Why NOBODY Voted for Obama's 2013 Budget

Last February, Obama submitted his latest budget proposal to Congress.

On 3/28/2012, the House unanimously rejected Obama’s budget proposal.

On 5/16/2012, the Senate also unanimously rejected Obama’s budget proposal.

Rex Nutting, at MarketWatch, seemingly thinks Obama is the most fiscally responsible President ever. So, surely Congress must have found Obama’s budget to be far too austere, eh? Not exactly.

Click here and examine the scoring of Obama’s latest budget proposal by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Examine the far right column of Table 1 on page 2. Divide $6,390 (billion) by $2,887 (billion) and see that Obama’s budget INCREASED deficit spending by a whopping 121% over what would be the case if Congress did NOTHING!

The chart below is a direct representation of the data found in Table 1 described above.

Click the image to enlarge it:

Click here for the source -- see Table 1.
The same XLS spreadsheet can be downloaded from this CBO page.
You’ll have to create the chart yourself (as I did).

The Obama Spending Spree Never Happened???

Updated on 11/27/12:
Now reflects data through fiscal year 2012
(Federal government fiscal year ends on September 30th.)
Click here and see that Rex Nutting is claiming that the Obama spending spree never happened and that Obama is the most fiscally responsible President ever. This has to be the most brazenly dishonest bit of purely political propaganda published in the last millennia or two.

There are so many layers to this dishonesty that I could spend an entire day debunking the nonsense. But, let’s keep it simple. Tell me, Mr. Nutting, which of the bars in the chart below (documenting federal spending by year) would you and Mr. Obama like to take credit for? The last four bars represent fiscal years 2009 through 2012 -- pick any one you like!

Click the image to enlarge the chart & view the source:
Click here & examine deficit spending.
Click here & see that ObamaCare adds ANOTHER
$1.1 trillion in deficit spending over the next 10 years.

'Pro-Choice' Americans at Record Low 41%

Quoting Gallup:

“The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as "pro-choice" is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves "pro-life," one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Good news!

Now, can we stop using tax payer money to fund Planned Parenthood abortion factories?

Federal Spending 101 - The Entitlement Bomb

This post quickly details everything you need to know about our federal spending Entitlement Bomb.

If we do not reduce our entitlement spending we WILL, 3 to 20 years from now, experience the very same entitlement driven fiscal collapse which Greece is now experiencing.

First, click here & examine the deficit spending trends since 1970.

Next, quoting The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office:

“under any plausible scenario, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path—that is, federal debt will grow much faster than the economy over the long run... Federal spending on programs other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security— including national defense and a wide variety of domestic programs—is likely to contribute far less, if anything, to the upward trend in federal outlays as a share of GDP”

The remaining images are all taken from two CBO documents published in April of 2012 detailing federal spending for fiscal year 2011. These documents demonstrate that, as the CBO previously asserted, virtually ALL of the growth (as a % of GDP) in federal spending over the last 20 years came from Medicare and Medicaid.

Click here and here for the two CBO documents.

Mandatory Spending = All federal government entitlements.
Mandatory Spending + Net Interest consumed 96% of all tax revenues!
Click the image & examine federal spending in 2011:

Click here for the source
(The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.)

Between 1991 & 2011, Mandatory Spending as a % of GDP increased from 10.1% of GDP to 13.6% of GDP. Divide 13.6 by 10.1 and we find a 35% increase in Mandatory Spending over the prior 20 years:

Click the image & glance at Mandatory Spending from 1991 to 2011:

Click here for the source
(The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.)

Click the image & examine trends in Mandatory Spending.
Note that Medicare & Medicaid dominated the increases:

Click here for the source
(The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.)

Click the image & examine detailed Mandatory Spending in 2011:

Click here for the source
(The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.)

Between 1991 & 2011, Discretionary Spending as a % of GDP remained flat and defense spending DROPPED by 13%. Had Obama not wasted $800 billion on his so-called “stimulus” fiasco (which, demonstrably, made matters FAR WORSE), Discretionary Spending would have DECREASED by 6%.

Click the image & glance at Discretionary Spending in 2011:

Click here for the source
(The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.)

Click the image & examine trends in Discretionary Spending:

Click here for the source
(The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.)

Click the image & examine detailed Discretionary Spending in 2011:

Click here for the source
(The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.)

Media FINALLY discover Obama's polygamist family tree

Way back in February of 2007, the AP eagerly reported that -- as recently as 1897 -- ancestors of Mitt Romney engaged in polygamy.

But, in 2008, nobody in the lame stream media was interested in vetting Obama in ANY WAY. They certainly were not interested in exploring his Kenyan roots.

So, I guess that explains why -- only on 4/12/12, after Obama had been President for over three years did we discover that -- going back to his great-grandfather -- Obama is the FIRST male in his paternal lineage who has NOT engaged in polygamy!

Obviously, both reports are utterly irrelevant (other than to shine a bright white light on media bias).

Liberal bias? WHAT Liberal bias? NAH! No such thing!

Obama's new slogan is even worse

I previously commented on a President so inept that he could not even select a winning campaign slogan.

Well, it appears as though Mr. Obama recognized his blunder and modified his slogan (thereby making it even worse).

Speaking at a New York City college which prohibits men from attending, Obama drew from the Cultural Marxist playbook and “spoke about the example of Lily Ledbetter, the woman who sued her employer because she was consistently making less money than her male counterparts.”

Leave it to a ChiTown lawyer to give props to a woman who sued over something which even CBS News admits is “a complete myth”.

Anyway, the upshot is that Obama’s new slogan is:

“We look forward, not backward.”

Yeah, with a Presidential record AND a life record as pitiful as his, it’s no wonder this clown doesn’t want anybody looking backward (at his record).

GAO admits to what I've been saying for 4 years

I’ve been saying this since July of 2008. Nice to see the GAO finally caught up. So, the next time some lying Dem tries to tell you “we have less than two percent of the world’s oil reserves”, just take a page from good old Joe Wilson and scream nice and loud -- “YOU LIE”!

Quoting CNS News:

“The Green River Formation, a largely vacant area of mostly federal land that covers the territory where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as all the rest the world’s proven reserves combined, an auditor from the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Thursday.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here to enlarge the image.
Click here for my post from which the image was taken.

Will Romney Win in a Landslide?

Romney is opening quite a lead against Obama in the polling of likely voters (done only by Rasmussen).

Dick Morris tells us history predicts all the undecided voters will ultimately break for Romney and that -- if the election were held today -- Romney would win in a landslide. We can hope!

This image reflects polling data as of 5/12/12.
Click the image & examine the latest polling data:

Kate Beckinsale Joins Phony War on Women Meme

Time to remove Kate Beckinsale from your TiVo Wish List!

And, be sure NOT to see the remake of Total Recall or anything else she appears in.

Click here and see why Kate Bekinsale should be boycotted.

Click here for more on the utterly phony War on Women.

Obama can't even choose a winning slogan!

With the unmitigated failures of the last three years, it was a slam dunk certainty Obama would not revive his “Hope & Change” theme in his bid for reelection.

But, choosing “Forward” was his biggest slogan blunder since “Winning the Future” (aka WTF).

First, we have to beg the questions…

Did Obama plagiarize MSNBC’s slogan?

Or, did Obama borrow the slogan from various Euro-Marxist organizations?

Should we blame Obama for setting off yet another epic Wikipedia editing war?

Or, should we simply note how this slogan relates to our future if Obama wins a second term?

Seriously folks, does Obama really think the American people are stupid enough to give a second term to a President who cannot even competently select a campaign slogan?

REALLY?

Did Human Activity Cause an Extreme Lack of Hurricanes?

How will the climate change hysteria mongers spin this one? Will they claim that an extreme lack of hurricanes is yet another example of the alleged weather extremes alleged to have been caused by human activity?

Quoting a new study published by the AMS
(emphasis is mine):

“The 2010 eastern North Pacific hurricane season was one of the least active seasons on record. Only seven named storms developed, which is the lowest number observed at least since routine satellite coverage of that basin began in 1966. Furthermore, only three of those storms reached hurricane status, which is also the lowest number of hurricanes ever observed in the satellite era season.”

Click here to read the abstract.

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

By his own metrics, Obama is a FAILURE!

By his own metrics, Obama is a FAILURE:

Click here to learn more.

Who is Julia and why am I paying for her whole life?

You know the Obama campaign has REALLY stepped in it when even the crew at MSNBC trashes the cradle to grave Socialism promoted in their latest lame attempt to woo the female vote (now that Hilary Rosen has single-handedly exposed the Dems as the real perpetrators of a “War on Women”).

Obama campaign can’t even impress MSNBC:
Click here for more commentary.

NewsBusted Video - 4/20/12

NewsBusted Comedy Show From 4/20/12:

Click here to view more NewsBusted comedy.

High Priest of Global Warming Hysteria Cult Recants

James Lovelock, one of the high priests of the Global Warming Hysteria Cult has recanted!

Here, I offer a series of quotes from the MSNBC link (above). After each quote, I add my reaction/rebuttal. Remember, this is MSNBC. So, expect that -- even in the face of this latest recantation -- that they will still push the Global Warming party line.

“James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his ‘Gaia’ theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being ‘alarmist’ about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.”

Click here for an overview of climate change science demonstrating why human activity is not a threat (and never will be).

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that”

Actually, the majority of the major datasets
show over 10 years of global cooling.
Click the image to enlarge it & view the source:

“He said human-caused carbon dioxide emissions were driving an increase in the global temperature, but added that the effect of the oceans was not well enough understood and could have a key role.”

Click here and see that all of the temperature fluctuations of the last century can be entirely explained by two factors -- The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the very slight, very consistent warming of 0.5C per century ever since the planet emerged from the Little Ice Age.

Click here for a more general explanation of the impact of the AMO.

“As ‘an independent and a loner,’ he said he did not mind saying ‘All right, I made a mistake.’ He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.”

Nice to hear a recovering alarmist finally admit the obvious (follow the money).

Click here and here and see what I mean.

“the rate of warming in recent years had been less than expected by the climate models”

Actually, the very core of the alarmist cabal has (unwittingly) demonstrated (at a 95% confidence level) that ALL of the IPCC computer models have been (by the standards established by NOAA) invalidated.

Click here for the proof.

In the previous link, some quibbled over the significance of “statistically significant” vs. an absolutely flat (or down) trend line. Fine, we now have the most reliable dataset of all (the RSS satellite data) showing a cooling trend in excess of the NOAA standard of 15 years:

Click the image to enlarge it & view the source:

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Cybill Shepherd Decries Fictional 'War on Women'

One great reason NOT to watch The Client List…

Cybill Shepherd (starring in The Client List) supports the (fictional) “constitutional right” for American women to murder their own children for any reason or no reason at all.

She also:

1) Demands that all who find the murder of innocent children abhorrent must be required by FORCE OF LAW to fund what is -- by FAR -- the largest (and most dishonest) abortion provider in the country.

2) Asserts what she believes is an entitlement to (so-called) free contraception. One must assume Cybill expects all Catholic institutions to be required -- through FORCE OF LAW and in direct contradiction of The First Amendment to The United States Constitution -- to violate one of their most sacred beliefs and provide for this nutty new entitlement.

So…
The nutty Ms. Shepherd believes strongly in a purely fabricated “constitutional right” for American women to murder their own children. But, she has NO REGARD what-so-ever for religious liberties CLEARLY guaranteed by The First Amendment to the United States Constitution! In other words, Cybill Shepherd is a typical Leftist totalitarian thug.

Do NOT support this thug:

Click here for more.

Photo Corroborates Allegation that Zimmerman was Assaulted

Quoting ABC News:

“ABC News exclusively obtained a photograph showing the bloodied back of Zimmerman's head, which was apparently taken three minutes after he shot and killed Martin. The photo could give credence to Zimmerman's claim that Martin had bashed his head against the concrete as Zimmerman fought for his life.”

Click the image & read the rest:

I hope Zimmerman gets a fair trail.
I worry that the race hustlers have ensured he will not.

Obama adviser David Axelrod makes case for Mitt Romney

David, I could not agree more:

Show Biz Kids -- Perfect Song for GSA Scandal

By now, you’ve probably heard about the lavish party held for federal GSA employees at tax payer expense.

And, you’ve probably heard about the infamous videos shot by GSA employees while they were on the (tax payer) clock.

Meantime, during the Obama administration, Washington D.C. is the ONLY city in the entire Case Shiller Index to see an increase in home values.

Well, seems to me that the “good” people at the GSA need a theme song. And, I’ve got just what they need.

Quoting Steely Dan:

“Show business kids making movies of themselves, you know they don’t give a F*CK about anybody else. You know, you go to Lost Wages.”

Click here for the perfect cartoon & more commentary.

Warmists Hype One Warm Quarter Over 2% of the Planet

Click here and note that CNN reports:

“March 2012 will go down as the warmest March in the United States since record-keeping began in 1895, NOAA said Monday.

In addition, the three-month period of January, February and March was the warmest first quarter ever recorded in the Lower 48 states.”

Let’s put that into proper context:

1) Peer reviewed science finds a 30% warming bias in the NOAA NCDC data. This calls into question whether any records were really set.

2) If we arbitrarily select the last 120 months (exactly 10 years) of RSS satellite data, we find:

A) Ten years of significant global cooling.

B) Both March and the first quarter of 2012 are substantially BELOW the 10 year trend line.

Click the image to enlarge it:

Click here to view the source.
Click here to view the raw data.

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Federal court tosses 2010 Colorado Amazon tax law

In 2010, Colorado Dims passed a brazenly unconstitutional sales tax law.

Dims -- lacking ANY respect for the limitations imposed by the United States Constitution -- make a habit of passing brazenly unconstitutional laws. Dims also make a habit of inventing language NOT FOUND in the United States Constitution in order to overturn entirely constitutional state laws.

We KNEW this 2010 Colorado law was unconstitutional because, in 1992, the United States Supreme Court had already judged a virtually identical law as such (click here for the actual ruling).

Well, folks, here’s a great big shock (NOT)…

Quoting Tim Hoover
at The Denver Post:

“A federal court has thrown out a 2010 Colorado law meant to spur online retailers like Amazon to collect state sales tax…

The law was passed in 2010 as part of a package of Democratic-backed bills”

Click the image & read the rest:

Good riddance!
Now, about that brazenly unconstitutional health care mandate…

Healthy polar bear count confounds doomsayers

Quoting Paul Waldie
at The Globe and Mail
(emphasis is mine):

“The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here to enlarge the image.
Click here for a directly related post.
Click here for more on Arctic Sea Ice & Polar Bears.

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Afterburner with Bill Whittle - Merchants of Despair

Who could possibly want 4 more years of THIS?
ONLY those who live in a fantasy world:

The Insular Fantasy World of 'Progressives'

All so-called “Progressives” live in an insular fantasy world -- it is a prerequisite to being a “Progressive”. Why? Because the entire “Progressive” ideology is pure mythology! The bubble that surrounds their fantasy world is so incredibly fragile that they must -- at all costs -- avoid any facts, data, evidence, reason or logic which might threaten to burst their bubble.

Quoting Dennis Prager at National Review:

“[T]he Left is a victim of its own brainwashing. How could they not be? All they hear, see, and read from childhood on, from elementary school through graduate school, on TV and in the movies, are leftist ideas.

Yet this is not true for conservatives. One would have to grow up in a silent monastery not to be regularly exposed to liberal and leftist ideas.”

Click the image & read the rest:

The Ultimate Censorship Weapon?

Will it soon become a crime to “annoy or offend” some so-called “Progressive” with some sort of “inconvenient truth”?

In Arizona, that legislation is one signature away from becoming law.

Hopefully, the Governor will not sign it. We’ll see.

Click the image & read all about it:

Three Datasets Show Over 10 Years of Global Cooling

Click here for the previous post documenting (via the RSS MSU data) over 15 years of global cooling.

Three datasets document over 10 years of global cooling.
Click the image to enlarge it:

Click here for the source
Click here for the raw data.
Click here & see the data points along with the trend lines.

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Over 15 Years of Global Cooling!

RSS MSU data show over 15 years of global cooling.
(Least squares trend line; slope = -0.000835651 per year)
Note, globally, the particularly COLD winter of 2012.

Click the image to enlarge it:
Click here for the source.
Click here for the raw data.
By NOAA’s own standards, this cooling trend in excess of 15 years means (with a 95% degree of confidence) all IPCC computer models (the sole source of ALL the climate change hysteria mongering) are FURTHER invalidated and rendered USELESS!

Click here for more on the current cooling trend.

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Earth Hour - A Dissent

Quoting Ross McKitrick:

“The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here to enlarge the image.

Russian 2010 Heat Wave Caused by Natural Variability

Click here for a Google search currently listing 7.4 million search results -- many falsely linking the 2010 Russian heat wave to “Climate Change”.

Click here for just one of several peer reviewed studies demonstrating that heat wave was the result of “natural atmospheric variability”.

In related news…

Click here for a Google search currently listing 157 million search results -- many falsely linking the 2012 warm winter in the USA lower 48 to “Climate Change”.

Click here and debunk that nonsense.

Spike Lee Terror Tweet Forces Elderly Couple Out of their Home

In case you needed one more reason to never see anything Spike Lee has anything to do with…

Quoting Susan Jacobson
at The Orlando Sentinel
(emphasis is mine):

“A school-cafeteria lunch lady and her husband have received hate mail, unwanted visits from reporters and fearful inquiries from neighbors — all because their Sanford-area address is being disseminated on Twitter as belonging to Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman…

Zimmerman traced the tweets — which he said have been retweeted by actor-director Spike Lee — to a man in California. Zimmerman has implored the man to stop and said he received this response, "Black power all day. No justice, no peace" and an obscenity.

Lee's tweet has been removed, but it continues to be retweeted.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Will Spike Lee very publicly apologize?
Will Spike Lee compensate his victims?
Don’t hold your breath!

I Don't (a.k.a. The Occupier)

Obama LOVES The Occupy Wall Street Theme Song:

Click here for all OWS posts.

Spoiled Brat Entitlement Punk Wants 'Free' Birth Control

Click here and listen to the spoiled brat entitlement punk airhead who wants her fairy godmother in Washington D.C. to provide her with “free birth control”.

Click here and listen to more spoiled brat entitlement punks collecting their “Obama Bucks”.

And, there you have the
personification of Obama’s supporters:

Click here & expose the birth control lies.

Wind Turbines Broken Down and Rusting

More proof that government subsidies do NOTHING but promote and reward FAILURE! They do so by utterly eliminating ANY incentive to become even remotely competitive in the REAL WORLD!

Quoting the U.K. Mail Online:

“A breathtaking sight awaits those who travel to the southernmost tip of Hawaii’s stunningly beautiful Big Island… the rusting skeletons of scores of wind turbines…

thanks to the [government] subsidies, it hardly mattered that some of the untested turbines were so sub-standard they barely even worked… for some wind energy investors it was simply a tax scam… it lasted only as long as the subsidies…

The American Bird Conservancy estimates wind turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds each year…

There are horror stories about turbines falling over, catching fire after being struck by lightning, lethal shards of ice being hurled from the blades…

While Hawaii has six abandoned wind farms, most of California’s derelict turbines are only now being removed — decades late — after disgusted local authorities threatened to sue…

it was sometimes the hapless farmer or rancher who owned the land who had to foot the $1,000-a-tower clean-up bill…

U.S. investment in wind energy plunged 38 per cent last year. Experts say there are simply too many turbines out there and not enough people buying the electricity.”

Click the image
& read the rest:

Click here for more on the colossal
folly and fraud of wind power.

Do Dims still deny Obama is a Socialist?

Are Dims still trying to deny that Obama is a Socialist?

I dunno -- they’ve been quiet on that lately. What I do know is that yet another self-described Socialist has admitted she likes Obama because she is a Socialist.

I suppose it takes one to love one.

Click here to examine a few of Obama’s Socialist credentials.

Obama falsely claims credit for increased oil production

Updated on 3/22/12:
Discovered & corrected an error in the calculations.
Revised the numbers & charts accordingly.
Click here and examine the laughably dishonest claims from Obama & crew regarding increased domestic oil production.

The data cited are correct. But, not only did Obama have nothing to do with these gains, he did nothing but constrain that growth.

1) The large majority of the growth took place on private land. What, exactly, has Obama done to increase oil production on private land? NOTHING! To the contrary -- in addition to all the harm he has already done, Obama now wants to increase taxes on all oil producers. Anybody think THAT will increase domestic oil production?

2) The increased production on Federal and Indian lands during 2009 & 2010 resulted from leases granted under Bush 43.

3) In 2011 -- thanks to Obama -- oil production on Federal and Indian lands DROPPED by 13%!

4) Click here and examine enormous opportunities (most of it on Federal lands) which the Obama administration has refused to allow to be developed.

Comparing 2011 to 2008,
Click the image to enlarge it:


From 2010 to 2011, thanks to Obama,
production on Federal land has DECREASED.
Click the image to enlarge it:


Click here and here for the source data.
Hat tip to commenter known as RICH.

Mirror, mirror, who's the dumbest of them all?

My Leftist friends never tell me how great Obama’s policies are. How could they? But, they never fail to remind me how “smart” Barry is. REALLY? SERIOUSLY?

Is Obama the dumbest & most ignorant President EVER?
Click the image & decide for yourself:

Study - Young people not so 'green' after all (DUH!)

Is anybody really surprised to find that the entitlement generation is unwilling to “walk the talk”? These pinheads will slander “big oil” all day long. But, they won’t lift a finger to take any personal responsibility.

Quoting Martha Irvine
at The Associated Press:

“Researchers found that, when surveyed decades ago, about a third of young baby boomers said it was important to become personally involved in programs to clean up the environment. In comparison, only about a quarter of young Gen Xers - and 21 percent of Millennials - said the same.

Meanwhile, 15 percent of Millennials said they had made no effort to help the environment, compared with 8 percent of young Gen Xers and 5 percent of young baby boomers…

85 to 90 percent [of Millennials are] ‘open to protecting the environment and natural resources, but not leaders and not interested in being seriously inconvenienced or paying a cost to do so’”

Millennials will worship at the Green Altar.
But, only if they are not personally inconvenienced.
Click the image & read the rest:

Click here for George Carlin’s critique on environmentalism.

We DEMAND a Cough Drop Mandate - NOW!

Remy crashes Sandra Fluke's Congressional testimony to demand a mandate for his cough drop addiction.


Click here & ask if Sandra Fluke lied.

World Oil Balance vs. Price of Oil

Wondering why the price of gasoline is rising so rapidly?

First, note that the price of gasoline runs in lockstep with the price of oil.

Next, note that the price of oil has risen far faster than the rest of the Consumer Price Index. Since 1/1/2010, Brent Crude has risen about 60%, West Texas Intermediate Crude has risen about 30% and the rest of the CPI has risen only about 4% (meaning the falling value of the dollar can only account for a small fraction of the observed increase in the price oil -- about a 4% increase since 1/1/2010).

So, why is the price of oil rising so much more rapidly than the rest of the CPI?

There are a variety of factors involved. But, the primary driver (by FAR) is the simple fact that global demand for oil has -- for the last 8 quarters -- exceeded global supply.

To better understand the lag times in price response, first click here and examine a more detailed quarter by quarter analysis of the 2008 price spikes.

A Case Study of Two Price Spikes
Click the image to enlarge it:

Data Sources:

Spot Price for Oil:
This spreadsheet from this page.

Sources for global supply & demand
(See “Table 1” in each document below):
2003: http://omrpublic.iea.org/omrarchive/13feb07full.pdf
2004: http://omrpublic.iea.org/omrarchive/13feb08full.pdf
2005: http://omrpublic.iea.org/omrarchive/11feb09full.pdf
2006: http://omrpublic.iea.org/omrarchive/11feb10full.pdf
2007: http://omrpublic.iea.org/omrarchive/10feb11full.pdf
(2008 - 2011): http://omrpublic.iea.org/omrarchive/10feb12full.pdf

Linda Halteman Lewis is a Bald Faced Liar

It’s the political silly season. So, predictably, the so-called “editor” of our local so-called “newspaper” seems to be pulling out all the stops to publish (through letters to the editor) as many bald faced lies as are necessary to ensure his fellow “Progressives” retain as much political power as possible.

On March 6th, he published one of the most shamelessly dishonest diatribes on Climate Change ever.

Now, just three days later, he publishes an even more shamelessly dishonest diatribe against domestic drilling.

So, here we go again, exposing the lies & canards from the so-called “Progressives” which infest our little ski town.

1) The BALD FACED LIE that the USA has only “2 percent of petroleum reserves”.

Click here and see that the USA EASILY has at LEAST 6 times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.

2) The lie and the canard of suggesting that a “large portion of the natural gas that is being produced domestically is being exported.”

A) Click here and see that -- in 2010 -- the USA consumed 95% of the natural gas produced in the USA.

B) Click here and see that domestic increased domestic production of natural gas is substantially REDUCING our net imports of natural gas.

C) Click here and see that increased domestic production of natural gas is LOWERING the price paid by consumers. The environmental extremists, of course, HATE this trend.

D) Just like oil, natural gas is a global commodity. It doesn’t make one damn bit of difference whether domestically produced natural gas is consumed domestically or exported. The more we increase the levels of global supply, the lower natural gas prices will go -- PERIOD!

3) The lie and the canard of suggesting that “fracking is known to stimulate earthquakes.”

A) Click here and see that even the Left leaning “New Scientist” has recently debunked this nonsense.

B) Anybody with even a passing knowledge of what causes earthquakes knows that even if fracking did precipitate an earthquake, it would ONLY result in setting off a more minor quake than that which would have occurred naturally anyway.

C) Although our region is “seismically active”, the quakes found in this region are so minor that the quakes are seldom even noticed.

4) The lie (by both commission and omission) concerning the “$4 billion of yearly subsidies given to the petroleum industry”

Click here and see a chart published by the CBO comparing tax preferences given to “Renewable Energy” vs. Fossil Fuels.

Unlike “Renewable Energy”, Fossil Fuels ONLY get tax breaks. Fossil Fuels get NO direct payments (aka subsidies).

Seven Climate Myths in a Single Letter

Updated on 3/8/12
Further debunked the Lyme disease claims.
Our local so-called “newspaper” recently published a letter to the editor containing at least 7 major climate related myths (in addition to a bunch of other purely political nonsense).

Click on the text to debunk the myth:

1) The myth that anthropogenic CO2 will create catastrophic climate change.

It should be perfectly obvious by now that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation has been (overwhelmingly) the primary driver of climate change over the last century.

2) The myth that global warming will spread tropical diseases.

The letter even cites alleged figures from the CDC suggesting that Global Warming caused Lyme disease to dramatically increase in 2009 vs. the period from 2000 to 2006. Just one problem -- according to the very heart of the Global Warming cabal, global temperatures were FLAT during this entire period and USA temperatures were dramatically DECREASING!

Click here and note that the CDC (in 2008) began to “include probable cases” in their statistics. The increase in confirmed cases since 1996 probably has more to do with better awareness and better reporting. Note also that confirmed cases dropped significantly in 2010.

Click here and see that Lyme disease is most prevalent in some of the coldest parts of our country. Lyme disease is very rare in the warmest parts of our country. Ticks thrive in humid locations. If you live near a big body of water, you’re at greater risk.

3) The myth that DDT “no longer is considered safe” (by rational people).

4) The myth that anthropogenic CO2 causes droughts.

Of course, in the same letter, they suggested that anthropogenic CO2 might also produce “torrential rains”. REALLY? Is there ANY evil in the entire universe which anthropogenic CO2 does NOT cause?

5) The red herring suggestion that “some oil now refined for domestic production will be diverted to the pipeline for export to more lucrative markets overseas.”

A) Oil is a global commodity. The fluctuations in the price we pay for gasoline is determined exclusively by the laws of supply and demand as primarily reflected in The World Oil Balance (which, in turn, can be affected by a variety of supply disruptions as well as surging demand). The simple truth is, the more oil that is placed on the global market, the LOWER the price we will pay at the pump.

B) Owing to environmental extremism, no new refineries have been built in the USA since 1976. So, lacking refining capacity, we HAVE to export our own oil, have it refined overseas and then IMPORT the refined gasoline. How STUPID is THAT?

6) The canard of the CIA studies (done at the request of Congressional Democrats) on climate change & national security.

First, perfectly natural climate change can create horrific disasters. Just imagine if we were living through Meltwater Pulse 1A. Or, imagine that we were living through the period when 1,000 feet of ice will (once again) sit on top of what is now New York City. Perfectly natural North African Climate Cycles could have security implications.

So, it is not unreasonable for the CIA to study the impacts which climate change might have upon national security. But, even the Leftists at NPR report these studies concluded that:

“efforts to reduce global warming by changing energy policies ‘may affect U.S. national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself.’”

7) The lunacy from James Hansen cited in this letter is crazy enough to warrant a future post all its own.

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

February, 2012 Update - Current USA Cooling Trend

Note: Warm biased NOAA data indicate the winter of 2012 was above average for the continental USA. But, globally, the winter of 2012 was well below average. USA cooling trends remain intact. Globally, trends remain flat (for 17 years now).

1) This post deals with USA temperatures.
2) Click here to address global temperature trends.
3) Click here to reproduce each NOAA graph below.
4) Note the warming bias (about 30%) in NOAA data.

30 Year USA Cooling Trend for February.
12 of the last 30 years were BELOW 20th century avg.
Click the image to enlarge it:

20 Year Dramatic USA Cooling Trend for February.
8 of the last 20 years were BELOW 20th century avg.
Click the image to enlarge it:

20 Year USA Winter COOLING Trend!
Click the image to enlarge it:

13 Years of USA Annualized RAPID COOLING!
Click the image to enlarge it:

Please! Tell me again who thinks it is a good idea to utterly waste $45 TRILLION in order to pretend we can micromanage climate change. Kyoto has already PROVEN that we can waste all the money we want and we will not even come CLOSE to changing the global temperature in any way which could even be measured.

Furthermore, history tells us that the estimate of $45 TRILLION would balloon into at LEAST a full order of magnitude above that figure.

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Blaming Speculators for Oil Prices is a Bald Faced LIE!

Dims (in D.C. AND in the media) are -- once again -- falsely blaming so-called “speculators” (aka futures traders) for the price of gasoline (which runs in lockstep with the price of oil).

They are doing so in order to deflect attention away from the FACT that they are responsible by virtue of their decades long policy of curtailing oil supplies.

It is a quantitative FACT that the global price spikes of 2008 could have been entirely prevented (world-wide) by ANWR alone. Today is no different.

Click here and see Table 1 on page 53 documenting global demand and global supply for 2008 through 2011. The FACT is that global demand exceeded global supply in EVERY QUARTER of 2010 and 2011. That sets off a bidding war wherein somebody does not get the oil they want and everybody else pays a higher price than they would like to.

The FACT is that so-called “speculators” help to contain price volatility in situations such as this.

These LYING BASTARDS are (as always) pissing in your boot and telling you it’s raining!

Daylight - The Story of Obama and Israel

Anybody see Obama address AIPAC this morning? I did -- start to finish. After three years of throwing Israel under the bus, Obama is now -- in an election year -- hoping to deceive Jewish-Americans into reelecting him. That was the ONLY motivation for today’s hideously dishonest speech.

At the end of his speech, Obama encouraged us all to judge him by his actions towards Israel. Fine, let’s do exactly that.

Take 30 minutes & examine Obama’s REAL record:

Click here for compelling commentary.

Is Sandra Fluke a Bald Faced Liar?

Sandra Fluke is the law student selected by Nancy Pelosi to plead the case for why contraception should be “free”.

In her testimony, the hapless Ms. Fluke laughably suggested that:

“Without insurance coverage, contraception can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school”

But, in 2007, The New York Times reported that:

“Wal-Mart… said it would also sell a month’s supply of two popular birth control medications and a fertility drug for $9 each”

This week, The Weekly Standard reported that:

“According to an employee at the pharmacy in Washington, D.C.'s Target store, the pharmacy sells birth control pills--the generic versions of Ortho Tri-Cyclen and Ortho-Cyclen--for $9 per month”

In the United States, law school:

“typically lasts three years”

So, $9 per month x 36 months = $324 -- almost a full order of magnitude less than Ms. Fluke seemingly alleges.

Of course, I suppose a student as erudite as Ms. Fluke might take 30 years, rather than 3 years, to finish law school. In that case, her birth control bill might climb above $3,000. Or, if she sought out the very most expensive options for birth control, maybe she could find somebody eager to charge her 10 times the going rate.

But, no matter what the cost, the assertion that birth control should be provided by health insurance for “free” is absurd on its face. First, pregnancy is not a disease. So, why should health insurance cover it at all? Second, this “free” nonsense is just the latest salvo in the deluge of non-stop entitlements -- entitlements which are already certain to utterly collapse every pillar of Western Civilization.

But, in the “mind” of a Dim, there can never be too many entitlements (or too little Western Civilization).

Geez!
What’s Next?
Free French Fries?
Nope -- Free Cough Drops!

Global Temps Below Normal for February, 2012

NASA Satellite Data for February, 2012.
Click the image & view the source:

Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Barack Hussein Obama is a Bald Faced LIAR!

Obama is -- once again -- trotting out the same tired old LIE which the Dims have relied upon for DECADES. They claim the USA has only 2% (or 3%) of the global oil reserves.

Click here and see Gerri Willis debunk that LIE.

Click the image &
examine our VAST domestic resources:

Click here & expose more liars.

Obama - The Con Artist

Obama, starring in “The Con Artist”:

Click here for the rest of the story.

Coming Soon to a City Near You

As the welfare state entitlement fantasies continue to collapse across all of Western Civilization, the nightmare described below will become the norm (across all of Western Civilization).

Athens and Oakland are just the prelude to the prologue for what’s to come.

Be prepared! It’s going to get far uglier than this.

Quoting Debra J. Saunders
at The San Francisco Chronicle:

“It's copacetic when Occupy [Oakland] is violent. Its website has announced that certain protests would be ‘militant’ and those who ‘identify as peaceful’ may want to stay home. Occupiers describe their mix of peaceful and hostile protests as a ‘diversity of tactics’ - which is doublespeak for violent anarchists hiding behind clueless lefties…

It's asymmetrical warfare…

The future of Oakland then will be Phil Tagami. On Nov. 2, as masked vandals ran through Oakland setting fires and vandalizing property, the developer and active Democrat stood with a shotgun to keep the rioters from breaking into Oakland's iconic Rotunda building…

And unlike Oakland City Hall, Tagami is free to defend himself [for now].”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here for more Occupy insanity.

The Promise That Became A Punch Line

At 0:13 in the video we hear Obama promise his so-called "stimulus" package will create "three to four million jobs".

By Obama's own metrics, we have seen (over a THREE YEAR PERIOD) a net LOSS of 549,000 jobs since this so-called "stimulus" bill was passed.

EPIC FAIL!

Empty promises, failed programs,
unprecedented debts and deficits:

Click here for more.

CNN - Americans Oppose Obama's Contraception Mandate

According to CNN and many other pollsters, Americans oppose Obama’s contraception mandate by wide margins.

But, as bad as the contraceptive mandate is, it pales in comparison to what’s coming (if the Supreme Court fails to overturn ObamaCare).

ObamaCare (hopefully, soon to be found utterly unconstitutional) is the source of the even more brazenly unconstitutional contraception mandate.

As of 2/5/12, the RealClearPolitics average of polling data shows ObamaCare itself is even more unpopular than the contraception mandate.

What was it the wicked witch of the west said?
Oh, yeah, I remember now:

Yeah, seems Americans don’t like what they’re finding.
I damn sure don’t.

American voters -- let this be a lesson!
Do NOT give Obama a second term!
Vote the Dims OUT of Congress!

Politics Made Simple

Anytime you hear a politician say “free” or “affordable”, you can be absolutely certain that politician is promising to accelerate the pace of our inexorable collapse.

Greenland was significantly warmer over the last 4,000 years

Quoting peer reviewed science
from Kobashi, et al. 2011:

“The current decadal average surface temperature (2001–2010) at the GISP2 site is −29.9°C. The record indicates that warmer temperatures were the norm in the earlier part of the past 4000 years, including century-long intervals nearly 1°C warmer than the present decade (2001–2010). Therefore, we conclude that the current decadal mean temperature in Greenland has not exceeded the envelope of natural variability over the past 4000 years”

Click the image (from the paper) to enlarge it:

Click here for the abstract.
Click here to see why climate models are a joke.
Click here to further debunk Greenland ice melt hysteria.
Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Immaculate Contraception

When I saw The Dim Messiah announce this on TV this morning, I was half inclined to believe it was a parody. Only Obama could announce something so profoundly dishonest and still keep a straight face.

Quoting The Wall Street Journal
(emphasis is mine, I inserted the link):

“The government will now write a rule that says the best things in life are ‘free,’ including contraception…

The reality, as with all mandated benefits, is that these costs will be borne eventually via higher premiums…

Who was it again who claimed that if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan?”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here to learn more.