Solyndra Thieves Plead the Fifth

Quoting Politico:

“Solyndra executives repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment this morning as House lawmakers pressed them to answer questions about the company's financial collapse and any hopes of repaying their $535 million federal loan guarantee.

‘While I hope to have an opportunity to assist this committee in the future, on the advice of my attorney, I must respectfully decline to answer any questions,’ Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison told Energy and Commerce oversight subpanel Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who opened the questioning.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here for the previous Solyndra post (Obama blames Bush).

How do you steal $535 million from taxpayers & get away with it?
Plead the fifth!
I wonder how much of that $535 million went right back to Obama.
Government should NEVER subsidize ANY business! PERIOD!

Rare Earth Elements Spell Doom for Green Fantasies

Green fantasy products such as CFL Bulbs, wind turbines and electric cars all depend upon an extremely limited supply of rare earth elements -- 95% of which are mined exclusively in China.

The great irony is that the only thing LESS “sustainable” than these Green fantasy products is the Entitlement Mentality (both of which are central to the mythology of the so-called “Progressive” religious cult).

In August of 2009, The Telegraph warned us the Chinese were planning to shutoff the supply of these rare earth elements. The same report noted that:

“Each Toyota Prius uses 25 pounds of rare earth elements.”

Yesterday, The New York Times reported that:

“By closing or nationalizing dozens of the producers of rare earth metals — which are used in energy-efficient bulbs and many other green-energy products — China is temporarily shutting down most of the industry and crimping the global supply of the vital resources…

General Electric, facing complaints in the United States about rising prices for its compact fluorescent bulbs, recently noted in a statement that if the rate of inflation over the last 12 months on the rare earth element europium oxide had been applied to a $2 cup of coffee, that coffee would now cost $24.55.

A pack of three 11-watt G.E. compact fluorescent bulbs — each the lighting equivalent of a 40-watt incandescent bulb — was priced on Thursday at $15.88 on Wal-Mart’s Web site for pickup in a Nashville, Ark., store. The average price for fluorescent bulbs has risen 37 percent this year, according to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.”

Steve Milloy suggests (I inserted the link):

“If you haven’t already said your morning curses, don’t forget to condemn the 110th [Democrat controlled] Congress for passing the incandescent bulb ban, George W. Bush for signing it, and the the 111th [Democrat controlled] and 112th [divided] Congresses and Barack Obama for failing to reverse the ban.”

Nice work, Dims! You’ve made a bad recession MUCH worse. In the process, you’ve racked up unprecedented debt. You’ve robbed us blind with your crony capitalism and your Chicago style gangster government.

Now, through force of law, you’ve put the price of lighting our homes out of reach!

What’s next? More of the same devastation? Not for long (I hope).

Click here for more on the “sustainability” fraud.

Obama Administration Blames Bush for Solyndra

$535 MILLION stolen from taxpayers.
Predictably, the Obama administration blames Bush.
Need I mention that the “blame Bush” meme is a LIE?

Government should NEVER subsidize ANY business!
It is a prescription for corruption on a grand scale.

Media Silent on 'Green' Jobs Failures

Quoting Julia A. Seymour
at Business and Media Institute:

“While campaigning President Obama promised to create 5 million ‘green’ jobs, and shortly into his term he announced a ‘task force’ to do just that. His stimulus package included tax credits for renewable energy companies, allotted funds for weatherization and more. Now with the economy once again on shaky ground the President may pivot back to jobs in September, specifically of the ‘green’ variety.

More than two years later after those initiatives began, the results are dismal. In fact a number of the very companies the Obama administration touted as future job creators have gone bankrupt or had to lay off employees instead. But you won't hear about this from ABC, CBS and NBC very often.”

Click the image & read the rest:

This was entirely predictable!

The best thing government could do to promote so-called “Green” jobs is to get the hell out of the way.

Government subsidies and mandates (of any sort) ONLY serve to subsidize and mandate FAILURE! It shields the industry (or the entitlement baby) from the rigors of real world competition. It demotivates the industry (or the individual) from doing what is necessary to make their product (or their skill set) competitive.

Of course, in the REAL world, the so-called “Green” industry would first have to come to terms with the fact that so-called “Green” energy is not actually “Green” and so-called “Green” automobiles are even less “sustainable” than the entitlement mentality.

But, so-called “Progressives” NEVER venture into the real world. They prefer their fantasy world where Keynesian economics is not the dismal failure which both FDR and Obama have PROVEN it to be.

Now, about all that climate change hysteria-mongering:
Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here to debunk the hysteria topic by topic.

Dims Dictate Light Bulbs & Kill MORE Jobs

Quoting The Kansas City Star (7/12/11):

“It looks like lights out for old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.

The Republican-controlled House voted 233-193 on Tuesday for the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act, which would have repealed higher energy-efficiency standards for bulbs. But the measure needed a two-thirds majority to pass.

House Republicans can still try to adopt the measure under different procedures requiring only a simple majority, but it’s unlikely it would get through the Democratic-controlled Senate.”

Quoting The Washington Post (9/8/2010):

“The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month…

The remaining 200 workers at the plant here will lose their jobs…

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014….

Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China…

none of the major brands make CFLs in the United States.”

Nice work, Dims!
Are you freaking morons TRYING to kill USA jobs?

Going Green Will Cost $76 Trillion

Quoting Fox News:

“Two years ago, U.N. researchers were claiming that it would cost ‘as much as $600 billion a year over the next decade’ to go green. Now, a new U.N. report has more than tripled that number to $1.9 trillion per year for 40 years.

So let's do the math: That works out to a grand total of $76 trillion, over 40 years -- or more than five times the entire Gross Domestic Product of the United States ($14.66 trillion a year).”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here for the entire report calling for “global governance”.

The real cost will be at least an order of magnitude higher.
And, just like Kyoto, will have NO IMPACT on the climate!

It is high time the USA STOPPED funding the United Nations!

Will Light Bulb Liberties be Restored?

Quoting Caroline May
at The Daily Caller
(I inserted the link):

“Monday, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 2417, the Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act, a bill to repeal the federal ban on the incandescent light bulb”

Click the image & read the rest:

Renewable Energy Sources are Not Green

Quoting Geoffrey Luck
at Quadrant Online:

“Renewables are not green. That’s the view of one of the pioneers of climate science politics. Jesse Ausubel, Senior Research Associate in The Rockefeller University’s Program for the Human Environment, helped organise the first UN World Climate Conference in Geneva in 1979…

Ausubel sees methane (natural gas) as the obvious intermediate step towards a hydrogen future. Compared with wind, it’s a no-brainer…

Ausubel believes the world should be fully converted to a hydrogen economy by 2100…

‘We live in an era of mass delusion about solar and other renewables,’ he says, ‘which will become an embarrassing collection of stranded assets.’ And adds, again mischievously: ‘A deluded crowd believes in wind, as earlier crowds believed in witches and sub-prime mortgages.’ ”

Click the image & read the rest:

1) EIA data confirm that (nationwide) natural gas today produces 24% more kwh per unit burned than 10 years ago. Greater efficiencies will continue to be realized as more modern plants are constructed.
2) An EIA report indicates that:
“adding the identified shale gas resources to other gas resources increases total world technically recoverable gas resources by over 40 percent to 22,600 trillion cubic feet”
3) Click here for more on natural gas fracking.
4) Click here and examine the Ethanol debacle.
5) Click here for more on wind power follies.
6) Click here for more on solar power follies.
7) Click here for more on drilling restriction follies.
8) Click here for more on the current unsustainability of electric cars.

Congress to NASA - Study Space, Not Climate

Quoting Art Horn at Climate Realists
(emphais mine):

“Members of Congress are asking something novel of NASA: to actually study space, not global warming…

In budget year 2010, NASA spent 7.5% of its funding — over $1B — to study global warming. On top of that — the vast majority of federal stimulus money given to NASA in 2010 was spent on studying global warming.

As a whole, the U.S. federal government has spent $8.7 billion dollars on global warming studies — just in the past year! Many of the sixteen separate agencies doing this work were performing redundant research. In a time of federal spending cuts that are sure to come, much of this redundancy certainly can and must be eliminated, saving taxpayers billions. Certainly NASA should be one of the first to see funding drastically cut, or eliminated entirely, in this area.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here to enlarge the image.
Click here for more posts on climate money.

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

Climate Money

Quoting Joanne Nova
(I inserted the link):

“The US government has spent over $79 billion since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, education campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks.

Despite the billions: ‘audits’ of the science are left to unpaid volunteers. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of the theory and compete with a well funded highly organized climate monopoly. They have exposed major errors.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Professor Carter says $100 billion has been spent (worldwide) on climate research alone.
The IEA estimates $45 TRILLION will be spent to micromanage climate.
But, the cost/benefit ratio would undoubtedly be no better than the Kyoto disaster.
Recent research calls into question the “benefit” of cooler temperatures.

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

Big Green Bandits

As always, follow the money.
Click the image & watch the video:

H/T to ChrisA in the People’s Republic of Boulder.

Click here & examine Al Gore’s Cash Cow.
Click here for some basic climate change science.
Click here & debunk climate hysteria topic by topic.

$541,184 in Obama Stimulus to ClimateGate [Political] Scientist

1/20/10 Update:
Make that $2.4 MILLION in kickbacks to Mr. Mann.
Is there still MORE we don’t know about?
Stimulus, my ASS!

Quoting The National Center For Public Policy Research:

“In the face of rising unemployment and record-breaking deficits, policy experts at the National Center for Public Policy Research are criticizing the Obama Administration for awarding a half million dollar grant from the economic stimulus package to Penn State Professor Michael Mann, a key figure in the Climategate controversy…

‘This misuse of stimulus money illustrates why tax cuts are a better way to stimulate the economy than letting the government decide where to spend taxpayer dollars. As is often the case, political considerations corrupt the distribution of government funds,’ said Deneen Borelli, a fellow with the National Center's Project 21 black leadership network.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Click here for more commentary.
Click here to expose Mann’s “Hockey Stick” fraud.
Click here for some basic climate change science.