Archive for 4. January 2010

January 4, 2010 Breaking News

4. January 2010 by Glenn.

 

Quote of the Day:

“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.” –Will Rogers (1879-1935) US actor, humorist

That is especially true today…

Observations: (The alarm bells-they are a ringing!)

More good news…yeah, right. As the states are now having the chance to wade through the 4000 + pages of the two health bills, the alarm bells are beginning to go off.

The state of Arizona now calculates that the health care bill(s) in their current form will cost the state an additional $4 Billion over the next decade. This is in a state that has yet to solve its $2 Billion a year deficit.

We only have 6 or 7 million people in the state. Figure what the additional cost will be to states with larger populations…All except Nebraska, which Harry Reid now has decreed that the rest of the states will be picking up their increase in Medicaid costs, forever!

So we have a health care bill that will cost us a Trillion dollars over a 6-year period—they admit that (well at least the $1 Trillion). For an actual 10-year period, it is more like $1.7 Trillion.

But here is the killer. By simple extrapolation, an admittedly imprecise method, and if Arizona’s figures are correct, it would appear that the health care bill will cost taxpayers of America (except those of Nebraska) an additional $1.7 Trillion during that same 10 year period, through additional state taxes to support their expanded Medicaid bills that the Feds are transferring to them. So it would appear that the health care bill could cost taxpayers a whopping $3.4 Trillion over 10 years, not the advertised $1 Trillion!

Now we are having a big argument on Capitol Hill about the lack of leadership of the TSA, which Obama’s candidate is still waiting for confirmation.

The republicans have been holding up his nomination now for nearly a year because he reportedly lied to congress.

This guy, a former FBI agent, apparently accessed confidential personal records on his ex-wife’s boyfriend, abrogating the FBI’s rules in regard to this. He neglected to mention this and when caught, said it happened 20 years ago and he forgot.

Folks, this guy was an FBI agent; he broke the law and was censured, in writing, by the FBI for that misdeed. One does not forget that severe of a reprimand, I don’t care how many years ago that it happened.

I am beginning to wonder if the White House even knows anyone that isn’t a lawbreaker of some sort!

Global Warming Update:

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. East Coast faces the coldest night of the season as frigid air spills south and threatens agriculture in Georgia, Alabama and the orange crop in Florida.

Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation.

Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. Temperatures may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours, the National Weather Service in Tampa said on its Web site.

“This is a pretty significant cold snap,” Matt Keefe, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. “This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop.” The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week,” he said.

Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. The Miami area will see temperatures 12 degrees to 13 degrees below normal for this time of year, Keefe said.

Tonight will be the coldest and offer the greatest danger of crop damage, Keefe said. The next chance for freezing will come next week.

OK all you farmers and orange grove owners; let’s have one rendition of that old favorite, “Give me that old time Global Warming”.

More:

BEIJING (Reuters) - Heavy snow hit Beijing on Sunday, stranding thousands of passengers at the main airport and casting an unusual quiet over normally busy streets as people stayed out of the freezing weather.

More than 90 percent of flights at Beijing’s Capital International Airport, the country’s busiest, were canceled or delayed, state television said, with only one of its three runways open.

Still More:

Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years, experts predict

TELEGRAPH U.K.–Britain is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century with temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius, forecasters have warned.

They predicted no let up in the freezing snap until at least mid-January, with snow, ice and severe frosts dominating.

And the likelihood is that the second half of the month will be even colder.

Let’s see now. If it walks like a duck…and it talks like a duck…

And still more:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Forecasters say the coldest stretch of weather in years if not decades could be heading for North Carolina. While temperatures won’t be falling to record lows, the National Weather Service says the duration of the cold weather is unusual. Highs could struggle to get above freezing for the next week in areas from Raleigh west.

It must be cold there. The Appalachian American apparently couldn’t stand it anymore and as of yesterday, left his North Carolina digs and flew back to Phoenix. You know its cold when a short legger leaves the hills in favor of the warmth of the Phoenix flat lands.

And I won’t even discuss what is going on in Chicago. Ever since their favorite son became president, the city has pretty much lost its luster for me.

Headline of the Day:

Spy Chiefs turn on President Obama after 7 CIA agents are slaughtered in Afghanistan

-London Mail

Venezuela begins 2010 with electricity rationing

BREITBART: Oil-rich Venezuela ushered in 2010 with new measures rationing electricity use in malls, businesses and billboards, as Hugo Chavez’s government aimed to save power amid a crippling drought.

The new regulations came into effect January 1, with businesses required to comply with reduced consumption limits and authorities warning of forced power cuts and rate hikes if the measures are not followed.

A decree published on Christmas Eve states that commercial centers may operate from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm on the electricity grid, but beyond that, establishments would have to operate off-grid, using their own generators.

Venezuela is flush with oil — the country’s primary export — and natural gas, but relies mainly on hydroelectric generation to meet domestic energy demand.

With the country in a widespread drought, late last year Chavez announced a sweeping campaign to reduce widespread energy “waste,” stressing that rationing was necessary to avoid a systemic “collapse.”

Tariff surcharges of up to 20 percent could be imposed on violators.

The state-controlled aluminum and steel industries halted some of their production lines in order to reduce energy consumption by some 560 megawatts (MW).

Electricity demand in Venezuela is more than 16,500 MW, far higher than what is currently generated. Experts say the power sector requires 18 billion dollars in investment through 2014.

In 2009 there were four nationwide blackouts, with daily failures common in several cities.

Are you paying attention? Isn’t central planning great? You will get a lot of that once Obama consolidates his power.

A subject near and dear to my heart:

PHOENIX (AP) — More than a year after Arizona became the first state in the country to deploy dozens of speed cameras on highways statewide, threats to the groundbreaking program abound.

A photo enforcement van in Arizona lights up a speeding car while recording its license plate.

Profits are far below expectations, a citizen effort to ban the cameras is gaining steam, the governor has said she does not like the program, and more and more drivers are ignoring the tickets they get in the mail after hearing from fellow speeders that there are often no consequences to doing so.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety introduced the cameras in September 2008 and slowly added more until all 76 were up and running by January.

Supporters say the cameras slow down drivers and reduce accidents, but opponents argue that they are intrusive and are more about making money than safety.

More than 300 communities in 25 states use cameras similar to Arizona’s, including New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. But the backlash seems to be particularly intense in Arizona. (I should clarify for out of state and out of country readers that the reason that the backlash is so strong in Arizona is that is just the way we are. Napolitano was a carpet-bagger that brought her big government, tax and spend ways out here.) Some people have shown their distaste with the cameras by covering them with boxes, sticky notes and Silly String. In locally infamous cases, one man took a pickax to a camera and another purposefully set off the cameras dozens of times while wearing a monkey mask. (I saw one in the village of Paradise Valley, the town who started this whole thing, about two or three years ago, that was riddled with about 6 bullet holes)

Lt. Jeff King, photo enforcement district commander for the Department of Public Safety, said his agency just wanted drivers to go the speed limit and did not understand all the backlash.

“Instead of spending so much time focusing on getting rid of cameras, why don’t they focus on the real problem, the root problem, which is getting people to drive the speed limit?” Lieutenant King said. “If everyone was to drive the speed limit, the cameras would never flash.”

The cameras led to more than 700,000 tickets to drivers going 11 miles per hour or more over the speed limit from September 2008 to September 2009, the most recent data available, according to the Department of Public Safety. The mandated fines and surcharges on all those tickets would total more than $127 million, but they had generated just $36.8 million through September, Lieutenant King said.

Some of the people who got those tickets are contesting them in court and could end up having to pay the fine, but many of them have gone unpaid because drivers know they have a good shot at getting away with ignoring them…The ticket becomes invalid if a violator who ignores it is not served in person within three months. It is nearly impossible to say how many people have ignored their tickets because courts do not track the figure.

Whatever the figure, overtaxed process servers cannot get to most of those people, and many of the citations go unpaid. That is part of the reason the speed cameras have not made as much money as expected. While certain to increase, that $36.8 million in revenue through September will still fall far below the $120 million a year that former Gov. Janet Napolitano (That name sound familiar?) hoped to put in the state’s coffers when she ordered up the program in early 2007. (Let’s see now. If it walks like a duck…and it talks like a duck…)

The camera operator, Redflex, may not even be breaking even. It cost the company $16 million to install the cameras, and it got back $4.6 million from September 2008 to June, Lieutenant King said.

I could write about 10 pages on this subject since I used to spend so much time on the road, when I was working. However, suffice to say that even if the state’s cameras go away, the cities in Maricopa County won’t let theirs go. They do make too much money from them.

Just for the record, a couple of my objections with the program is that I believe that the speed limits are posted at least 10 mph below the 85 percentile level that they should be, given the freeways that they are set up on. Also, I am told that the Department of Public Safety can ticket you for 1 mph over if they catch you in a manned radar car. So you think you got 11 mph and it turns out you don’t.

Secondly, you have to be on your toes and look for massive and unexpected braking due to these cameras. Typically, in a freeway setting, there is a telegraphing of accidents back as far as ¼ to ½ mile before the cameras, depending on how heavy traffic is. Since the accidents are telegraphed back, no one has figured out that the cameras actually cause a lot of these accidents.

And even if there are no accidents, the cameras will slow traffic suddenly, from 65 mph to 45 mph.

This is no time to give up,

Glenn

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Definition for new readers: Yellow rat democrats, as opposed to Blue Dog Democrats, or just Democrats, are so named because they behave like yellow rats; they are sneaky, they have no rules that they live by except to get what they want by any means necessary and they run for cover when someone shines a light on them. Yellow Rat Democrats draw primarily from the so-called “progressive” democrats.

If you have watched the secrecy, lies and bribes that the democratic and house leaders have used to push the health care bill through, you understand what a yellow rat is.

Find your congressperson: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

Senate phone Numbers: 1-877-851-6437 and 1-866-220-0044, or call toll 1-202-225-3121

Obama (White House) 202-456-1111 and 202-456-1414

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