Monthly Archives: July 2016

Some Things Generally Overlooked In The Electric Car Discussion

Posted on by

Electric cars came on the scene a number of years ago. The idea of plugging your car into the outlet in your garage rather than having to look for a gas station is attractive. Also, depending on the price of electricity vs the price of gasoline, an electric car could save you money. However, the basic laws of physics get in the way.

On Friday, The Patriots Business Alliance posted an article about electric cars. The article discussed the physics and business aspect of the cars:

Does the move to electric vehicles result in a reduction in the total energy necessary to achieve the same result? Simple answer, no. In its simplest measure, it will take the same amount of energy to move “X” number of pounds from point A to point B if all the other variables are the same. Now, is there any evidence that how that energy is applied or utilized really makes a difference? Not as far as I have found.

So, for the vehicle type that the “green” energy advocates consider to be the best result, the plug-in hybrid, where does this energy come from? We will examine only the US model at this point. This is the US electrical supply in 2015 by generating source- Coal = 33%, Natural gas = 33%, Nuclear = 20%, Hydropower = 6%, other renewables = 7% including, Biomass = 1.6%, Geothermal = 0.4%, Solar = 0.6% and Wind = 4.7%, and last but least, Petroleum = 1%. From this information we have to see that the plug-in hybrid is first and foremost a coal, natural gas and nuclear powered vehicle. But that’s just part of the equation because this doesn’t take in to account the amount of energy that is lost through the transmission process. Most people don’t understand, or even consider, that the amount of energy that is fed in to the transmission grid is reduced by the amount of energy consumed in the transmission process before it reaches the point of use. But in evaluating the “greenness” of the plug-in hybrid this must be considered because it is part of the equation. Also, the plug-in hybrid still must have a supplemental internal combustion gasoline engine in case you need to go farther than you can go on a charge.

That is a whole lot more technical information than my brain can handle, but if I understand it correctly, the bottom line is that an electric car does not actually conserve energy.

The article further explains:

Now, let’s look at a practical example, the Chevy Cruze, a standard gasoline-powered vehicle, and the Chevy Volt, the plug-in hybrid version of the same car. First is the weight- Chevy Cruze- 2835#, Chevy Volt- 3543#. WOW! The immediate thing you know is that it’s going to take 25% more energy to drive the Volt than the Cruze just because of the added weight from the batteries. Did you, or anybody, ever even consider this in the conversation? I’m just guessing the answer to that question is NO. Next is the price- Chevy Cruze- $18, 120, Chevy Volt- $33,220. WOW!! For the privilege of using 25% more energy to achieve the same result, you get to spend ~45% more to purchase the vehicle. Can you say, “What a bargain!” And we haven’t even mentioned the crony capitalism that is put in place to at least make you think you’re getting a kiss while you’re getting screwed.

The article concludes:

There is another element of this situation I would like to address in closing and that is how the plug-in hybrid in general removes you, the consumer, from the market when it comes to the purchasing of your vehicle fuel. Good or bad, with the plug-in hybrid you’re tied to government-controlled electric rates for the pricing of your vehicle fuel. In the last 24 months the price at the pump of gasoline has gone down over 40% where your price per/KW of electricity has actually increased. Just something you can think about when you have to spend more “green” to fuel your electric car. Are you feeling really green yet? Or just hosed?

Green energy is just another highway to increase government control of our lives.

 

Does President Obama Have A Hard Time Telling America’s Friends From America’s Enemies?

Posted on by

On Friday The Daily Signal posted an article about some of the recent actions of the Obama Administration regarding China and Taiwan. Traditionally, America has pledged to protect Taiwan’s independence from China, but the actions of the Obama Administration do not appear to support that pledge.

The article reports:

Tsai (Tsai Ing-wen), head of the Democratic Progressive Party, had scored a major victory over the Kuomintang’s Eric Chu in elections this past January. As important, the Democratic Progressive Party won enough votes to also secure control of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s legislature, reflecting broad public support.

While the Democratic Progressive Party has generally stood for Taiwan independence, Tsai has been very careful in her comments and remarks not to push for separation. Indeed, during the campaign, as well as prior visits to the United States, she has avoided raising the subject.

Nonetheless, Beijing has insisted that she must acknowledge the “one-China” principle, in effect rejecting the idea of Taiwan independence.

The article goes on to explain the American reaction:

For Beijing, however, it is “all or nothing.” Failure to meet its formulation would lead to the suspension of cross-Straits dialogue, a threat that Beijing has now fulfilled. Chinese officials tied the ending of talks directly to Tsai’s failure to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of China or otherwise formally reject any move toward independence.

Normally, this would draw an American response. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. has made clear that it supports stability in the Taiwan Straits; any effort at reunification must be peaceful and be supported by the population on both sides.

It is Beijing, not Taipei, that has refused to commit to a peaceful resolution. The People’s Republic of China has always reserved the right to forcibly reunify the two sides; the People’s Liberation Army is constantly preparing for a Taiwan contingency.

Instead, the U.S. has invited that same People’s Liberation Army Navy to attend the Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, 2016 exercises this year. This will be the second time the People’s Liberation Army Navy participates in the exercises, having also attended the previous Rim of the Pacific 2014.

The article concludes:

While the U.S. Navy dispatched only one ship to join the four People’s Liberation Army Navy ships attending the 2014 exercises, this time the U.S. Navy dispatched an entire carrier battlegroup, centered around the USS John Stennis. The battlegroup is apparently conducting joint maneuvering and training with the five Chinese ships Beijing is sending to Rim of the Pacific 2016. It is unknown whether the Chinese have also dispatched a spy ship, as they did to Rim of the Pacific 2014.

Meanwhile, the Taiwan navy remains on the sidelines. Unlike Beijing, Taipei has received no invitation from the Obama administration to attend Rim of the Pacific.

It’s getting harder to tell who is an adversary and who is a friend, based on how the U.S. government treats them.

 

We Have Forgotten Our Priorities

Posted on by

Colorado’s 9 News posted a story yesterday about a proposed change in the number of permits for bald and golden eagle deaths under the Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle Protection Act. This is about wind farms.

The article reports:

“Bald eagles were taken off the endangered species list in 2007,” Bove said. “Not that many years has passed since they were taken off this list and now the federal government is proposing to take four to six thousand of these birds.”
 
The federal government also wants to issue these permits on a 30-year-basis instead of the current 5-year process. Bove says the whole process is not mandated as it is for companies who may kill bald or golden eagles incidentally.
 
“These permits are voluntary and that in effect as I believe and many groups believe is one of the main problems with this whole issue,” Bove said.

It’s time to look at wind energy realistically. The wind does not blow all the time. All wind energy needs fossil fuel energy as a back-up to keep electricity flowing 24 hours a day (something Americans expect). Wind energy is more expensive than fossil fuel energy (particularly electricity generated by natural gas, which is clean burning and plentiful in America). Without government subsidies wind energy would not be feasible. This is another example of the government choosing winners and losers, and in this case, the winners will hurt the finances of the average American rather than provide a cheaper source of energy.

The killing of the bald and golden eagles is bad enough, but the fact that it is done to reward certain companies in the name of green energy is obscene.

Confirmation Of What We Already Knew

Posted on by

Kimberley Strassel has written a book entitled The Intimidation Game. The book details the attack on conservative speech by elected Democrats during the last two elections. She posted an article on NewsBusters today detailing some of what she discovered in writing the book. One of the more disturbing things detailed in the book is the attack on conservative (or Tea Party) groups through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The fact that no one was held accountable for this abuse of power is an indication that it is time to create a tax code that no longer requires the existence of the IRS. For whatever reason, we have reached the point where the IRS has become a political weapon. That is an indication that the IRS needs to go. In 1974, the Second Article of Impeachment of Richard Nixon read as follows:

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to … cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

How far we have fallen.

The article at NewsBusters reports:

So Lerner, the IRS, Obama—they were all correct that the targeting fiasco started with a “line agent” in Cincinnati. They just neglected to mention that within twenty-four hours of that agent’s alert—and every minute thereafter—it was political types in Washington running the show.

When Koester talked about “media interest,” he was undoubtedly referring to the wall-to-wall coverage that had just followed the Citizens United decision. He’d likely seen the White House’s furious reaction to the Court’s decision to free up speech rights, and Obama’s dressing-down of the Supremes. He’d likely seen the Democratic Party and its media allies bang on daily about the evils of conservative “nonprofits.” He’d likely taken in the nonstop stories about the Tea Party gearing up in opposition to Obama, and how they were rushing into the (c)(4) realm. And he likely knew those groups were having an effect. Only a month earlier, Scott Brown had won that Senate race, against all odds. Koester was a prime example of how an executive branch—and a political party—can drive a story and make the bureaucracy take notice.

We know that one person in particular took notice: an ambitious partisan by the name of Lois Lerner.

Lerner shocked Washington with her May 2013 admission that her agency had harassed Americans. The shocking thing was that anyone was shocked.

Lerner to this day won’t cooperate with any real investigation; the nation has been denied the opportunity to hear her story. But e-mail is a wondrous thing. Between her records and the recollections of her colleagues, we have a vivid portrait of the former head of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations unit. She was a brassy, self-assured bureaucrat with Democratic leanings and a near-messianic belief in the need for more speech regulations.

I plan on reading the entire book, but Ms. Strassel’s comments in the article confirm what most Americans already knew–the IRS has been used by the Obama Administration to limit free speech. During the Nixon Administration, using the IRS as a political tool was an impeachable offense. Why? Because the media kept up a constant drum beat about the offense. Unfortunately conservatives do not have that media back-up. It is up to us to fight for our First Amendment rights. Unless more Americans wake up to what is happening, that will be a very long and hard fight.

This Is NOT New Information

Posted on by

This video is not new information. It is, however, information that has not been widely shared by the press. The information also reveals that our government is not doing its job of protecting us.

On June 29, the following video was placed on YouTube:

 

For more information see Catastrophic Failure by Stephen Coughlin. It is a detailed account of the willful blindness of the Obama Administration in combating global terrorism.

Move Along, Nothing To See Here

Posted on by

Hot Air posted an article today about the airplane meeting of former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The article reports:

Reporter Christopher Sign of ABC 15 in Phoenix, AZ appeared on The O’Reilly Factor Thursday night to talk about his scoop involving that secret meeting between former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Watch the entire interview below. Sign lays out how the story developed and then he leaves this little nugget:

“The former president steps into her plane. They then speak for 30 minutes privately. The FBI there on the tarmac instructing everybody around ‘no photos, no pictures, no cell phones.’”

Seems as if they might have been trying to keep this meeting under the radar.

The article further reports:

Finally, let’s stop focusing on the fact that this meeting was inappropriate because Clinton’s wife is under investigation by Lynch’s Justice Department. I mean, that’s bad, but it’s actually letting Lynch and Clinton off the hook a bit. By focusing on the appearance of conflict because Hillary Clinton is being investigated, we are willfully overlooking the very real conflict in the fact that Clinton himself is under investigation, as the Grand Poo-bah at the Clinton Foundation. (Fox News)

The day after the meeting the Justice Department announced that it was going to delay the release of correspondence between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s four top aides and officials with the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings, a closely allied public relations firm that Bill Clinton helped launch. The delay is 27 months–well into a Hillary Clinton presidency if she is elected.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Troubling Information

Posted on by

On Wednesday, Judicial Watch posted an article about one of the guns used in the Paris terrorist attack. According to law enforcement sources, the gun was illegally purchased in Phoenix, Arizona. The obvious question is how did it get from Phoenix to Paris.

The article reports:

A Report of Investigation (ROI) filed by a case agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracked the gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, “off book,” Judicial Watch’s law enforcement sources confirm. Federal agents tracing the firearm also found the Phoenix gun owner to be in possession of an unregistered fully automatic weapon, according to law enforcement officials with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

The investigative follow up of the Paris weapon consisted of tracking a paper trail using a 4473 form, which documents a gun’s ownership history by, among other things, using serial numbers. The Phoenix gun owner that the weapon was traced back to was found to have at least two federal firearms violations—for selling one weapon illegally and possessing an unregistered automatic—but no enforcement or prosecutorial action was taken against the individual. Instead, ATF leaders went out of their way to keep the information under the radar and ensure that the gun owner’s identity was “kept quiet,” according to law enforcement sources involved with the case. “Agents were told, in the process of taking the fully auto, not to anger the seller to prevent him from going public,” a veteran law enforcement official told Judicial Watch.

It’s not clear if the agency, which is responsible for cracking down on the illegal use and trafficking of firearms, did this because the individual was involved in the Fast and Furious gun-running scheme. An ATF spokesman, Corey Ray, at the agency’s Washington D.C. headquarters told Judicial Watch that “no firearms used in the Paris attacks have been traced” by the agency. When asked about the ROI report linking the weapon used in Paris to Phoenix, Ray said “I’m not familiar with the report you’re referencing.” Judicial Watch also tried contacting the Phoenix ATF office, but multiple calls were not returned.

The gun was probably sold as part of ‘Fast and Furious,’ which is troubling enough, but I want to know how you get a gun from Phoenix to Paris in this age of airline security. Was it packed in the person’s checked luggage or did he manage to get it through the metal detectors? Did it go from the United States to France or from Mexico to France? How did the gun get into France, which has very strict gun laws? It would be very interesting to trace the journey of the gun from Phoenix to Paris. It is also interesting to note that this story is based on law enforcement leaks. The people who are charged with enforcing our laws have reached the point where they are so frustrated with the unequal enforcement of the laws that they are speaking out.