they-do/

Thanks in large part to green energy programs. No Tricks Zone highlighted a report that shows that the German model is 1) driving up electricity and energy rates for consumers and 2) making the power supply unreliable, among others. Power companies are also leaving for greener pastures where the power supply is more reliable.

Welcome to America's future under an Obama admin.
"...under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas…you name it…".

(GWPF, translated from Die Walt) Many households in Germany are no longer able to pay their electricity bills. As a result, around half a million households are sitting in the dark.

The sharp price increases for electricity and gas is leading to serious payment problems for more and more consumers – even to dark apartments. Because of unpaid bills an estimated 600,000 households in Germany had their power cut off in 2010, said the consumer watch dog Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen which is based in Düsseldorf. This estimate is based on a survey of local energy providers in Germany’s most populous state.
...
Three-quarters of the 58 companies that responded to questions from the NRW consumer group reported growing problems related to energy debt and power outages. In 2010, the surveyed utilities in North Rhine-Westphalia alone sent out three million reminders for unpaid electricity bill. They issued 340,000 blocking threats and cut off power to 62,000 customers.

According to extrapolations by consumer protection groups, power has been cut off to about 120,000 households in NRW alone and to about 600,000 households nationwide. The estimates of the energy companies are consistent with the experience of the consumer advocates. A spokeswoman from the NRW consumer watch dog added that their consumer advice increasingly focuses on the question of how to comply with payment obligations towards energy suppliers.


America's lower-income people shouldn't worry, though. Once Obama's policies have forced them to live in the dark and cold and heat, he will declare a 'crisis', blame it on republican non-cooperation, and build a new government program to make people dependant on politicians to supply their energy needs. In addition to their food, housing, education, healthcare, and transportation. The leftist dream of total dependance is realized.

But don't worry, we have plant-like algae to power our cars for $33/gallon:

Unemployment in the U.S. rose to nine percent in mid-February, up from 8.3 percent a month earlier, according to a new Gallup survey. The polling company said this suggests that it is “premature” to assume the economy will not feature prominently in the 2012 election season.

Gallup figures typically provide an indication of what the government will report at the end of the month.

“The U.S. unemployment rate, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is 9.0% in mid-February,” Gallup said in its mid-month unemployment survey, released on February 17. “The mid-month reading normally reflects what the U.S. government reports for the entire month, and is up from 8.3% in mid-January.”

Gallup said the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) would likely report a rise in the official unemployment rate in early March, when it publishes its February figures.

Gallup’s mid-month figures are not seasonally adjusted, and so may not predict the official unemployment rate precisely. However, because Gallup and BLS both conduct their unemployment surveys at the same time – in the middle of the month – Gallup’s early figures can provide a barometer of where the official rate is likely headed.

“Gallup’s mid-month unemployment reading, based on the 30 days ending Feb. 15, serves as a preliminary estimate of the U.S. government report, and suggests the Bureau of Labor Statistics will likely report on the first Friday of March that its seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased in February,” Gallup said.

The survey also found that “underemployment” – those unemployed and those working part-time because full-time jobs are unavailable – rose to 19 percent, up from the 18.7 percent Gallup found in January.

Gallup said its report reflected a continuing trend of weakness in U.S. labor markets, marking a “sharp deterioration” in job market conditions.

“Regardless of what the government reports, Gallup’s unemployment and underemployment measures show a sharp deterioration in job market conditions since mid-January.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/gallup-finds-unemployment-climbing-nine-percent-february