China isn’t going to let a bunch of stuffy Eurocrats stifle its economic progress. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, “China has banned its airlines from paying charges on carbon emissions imposed by the European Union, state media reported Monday.

“The charges that took effect last month are aimed at curbing emissions of climate-changing gases but airlines say they are an improper tax. Dozens of countries including the United States, China and Russia oppose them.

“The official Xinhua news agency quoted the Civil Aviation Administration of China as saying the airlines are not allowed to pay the tax or add other fees without government permission.

“The ratings agency Fitch warned in December that the conflict could spiral into a global trade dispute.”

Great. So the global-warming fanatics could launch a global trade war, such as the one that sank the global economy in the 1930s Great Depression. But the enviro-crazies would like that because the population might drop, thus reducing greenhouse gases and allowing them to frolic in the new Garden of Eden they want to create once everybody else on the planet has vanished, like that “Twilight Zone” episode where Burgess Meredith is the only man left on earth, “Time Enough at Last.”

But the Chinese aren’t buying any of it.

The Middle Kingdom still has about one third of its population impoverished on farms; it’s moving them into the full-blown industrial economy.

The Chinese have enjoyed capitalist industrial progress for only 34 years, since they dumped Maoism in 1978.  By contrast, Europe has enjoyed capitalist industrial progress since around 1790 in England, then the rest of the continent in the 19th Century. The United States has prospered under capitalism since about 1800.

The Chinese figure: The West didn’t worry about pollution and global warming until they were prosperous. Why should we? Besides, maybe global warming is a fraud.

So the Chinese are bucking the EU. And if California imposes its nutty new carbon-credit schemes on China, the Chinese will rebuff them. The Chinese, of course, will be happy to sell California the technology for us to comply with the enviro-edicts.

And unlike the EU, USA and California, China is a creditor nation, not a debtor. It lends money to the deadbeats. That gives it long-term leverage.

California’s fantasy — enshrined in AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 — is that we are the fulcrum of the world. We’re not. We’re just 2 percent of the global economy. So reducing greenhouse gases by 25 percent by 2020, as mandated by AB 32, would reduce global greenhouse gases by 0.5 percent.  That’s nothing.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are laughing as we adopt an environmental version of the Maoism they sloughed off long ago.

Feb. 7, 2012

I’d rather walk that drive a hybrid car. After bourbon, the internal combustion engine is mankind’s greatest invention. All talk of oil “shortages” and too much “pollution” is just socialist blather used to destroy our freedoms.

But some folks like hybrids. Soon they could be paying a lot more for them thanks to a nutty decision in a California court. Reported the Huffington Post, Heather Peters, on Feb. 2 won “a court decision awarding her $9,867 and finding Honda misled her into thinking her Hybrid could get 50 miles per gallon. She said the 2006 model, which she still owns, gets about 30 mpg.

“Peters’ win in small claims court was a unique end run around the class action process and set the stage for others to follow suit. She sees her victory as benefiting not just Honda owners but all consumers.”

But as was noted by auto journalist Eric Peters (no relation to Heather), Honda and other automakers don’t establish the fuel ratings, the federal government does! Didn’t Heather and the California court know that?

Oh, wait, I forgot. This is California, where dreams are reality, common sense is uncommon and our governor is named Moonbeam.

Lawsuits Galore

Eric Peters writes, “Because while [Heather] Peters’ $9k judgment is small potatoes, the fact that she succeeded could encourage a tsunami of similar court cases that might end up costing Honda (and potentially other hybrid car sellers and so, ultimately, consumers ) a lot more than $9k.

“As Peters (a lawyer) notes, there are at least 200,000 Honda Civic hybrid owners alone. That’s just one make/model of hybrid. There are at least a dozen different hybrid vehicles on the market — and theoretically, the same case could be made against them, too….

“The government (EPA) takes a new car, then runs it through its test loop. Mileage figures are posted on the window sticker based on these tests, which are by nature subjective. Hence the caveat, in plain standard English: Your mileage will vary. Note, not may.

“Will.

“The exact wording is as follows:

“ ‘Your actual mileage will vary depending on how you drive and maintain your vehicle  (italics added).’

“And just under the big ‘best case’ mileage numbers, in smaller type, one finds a range of ‘expected mileage.’ As an example, this week I am test driving a new Fiat 500C. The ‘best case’ number is 32 MPG highway. But underneath this is a range of ‘expected mileage’ between a low of 26 MPG and an even higher high of 38 MPG.

“In other words, your mileage will vary.”

Attacking Honda

According to the Huffington Post, “But Professor Laurie Levenson of Loyola University Law School said Honda may have suffered something much worse than a possible flood of small claims actions.

“‘The worst part for Honda is they’ve been branded as committing fraud’,” she said. “That’s not good for sales. It’s a P.R. disaster and sometimes that costs more than the judgment.”

But it was the federal government that committed the fraud by establishing the Honda’s fuel usage ratings.

And how do we know how Heather Peters drove the car? To do that, you’d have to put a camera behind her head and record how heavy her high heels were stomping down on the accelerator.

Eric Peters again: “Unfortunately for Honda — and potentially every other seller of hybrid cars and perhaps cars, period —  there are a lot of people out there who cannot read and comprehend the meaning of plain English and worse, assume everything the government tells them must be true, since it’s the government that’s telling it to them. Thus, they become angry when reality disabuses them — but unfortunately, they channel their anger toward the wrong party.

“Here is the truth about the Civic hybrid — and all hybrids:

“If you drive it very gingerly, if you keep it under 50 MPH and accelerate very gradually, it is entirely possible to realize the federal government’s publicized ‘high’ MPG figures — and even to exceed them. The problem, of course, is that it is difficult to drive this way if you ever want to get anywhere — and/or have any concern about not driving your fellow drivers to fury by impeding their progress.

“There is also the problem of conditions. They, too, vary.

“A Civic hybrid that does not have to ascend 8 percent grades every day, which is not driven at high altitudes (where the air is thinner) or for months on end in 20 degree weather is going to be easier on gas than a hybrid Civic that is subjected to any one of these conditions, or to all of them. And if, say, you run around on under-inflated tires, or need of a tune-up, then once again, your actual mileage will vary. 

“So, arguably, Peters’ lawsuit was fundamentally wrongheaded — and the judgment, unjust. The court did not even try to determine how she actually drove her car, even though it is a critical piece of evidence. The only question considered was whether her car delivered the advertised mileage – notwithstanding the bold-faced caveat that the advertised mileage is for ‘comparison purposes only’ and that (wait for it) your actual mileage will vary.”

So the whole hybrid thing is another fraud the government has perpetrated upon us. And it’s just going to get worse, thanks to federal regulators and the unjust California “justice” system.

Feb. 3, 2012

What economic recovery?

Of the Top 10 worst cities for unemployment in the United States, eight were in California:

El Centro, Calif. 26.8 percent unemployed
Yuma, Ariz. 23.1
Merced, Calif. 18.7
Yuba City, Calif. 18.1
Visalia-Porterville, Calif. 16.2
Fresno, Calif. 16.2
Modesto, Calif. 16.1
Stockton, Calif. 15.9
Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. 15.3
Ocean City, N.J. 15.1

How depressing. Gov. Jerry Brown keeps yapping about raising our taxes and building a Moonbeam-worthy bullet train to nowhere. Meanwhile, back here on earth — specifically, Taxifornia — our people are suffering from among the highest tax rates, and definitely the most constricting regulations and worst government among the 50 states.

Here are the cities with the least unemployment:

Bismarck, N.D. 3.2 percent unemployed
Lincoln, Neb. 3.6
Fargo, N.D. 3.7
Burlington, Vt. 3.8
Logan, Utah 3.9
Midland, Texas 3.9
Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, La. 4.3
Sioux Falls, S.D. 4.3
Ames, Iowa 4.3
Iowa City, Iowa 4.3

All of those are in relatively low-tax states. Sure, North Dakota is enjoying a petroleum-based boom. But California could, as well, if our enviro-crazies would let us drill more, especially offshore.

But we’re too good for that. “Dirty” jobs in mining and manufacturing are evil, especially in the above cities with the worst employment rates. We only want nice, clean jobs like those in Silicon Valley. If you’re not a millionaire at Facebook, or Apple, or Google, then get lost. Or stay here and go on employment and welfare, and get an EBT card.

– Feb. 1, 2012

In California, everything is upside down.

On Friday, the California Air Resources Board clicked its jackboots and ordered one in seven Calfornia cars to be “ultra clean” by 2025. That means “battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles.”

It’s supposed to cut the greenhouse gases that supposedly cause global warming.

CARB Commissar Mary Nichols explained, “Today’s vote … represents a new chapter for clean cars in California and in the nation as a whole.” Of course, there was no vote by the people of California. They never would have done so. The vote was by the CARB Politburo.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the real threat is global cooling, which has occurred every several hundred years in recent earth history. Reported the Daily Mail Sunday, “The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

“The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

“Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.”

Global “warming” is supposed to be caused by industrialization. Yet the past 15 years, 1997-2012, has been the most intense era of industrialization in history. China, India, Brazil and Russia have advanced by leaps and bounds as they put way behind them their socialist pasts. They want the good life capitalism brings through industrialization, and they don’t care about Mary Nichols, CARB, Gov. Moonbeam, Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Obama, Al Gore or any of the Western Luddites obsessed with global “warming” during a time of global cooling.

‘Cold Summers’

The Daily Mail continued: “Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

“Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.

“We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

“Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.”

Here in Southern California, we’ve been enjoying balmy weather, with temperatures around 80 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days. 

I’m enjoying it now. Because in  couple of years I’ll be wearing a parka in July. While Mary Nichols and Jerry Brown force me into a fire-hazard Government Motors Chevy Volt car I can’t afford — all to combat global “warming” that’s really cooling. 

Jan. 30, 2012

In the government’s obsessive project to treat us all like prison inmates, it has destroyed the great cars America once produced. Except for pollution controls — which were done stupidly anyway — all government controls on cars amount to tyranny.

If I want to drive in a dangerous car, what business is it of theirs?

It’s especially idiotic because the government lets people ride on motorcycles. Even with a helmet, bike riders are completely unprotected in an accident. By contrast, even someone in an old 1960s rust-bucket, before many modern safety devices were imposed, is far better protected.

Then there’s the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that the oppressor Obama raised to 35 mpg. Hey, if I want to buy a huge gas-guzzling dinosaur V-8 and pour gas into it at 8 mpg, that’s my business.

The whole “oil shortage” is a lot of slick government hucksterism. There never was an “energy crisis” in the 1970s. What happened was that the crook Nixon took us off the gold standard in 1971. The unconstitutional inflationists at the Federal Reserve Board then debased the dollar, driving up the price of everything, including gas.

Gas Price DROPPED

I remember when I first got my license in 1971 when I was 16 the price of a gallon of gas in Detroit was 31 cents. The price of gold, before Tricky Dick’s thievery, was $35 an ounce.

Today, the gold price is $1,658 an ounce. So, that’s 47 times as much as in 1971.

However, gas today now is $3.53 a gallon. That’s only 11 times as much as the 31 cents of 1971.

If gas had risen along with the price of gold, it would cost $17 a gallon. But capitalism has actually improved production and refining methods, so the real price has dropped to a fraction of what it was.

There is no gas crisis. There is no oil crisis. There is only a government crisis.

Enviro-extremists like Obama, Al Gore, Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown are intent on controlling, and ruining, our lives. They want to shove us out of our cars and into mass transit and high-rises.

We need to resist. Except for exhaust regulations — which affect the air everybody breathes — all auto regulations should be abolished.

Then we’ll get great cars again like this 1967 Shelby GT500E Super Snake Eleanor. Listen to that engine roar when she peels out!

.

Jan. 21, 2012

Sometimes you win one. This week, the Good Guys won a Big One.

Hollywood’s attempt to censor the Internet went down in flames like a Luftwaffe jet fighter shot down by the American “Red Tails” in the new movie of that name.

Hollywood lobbyists pushed cash and legislation on Congress. The bills were the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act in the Senate. They should have been called the “Censor Everybody to Help Hollywood Acts.”

On Wednesday, Wikipedia went “black.” You couldn’t use it. There only was a screen showing you how to contact your representative or senator. Tens of thousands of people did so. Google, Facebook and other sites also protested.

Now, the bills have been “put on hold.”

To quote Hollywood icon Jackie Gleason, “How sweet it is!”

The New York Times ran a decent article explaining why Silicon Valley shot down Hollywood. Basically, Hollywood is a static industry. It makes movies, TV shows and recordings. It sends its “product” out to movie theaters, record stores and TV stations. It doesn’t get much feedback.

The main feedback Hollywood gets is people not going to see its crummy movies so much.

By contrast, the New Media get copious instant feedback. You can respond, right now, to my article below. After I post it to Facebook, you can respond there.

So when the New Media sent out pleas to demand that Congress drop the censorship bills, Congress actually responded. Amazing! Democracy in Action!

Feedback

The Times: “And for all the campaign contributions, Washington parties and high-priced lobbyists the old economy could muster, nothing could compare to the tentacles the new economy can reach into Americans’ everyday lives through sites like Wikipedia. Aides to Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, say he will press forward with a vote Tuesday to open debate on the Protect I.P. bill. Negotiators from both parties are scrambling for new language that could assuage the concerns of the Internet community, but expectations are that the bill will now fail to get the 60 votes to move forward — a significant setback.”

Note the “both parties.” This was a bipartisan censorship scam. Didn’t Republicans win the control of the House, and make major gains in the Senate, in November 2010 by promising us more freedom? Just more campaign lies, obviously. Like most Democrats in Congress, they were bought off by Hollywood.

But they ignored the power of the people, using the New Media, to fight for freedom.

This also shows how Congress remains out of touch with the people it claims to represent.

And it shows that the only way we’re going to regain our freedom is to take it back ourselves.

Jan. 20, 2012

People keep fleeing repressive California — with its hereditary Dear Leader, Kim Jong Brown — for the free state of Texas. One of the latest was Chuck DeVore, formerly a California assemblyman and candidate for the U.S. Senate. He also held jobs in the private sector and paid taxes. And he is retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. Just the sort of person you would want to stay here.

He just wrote on Facebook: “California’s high taxes and burdensome regulations inadvertently create another Texan — and, Texas veterans’ plates cost no more than regular plates, in California, they’re $30 per year.”

And he put up this picture. Lucky guy.

Jan. 18, 2012

Even though it’s advertised as a health measure, smoking bans actually are Politically Correct posturing. They say, “I’m better than you. You’re a working-class schlub for smoking. I’m an elitist, over-educated, Politically Correct snob. Stop enjoying yourself.”

You can see this in the University of California’s new ban on smoking tobacco — not just inside government buildings, but everywhere on campus grounds. The tobacco prohibition was announced by UC President Mark G. Yudof, who looks like he could use a couple of drags on a coffin nail to calm himself down, just like President Obama does.

“Offering a smoke-free environment will contribute positively to the health and well-being of all UC students, faculty, staff and our patients and visitors,” he wrote in a letter.

Looks like it’s back to smokin’ in the boys’ room — although no doubt they’ll install spy cameras and smoke detectors to sniff out offenders.

Yudof said the ban advances UC’s self-image as “a national leader in healthcare and environmental practices.” But does anybody over the age of six months old not know that smoking has some hazards? We’ve all been indoctrinated to that effect. I remember giving a little speech against smoking in my seventh-grade English class back at Benjamin Franklin Junior High School in Michigan so long ago as 1968. That’s 45 years.

And we’re talking university kids here.

Reported the Los Angeles Times, “In the letter, he wrote that smoke-free means prohibiting not just cigarettes but also smokeless tobacco products and unregulated nicotine products, in both indoor and outdoor spaces — including parking lots and residence halls. The sale and advertising of tobacco products will also be blocked, he said.”

Which means everything will just go underground.

And how about that other substance, marijuana? It’s already illegal, although the fine for just smoking the wacky tobacky is just $100 in California. And you know kids have been ignoring that. And what about medical marijuana?

It’s also ironic that the hippy protest generation that smoked and toked its way through college 40 years ago now is imposing these PC thought and smoking bans now that it runs things. Ironic and hypocritical.

When officious officials ban something outright, usually kids do the opposite. So I see this in a positive light. It’s another imposition by a P.C. administration that will produce rebellion in youngsters.

Kids need to question the cultural Marxism imposed in almost all humanities courses today, and the health Marxism behind the smoking ban.

Kids, it’s time to revolt and overturn the Establishment.

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

JAN. 13, 2011

New research proves global warming a fake. If this state had any sense, it would repeal Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. It forces the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which supposedly cause global warming, by 25 percent by 2020. Thus severely damaging the economy.

Fred Singer is a notable climate and environmental scientist. Curriculum vitae here. He writes in a new article:

“In discussing the recent release of some 5,000 Climategate e-mails, blogger Anthony Watts uses the clever headline “They are real—and they’re spectacular.” He credits Jerry Seinfeld as the source. Following his example, I choose the headline “Fake! Fake! Fake! Fake!”—also taken from a Seinfeld episode—in discussing the surface temperatures generally reported for the latter part of the 20th century; they form the science basis for prosperity-killing international climate policy.

“Here I am using the word “fake” as an adjective, and not as a verb. I mean to say that the scientific conclusions derived from such temperatures are not real, but I don’t imply that the values themselves have been purposefully altered or adjusted. We simply don’t have any information to support such an accusation.

“But I do claim that the commonly reported and accepted warming between 1978 and 2000 is based only on thermometers from land surface stations and is not supported by any other evidence that I could find. Specifically, ocean data (from 71% of the earth’s surface) and global atmospheric data (as recorded by satellites and independent balloon-borne radiosondes) do not show such a warming at all. In addition, most proxy data, from non-thermometer sources such as tree rings, ocean sediments, ice cores, stalagmites, etc., show no warming during this same crucial period. (One has to be careful in this analysis since the year 1998 shows a major warming spike caused by a Super-El Niño. But by 1999 and 2000, temperatures had returned to pre-1998 values.)

“Now, I am well aware of the fact that the recent release of the temperature data from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project does show a warming trend from 1978 to 2000. Many would jump to the conclusion that this represents confirmation of the existence of global warming—or even of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). However, that would be an error in logic.

“What the BEST result shows is that surface thermometers from the land area of the globe (about 29% of the earth’s surface) show a warming trend. But this is not global warming. And BEST director Professor Rich Muller explicitly disclaims that his trend results indicate a human cause.

“He also correctly points out that many of the weather stations used are badly distributed, mostly in the U.S. and western Europe, and possibly subject to local heating effects, such as urban heat islands. He cautions that a third of his monitoring stations show a cooling, not a warming. And that 70% of the U.S. stations are poorly situated and don’t satisfy the requirements of the U.S. Weather Service. It is likely that stations elsewhere have similar problems….

“As is evident from the Climategate e-mails, a small group of scientists, mainly in the U.K. and U.S., have managed to freeze out contrary evidence from being published in the scientific literature or in IPCC reports. The self-described “Team” members brazenly discuss strategies and action plans to further “The Cause.” Unfortunately, they have largely succeeded—and continue to influence publications, thanks to some key journalists and editors. In consequence of this evident conspiracy, it is hardly surprising that politicians, the media, and the general public are receiving entirely wrong information about supposedly catastrophic effects of a future warming.

“The just-concluded Durban conference, the 17th in an annual series, demonstrates clearly that the whole discussion is no longer about science, but instead is all about money. (1) How to assure continuing government careers for nearly 200 delegations, with annual vacations paid by taxpayers. (2) How to transfer $100 billion a year from industrialized nations to LDCs (or more precisely, to their kleptocratic rulers), using “climate justice” or “climate guilt” (depending on who is doing the talking). (3) How to gain a national advantage by setting differential emission limits of CO2—supposedly to keep the planet from reaching a “dangerous” level of warming.”

“Climate Guilt” — great phrase. That’s what Arnold and the other con artists pushed on us back in 2006. And that’s what Gov. Jerry Brown and today’s con artists continue to push on us.

But it’s all about them cashing in at our expense.

Singer:

“Within the United States, and also elsewhere, global warming scares have become a means of transferring taxpayer money to politically influential cronies. There is now so much “crony capitalism” that it would be difficult to reverse or even stop the ongoing subsidies, outright grants, tax breaks, and other transfers to privileged groups.

“Time is becoming short. We’re reaching a tipping point—not of the earth’s climate, but of the financial schemes that permanently divert funds from productive activities into wasteful ones, all in the name of “saving the climate.” The results are evident: higher levels of spending, deficits, or taxes; higher prices for energy and electricity and therefore for all manufactured goods; less productive activity; less employment; and more misery.

“It seems odd that all of this is essentially based on a fake—the data that seem to show a (nonexistent) warming. It will be difficult to overturn this notion, but we must keep trying.”

Yes, we must keep trying. Meanwhile, Arnold, Brown and the other Crony Capitalists will keep using the fake “global warming” scare to grift us.

– Jan. 9, 2012

I’ve been keeping tabs here on the hypocrisy of ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love of gigantic, gas-guzzling dinosaurs. Since leaving office, he’s been photographed tooling around in a Mercedes G-Wagon SUV, so big it needs an entire Persian Gulf  nation to supply it with fuel. The “G” stands for “gas guzzler.”

Yet he’s still giving speeches around the world urging everyone else to save on energy to prevent climate change, and last December even was named Renewable Energy Leader of the Decade!

Then there’s his Bentley, another gas-guzzling dinosaur, which he’s shown driving in the video below. Did the publicity surrounding that help Bentley goose sales by 37 percent in 2011? I think it obviously played a part in it. Arnold is the most visible Bentley driver in the world.

You know about those things if you can afford a car that costs more than $200,000.

Here’s Arnold, wasting gas and living that hypocritical life of the rich and famous, beginning at 1:15:

Jan. 9, 2012