An article in the Oil and Gas Journal reveals the thinking processes of some of our leaders on Capitol Hill. And it’s not a pretty sight.

Speaking at a forum on energy and climate policy co-sponsored by Newsweek magazine and the American Petroleum Institute, Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), Chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, and co-author of the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Bill said:

“The measure is analogous to what we did in telecommunications,” Markey said, noting that Congress passed bills in 1992, 1993, and 1996 that launched, respectively, the modern cable, wireless, and broadband systems while creating 2 million new jobs. … Emerging energy technologies could lead to a $2 trillion domestic industry if the US decided to actively support them, Markey said.

Well, no, not really, Ed.

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Incredible.

Memo to Ray: We’re trying hard to reverse 30 50 75 150 plus years of public corruption in this state. Do you really think these remarks help?

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In a November 30 press release marking the end of 2009’s hurricane season, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center trumpeted the accuracy of their forecast of the season’s storm activity:

Nine named storms formed this year, including three hurricanes, two of which were major hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher. These numbers fall within the ranges predicted in NOAA’s mid-season outlook issued in August …

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment—from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun—and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

Oh, please.

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Obama’s Energy and Climate Change Czar Carol Browner is unswayed by the revelations in the Hadley CRU hacked emails, saying

“I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real,” said Ms. Browner, who President Obama has tapped as his chief of policy on global warming. …

Ms. Browner initially shrugged when asked about the e-mails, saying she didn’t have a reaction. But when a reporter followed up, she said she will stick with the consensus of the 2,500 climate scientists on the International Panel on Climate Change who concluded global warming is happening and is most likely being pushed by human actions.

On the eve of President Obama’s trip to the U.N. Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, please indulge a few rhetorical questions.

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[UPDATE: It turns out that the Salahis had contact with President Obama. Oy vey.]

Dear Sirs:

I expect better of you. Seriously. Even if, as some have suggested, this is a put-up deal, it can’t help but reflect poorly on the reputation and performance of your fine Service, which has provided a century and a half of efficient professionalism and security to the nation.

Couple slips though security to crash White House state dinner

Let me be direct. My plans for November 2012 include voting against Barack Obama for the Office of the Presidency. Your #1 job is keeping the man safe until then. Safe, as in not-letting-harm-come-to-a-single-hair-on-his-head safe.

Joe Blow can’t get through airport security with a 4-oz. bottle of mouthwash, and these two shameless, self-promoting dipsticks get within shouting distance of the leader of the Free World. Or whatever.

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Michaele Salahi and husband (and partner-in-crime) Tareq join United States Vice President Joe Biden (D) in a photo-op.

Former Democratic Congressman William Jefferson, convicted on bribery and racketeering charges and sentenced to a Congressional-record 13-year sentence, recently received a couple of significant holiday-season gifts from Judge T.J. Ellis III.

Recently, Judge Ellis decided that Jefferson is not a flight risk and may remain free pending appeal, a process that may take a year or more. During that time, Jefferson must wear a monitor and may not travel without prior court approval.

Today, Judge Ellis agreed that Jefferson’s legal expenses will be covered by the court during his appeal. Jefferson and his wife recently filed for bankruptcy, due in large part to the legal bills incurred during his trial.

Admittedly, Jefferson might have problems paying for new legal bills out of his Congressional pension, estimated to be $40,000 to $55,000 per year. Then again, once he’s incarcerated, he won’t be shelling out a lot on food, clothing or shelter.

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U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers mismanaged the maintenance of the shipping channel known as the “Mister GO” (the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, MR-GO), leading directly to the flooding of thousands of homes and businesses in St. Bernard Parish and the New Orleans neighborhood known as the Lower Ninth Ward.

The case directly involves $700,000 in damages to three people and a business, but opens the door to claims by as many as 100,000 residents and former residents of the affected neighborhoods. If upheld, this judgment could lead to damage claims in the $billions.

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Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel are lawyers in the Environmental Protection Agency’s San Francisco office. They are also married to each other. Williams and Zabel are Global Warming “true believers”. They’ve done the research, and they think the Waxman-Markey-Boxer-Kerry Cap and Trade scheme is a very bad idea.

So they wrote a position paper for the website www.carbonfees.org. They wrote an editorial that was published in The Washington Post.

And they made the following video:

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When I was a kid (mid- to late-’60s), nightly TV news shows were everyone’s source of information. Alongside from the flickering bland-and-white coverage of the Vietnam war and protesting hippies, I distinctly remember stories that would be foreign to us in 2009: food prices.

Yes, food prices. Right there in the segment where today you’d expect to see updates on gasoline prices, you’d have David Brinkley or Walter Cronkite or Howard K. Smith used to report on the prices of beef, chicken, bread, milk or eggs.

Food was dear back then. About 1972, Big Government changed that, and thereby sewed the seeds of today’s “Health Care Crisis”. Let’s connect the dots.

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In a precedent-setting ruling, a judge in the UK upholds Mr Tim Nicholson’s right to sue his former employer because he was fired over his environmental beliefs and his green lifestyle.

Climate change belief given same legal status as religion

In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations”.

The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.

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State investigators taking dozens of computers from ACORN office on Canal Street

Early last month, Caldwell’s office issued subpoenas for records from ACORN’s New Orleans office, where the organization — now moving its national headquarters to Washington — has long been based. …

In a statement, ACORN’s attorney Pamela Marple said the group was told the raid was ordered because of reports that workers loyal to Beth Butler, the recently fired head of ACORN’s Louisiana branch, had been taking computer data and other items out of the office.

“Over the last two months, ACORN has been cooperating with a variety of governmental entities across the country to provide requested information and documents,” Marple wrote. “We were told that the AG’s office has no criticisms of ACORN’s cooperative efforts, but rather that the warrant was issued because of concern that former local ACORN staff members had, and may intend in the future to remove or alter electronic documents.”

An ACORN official also said Caldwell’s investigators will copy the hard drives from ACORN’s computers and return them next week. The computers contain all payroll information for the national organization, the official said.

H/T dennism

Friday night, prosecutors in the case of The United States v. William Jefferson (D-LA) issued a memorandum recommending a prison sentence of 27 to 33 years for the former congressman from New Orleans, consistent with Federal sentencing guidelines. Such a long sentence is justified, according to the memo, by the severity of the crimes, flight risk, and the possibility of hidden assets.

Anything approaching the recommended punishment would be the longest sentence ever meted out on given to a U.S. Congressman.

Jefferson will be sentenced on November 13 by Federal Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, VA.

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One of the stranger episodes in corporate marketing history occurred in 1985 when the Coca-Cola Corporation decided to alter the secret formula of its flagship product.

Maybe Republican Party leaders could stand a review.

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We often fall into the trap of acting on emotions, not facts. It certainly makes us feel good to feel like we’re doing something positive. But being a grownup requires discipline, common sense and thinking instead of feeling. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our approach to energy and environmental policy.

One example: the “eat local” movement seems to be getting some traction among concerned urban types. The premise: It must be a horrendous waste, in this post oil-peak world, to transport your strawberries by jet from New Zealand and your haricots-verts and arugula from California, when you can get them at the quaint little Farmer’s Market or a funky co-op in town. Furthermore, industrial farming is not only bad, but doomed by the shortage of energy [link]:

The age of the 3000-mile-caesar salad will soon be over. Food production based on massive petroleum inputs, on intensive irrigation, on gigantic factory farms in just a few parts of the nation, and dependent on cheap trucking will not continue. We will have to produce at least some of our food closer to home.

Not so fast, according to the blog “Peak Oil Debunked”.

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is under attack by some of its members for its opposition to the Cap and Trade bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council, through its blogs and through the website whodoesthechamberrepresent.org maintains a running watch on those altruistic companies who have either quit the Chamber or publicly disputed its Climate Change position.

To the NRDC, companies that stick with the Chamber’s anti-Cap and Trade position are motivated strictly by greed, whereas the companies listed above are driven by the purest of altruism.

U.S. CHAMBER CLIMATE CREDIBILITY CRISIS COUNTER:

Quit the U.S. Chamber over climate: Apple, Exelon, PNM Resources, PG&E, PSEG, Levi Strauss & Co, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Mohawk Paper.

Quit the U.S. Chamber Board over climate: Nike.

Refused to join the U.S. Chamber over climate: NRG Energy.

Companies that say the U.S. Chamber doesn’t represent their views on climate: Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Alcoa, Duke, Entergy, Microsoft, Toyota, Royal Dutch Shell, Seventh Generation, Dow, PEPCO, Cisco Systems …

Altruistic? Ehhhhh. Let’s follow the money.

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On Sunday, we learned that one of the best things we can do for Mother Gaia is to keep the sizes of our families at a minimum. In the final analysis, a human being is nothing more than a CO2 generator on legs.

Today’s lesson in Saving the Planet comes from Britain, where the Lord High Poo-Bah of Climate Change, Lord Stern of Brentford, has declared:

“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Save the Planet. Eat your arugula.

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NYT Environment Reporter Floats Idea: Give Carbon Credits to Couples That Limit Themselves to One Child

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Andrew Revkin, who reports on environmental issues for The New York Times, floated an idea last week for combating global warming: Give carbon credits to couples that limit themselves to having one child.

Revkin later told CNSNews.com that he was not endorsing the idea, just trying to provoke some thinking on the topic.

Revkin calls it a “thought experiment”.

Well, isn’t that special.

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At first blush, this story from the Washington Post is pretty funny: a “green energy” firm’s wind farm project in West Virginia is being challenged under the Endangered Species Act by some local tree bat huggers.

Tiny bat pits green against green

It is the first court challenge to wind power under the Endangered Species Act, lawyers on both sides say. … At the heart of the Beech Ridge case is the Indiana bat, a brownish-gray creature that weighs about as much as three pennies and, wings outstretched, measures about eight inches. A 2005 estimate concluded that there were 457,000 of them, half the number in 1967, when they were first listed as endangered.

Go ahead. Enjoy a moment of schadenfreude.

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New Orleans’ Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin can see the advantages of a country like Cuba, when it comes to hurricane preparedness and evacuation. Cuba, you see, was hit by Hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma last year and suffered only seven fatalities. Nagin is in Cuba with a trade delegation from the Crescent City for a five-day visit.

Ray Nagin: Cuba’s government is ideal for storm response

“I think they do a much better job than we do on knowing their citizens at a very, very detailed level, block by block, ” Nagin said.

In Cuba, Revolutionary Defense Committees on nearly every corner watch their neighbors. They help with evacuations and provide social services such as vaccinations, but also are supposed to report any behavior considered subversive.

Right, Ray. Just think of those Revolutionary Defense Committee persons as nosy Community Organizers, who are just there in the community, close to the people, to help out with hygeine. Politcal hygiene, in particular.

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