Oh,,,,there's a bounce lined up right behind Mr.Buffett........

Quoted Text

"The State Science Institute," he said quietly., when they were alone in her office,"has issued a statement warning people against the use of Rearden Metal." He added,"It was on the radio. It's in the afternoon papers."
"What did they say?"
"Dagny, they didn't say it!...They haven't really said it,yet it's there-and it-isn't. That's what's monstrous about it."
His effort was focused on keeping his voice quiet; he could not control his words. The words were vorced out of him by th unbelieving, bewildered indignation of a child screaming in denial at his first encounter with evil.
"What did they say, Eddie?"
"They....You'd have to read it." He pointed to the newpaper he had left on her desk. "They haven't said that REarden Metal is bad. They haven't said that it's unsafe. What they've done in..." His hands spread and dropped in a gesture of futility.
She saw at a glance what they had done. She saw the sentences: "It may be possible that after a period of heavy usage, a sudden fissure may appear, though the length of this period cannot be unknown, cannot be entirely discounted....Although the tensile strenth of the metal is obviously demonstrable, certain questions in regard to its behavior under unusual stress are not to be ruled out....Although there is no evidence to support the contention that the use of the metal should be prohibited, a further study of its properties would be of  value."
"We can't fight it. It can't be answered," Eddie was saying slowly. "We cant demand a retraction. We can't show them our tests or prove anything.They've said nothing. They haven't said a thing that could be refuted and embarrass them professionally. It's the job of a coward. You'd expect it from some con-man or blackmailer. But, Dagny! It's the State Science Institute!"
She nodded silently. She stood, her eyes fixed on some point beyond the window. At the end of a dark street, the bulbs of an electric sign kept going on and off, as if winking at her maliciously.
Eddie gatherd his strength and said in the tone of a military report, "taggart stock has crashed. Ben Nealy quit. The National Brotherhood of Road and Track Workers has forbidden its members to work on the Rio Norte Line. Jim has left town."
She took her hat and coat off, walked across the room and slowly very deliberately sat down at her desk.
She noticed a large brown envelope lying before her; it bore the letterhead of Rearden Steel.
"That came by special messenger, right after you left," said Eddie. She put her hand on the envelope, but did not open it. She knew
what it was; the drawings of the bridge.
After a while, she asked, "who issued that statement?"
Eddie glanced at her and smiled briefly, bitterly, shaking his head. "No," he said."I thought of that, too. I called th Institue long-distance and asked them. No, it was issued by the office of Dr. Floyd Ferris, their co-ordinator."
She said nothing.
"But still! Dr.Stadler is the head of that Institute. He is the Institute. He must have known about it. He permitted it. If it's done, its' done in his name....Dr.Robert Stadler...Do you remember...when we were in college...how we used to talk about the great names in the world...the men of pure intellect... and we always chose his name as on of them, and-"He stopped."I'm sorry, Dagny. I know it's no use saying anything. Only-"
She sat, her hand pressed to the brown envelope.
"Dagny," he asked, his voice low, "what is happening to people? Why did that statement succeed?It's such and obvious smear-job, so obvious and so rotten. You'd think a decent person would throw it in the gutter. How could"-his voice ws breaking in gentle, desperate, rebellious anger-"how could they accept it? Didn't they read it? Didn't they see it? Dont they think? Dagny! What is it in people that lets them do this-and how can we live with it?"
"Quiet, Eddie," she said, "quiet. Dont be afraid."

the above is from:

ATLAS SHRUGGED

AUTHOR: AYN RAND

please read it......

the people need the protection and the leaders we have finally are DOING IT

  THANK YOU PEOPLE!

Quoted from 191

the people need the protection and the leaders we have finally are DOING IT

  THANK YOU PEOPLE!

Sal....is the rod up your back made out of Rearden Metal?
either you hold yourself up or you wait for the "Institutes" to hold you up.....and we are fickle.....

Quoted Text

Cap and Trade will destroy real estate ownership.

Among other provisions that control nearly every aspect of our lives, the Waxman-Markley energy bill has a requirement that forces the entire United States to use a National Building Code based on the green building standards of California. Regardless of whether your house is in Miami, Florida or Bangor, Maine, you'll have to adhere to the standards used in a state that has one of the most moderate climates in the U.S. The construction industry is really going to suffer.

The bill forces sellers to have an energy inspection prior to being able to sell their home. Windows, appliances and insulation will have to be inspected and approved by a government inspector and modifications would have to be made for compliance before you can close the sale.

Basically, you won't be able to sell until you go through the expense of bringing your house up to the new code. This will cost a prohibitive amount in many cases. For example, let's say that you own an older house which you bought in 2003 for $250,000 and you now need to sell. Not only has the value fallen to or below the level of the mortgage due the the drop in prices, but you are now faced with re-insulating the entire house, installing new windows, and changing the HVAC & other appliances. The total cost for this type of renovation might easily come to well over 10% of the house's value.

It begins to look as if defaulting on the mortgage might become even more common. The real tradegy is that low income families are more likely to live in older houses which won't meet the new standards and which will require major upgrades. I thought that we weren't going to see any new taxes on people who make less than $250,000. What a cruel joke!

If you want to sell, you'd better do it now, just in case the administration is successful and gets the bill passed by the Senate. Of course, this means that housing inventory will go up and prices will necessarily go down just at the time that interest rates are predicted to go up. Oh, wait! Isn't this just going to add to the housing crisis? I don't know, maybe it's just me...

The bill even mandates that all energy efficiency evaluations of one particular type must be performed by one single company, regardless of where in the U.S. the house is located. Wow! I'd sure like to own that company. I wonder who does?

To further compound the irony, the EPA has now released a new study which states that the average temperature of the Earth is in decline. It seems that this data has been available for some time, but is only now being released. Hmmm!

Woops! Since I wrote this, the EPA has suppressed the study again. I guess it was an inconvenient time.

Of course, this bill has to pass the Senate and then go to the reconciliation committee before it goes to the President to be signed into law. The White House is deviously trying to push off the Senate's consideration of the bill until sometime in September after they have voted on the horrendous, healthcare-rationing bill. By then, I expect that they think that the average citizen will have forgotten all about what Cap and Trade is going to do. The only good thing about this delay is that there's time to let your Senators know what you think about this massive bill which will make all aspects of our lives far more expensive and destroy American industry and competitiveness.

http://activerain.com/blogsview/1134766/cap-and-trade-will-destroy-real-estate-ownership

New climate strategy: track the world's wealthiest 06 Jul 2009 21:00:13 GMT
Source: Reuters
* World's richest emit about half of Earth's carbon

* Tracking the wealthy could break climate impasse

* New method would follow individual greenhouse emissions

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country.

Since about half the planet's climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

As it stands now, under the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, rich countries shoulder most of the burden for cutting the emissions that spur global warming, while developing countries -- including fast-growing economies China and India -- are not required to curb greenhouse pollution.

Rich countries, notably the United States, have said this gives developing countries an unfair economic advantage; China, India and other developing countries argue that developed countries have historically spewed more climate-warming gases, and developing countries need time to catch up.

The study suggests setting a uniform international cap on how much carbon dioxide each person could emit in order to limit global emissions; since rich people emit more, they are the ones likely to reach or exceed this cap, whether they live in a rich country or a poor one.

For example, if world leaders agree to keep carbon emissions in 2030 at the same level they are now, no one person's emissions could exceed 11 tons of carbon each year. That means there would be about a billion "high emitters" in 2030 out of a projected world population of 8.1 billion.

EACH PERSON'S EMISSIONS

By counting the emissions of all the individuals likely to exceed this level, world leaders could provide target emissions cuts for each country. Currently, the world average for individual annual carbon emissions is about 5 tons; each European produces 10 tons and each American produces 20 tons.

With international climate talks set to start this week in Italy among the countries that pollute the most, the authors hope policymakers will look at the strong link between how rich people are and how much carbon dioxide they emit.

"You're distributing the task of doing something about emissions reduction based on the proportion of the population in the country that's actually doing the most damage," said Shoibal Chakravarty of the Princeton Environment Institute, one of the study's authors.

Rich people's lives tend to give off more greenhouse gases because they drive more fossil-fueled vehicles, travel frequently by air and live in big houses that take more fuel to heat and cool.

By focusing on rich people everywhere, rather than rich countries and poor ones, the system of setting carbon-cutting targets based on the number of wealthy individuals in various countries would ease developing countries into any new climate change framework, Chakravarty said by telephone.

"As countries develop -- India, China, Brazil and others -- over time, they'll have more and more of these (wealthy) individuals and they'll have a higher share of carbon reductions to do in the future," he said.

These obligations, based on the increasing number of rich people in various countries, would kick in as each developing country hit a certain overall level of carbon emissions. This level would be set fairly high, so that economic development would not be hampered in the poorest countries, no matter how many rich people live there.

Is this a limousine-and-yacht tax on the rich? Not necessarily, Chakravarty said, but he did not rule it out: "We are not by any means proposing that. If some country finds a way of doing that, it's great."

This week's climate talks in Italy are a prelude to an international forum in December in Copenhagen aimed at crafting an agreement to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. At the same time, the U.S. Congress is working on legislation to curb U.S. carbon emissions. (Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

I wonder if this will effect Ms. Barrie's encouragement of insurance coverage for 'environmental issues' of homeowners???
IT IS ALL CONNECTED....CHECK THE SMALL PRINT......

Quoted Text

The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End
By Sarah Palin
Tuesday, July 14, 2009

There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America's unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won't bring jobs. Our nation's debt is unsustainable, and the federal government's reach into the private sector is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for electricity."

We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will result in the latter.

For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher prices.

Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation?

Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.

The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1

Quoted Text

She had tried to think, but she could see no way of fighting, no rules of battle, no weapons. Helplessness was a strange experience, new to her; she had never found it hard to face things and make decisions; but she was not dealing with things-this was a fog without shapes or definitions, in which something kept forming and shifting before it could be seen, like semi-clots in a not-quite-liquid-it was as if her eyes were reduced to side-vision and she were sensing blurs of disaster coiling toward her, but she could not move her glance, she had no glance to move and focus.
The Union of Locomotive Engineers was demanding that the maximum speed of all trains on the John Galt Line be reduced to sixty miles an hour. The Union of Railway Conductors and Brakemen was demanding that the length of al freight trains on the John Galt Line be reduced to sixty cars.
The states of Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona were demanding that the number of trains run in Colorado not exceed the number of trains run in each of these neighboring states.
A group headed by Orren Boyle was demanding the passage of a Preservation of Livelihood Law, which would limit the production of Rearden Metal to an amount equal to the output of any other steel mill of equal plant capacity.
Agroup headed by Mr. Mowen was demanding the passage of a Fair Share Law to give every customer who wanted it an equal supply of Rearden Metal.
A group headed by Bertram Scudder was demanding the passage of a Public Stability Law, forbidding Eastern business firms to move out of their states.
Wesley Mouch, Top Co-ordinator of the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources, was issuing a great many statements, the content and purpose of which could not be defined, except that the words "emergency powers" and "unbalanced economy" kept
appearing in the text every few lines.
"agny, by what right?" Eddie Willers had asked her, his voice quiet, but the words sounding like a cry. "By what right are they all doing it? By what right?"
She had confronted James Taggart in his office and said, "Jim, this is your battle. I've fought mine. You're supposed to be and expert at dealing with the looters. Stop them."
Taggart had said, not looking at her, "you can't expect to run the national economy to suit your own convenience."
"I dont want to run the national economy! I want your national economy runners to leave me alone! I have a railroad to run-and I know what's going to happen to your national economy if my railroad collapses!"

.......................................................................

Quoted Text

"If you kill Colorado, what is there going to be left for your damn looters to survive on?"
"You have always been opposed to every progressive social measure. I seem to remember that you predicted disaster when we passed the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule-but the the disaster has not come."
"Because I save you , you rotten fools! I won't be able to save you this time!" He had shrugged, not looking at her. "And if I dont, who will?"He had not answered.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Quoted Text

Nobody had known how that law was to be observed. First, he had been told that he could not produce Rearden Metal in an amount greater than the tonnage of the best special alloy, other than steel, produced by Orren Boyle. But Orren Boyle's best special alloy was some cracking mixture that no one cared to buy. Then he had been told that he could produce Rearden Metal in the amount that Orren Boyle could have produced, if he could have produced it. Nobody had known how this was to be determined. Somebody in Washington had announced a figure, naming a number of tons per year, giving no reasons. Everybody had let it go at that.

He had not known how to give every consumer who demanded it as equal share of Rearden Metal. The waiting  list of orders could not be filled in three years, even had he been permitted to work at full cpacity. New orders were coming in daily. They were not orders any longer, in the old, honorable sense of trade; they were demands. The law provided that he could be sued by any consumer who failed to receive his fair share of Rearden Metal.
Nobody had known how to determine what constituted a fair share of what amount. Then abright young boy just out of college had been sent to him from Washington, as Deputy Director of Distribution. After many telephone conferences with the capital, the boy announced tht customers would get five hundred  tons of the Metal each, in the order of the dates of their applications. Nobody had argued against his figure. There was no way to form and argument; the figure could hae been one pound or one million tons, with the same validity. The boy had established an office at the Rearden Metal. At the present rate of the mills' production, the applications extended well into the next century.

................................................................

Quoted Text

"Mr.Rearden," he had said once,"if you feel you'd like to hand out more of the Metal to friends of yours-I mean, in bigger hauls-
it could be arranged, you know. Why dont we apply for a special permission on the ground of essential need? I've got a few friends in Washington. Your friends are pretty important people, big businessmen, so it wouldn't be  difficult to get away with the essential need dodge. Of course, there would be a few expenses. For things in Washington. You know how it is, things walways occasion expenses."
"What things?"
"You understand what I mean."
"No," Rearden had said,"I don't. Why don't you explain it to me?"
The boy had looked at him uncertainly, weighed it in his mind, then come out with:"It's bad psychology."
"What is?"
"You know, Mr.Rearden, it's not necessary to use such words as that."
"As what?"
"Words are relative. They're only symbols. If we don't use ugly symbols, we won't have any ugliness. Why do you want me to say things one way, when I've already said them another?"
"Which way  do I want you to say them?"
"Why do you want me to?"
"For the same reason that you don't."
The boy had remined silent for a moment, then had said,"You know, Mr. Rearden there are no absolute standards.We can't go by rigid principles, we've got to be flexible, we've got to adjust to the reality of the day and act on the expediency of the moment."
"Run along , punk. Go and try to pour a ton of steel without rigid principles, on the expediency of the moment."

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Quoted Text

Climate bill drops
‘cap and trade’

    WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats tried out a new catchphrase Wednesday to sell their global warming bill: pollution reduction and investment, or PRI.
    But it’s just another name for cap and trade, a term derided by Republican critics as “cap and tax” because it will increase energy prices and which Democratic polls have shown faring poorly with voters.
    The rebranding is an indication of the uphill battle the climate bill — which would cap greenhouse gases and also allow industries to buy emission allowances — faces in the Senate.
    A number of Democratic senators, currently entangled in the heated health care debate, said they continued to have trouble he reviews his Afghanistan strategy, comes after Obama received a critical assessment of the war effort from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the man he put in charge of the Afghan war earlier this year. McChrystal declared that the U.S. would fail to meet its objectives of causing irreparable damage to Taliban militants and their al-Qaida allies if the administration did not significantly increase American forces.
    Obama has taken a go-slow approach on the McChrystal report. White House officials say it may take weeks before the president decides whether to overhaul the U.S. strategy or send more troops.
    Jones told senators in a classified briefing after the White House meeting that the administration’s evolving Afghanistan strategy depends in large part on the outcome of the disputed Afghan election. Those decisions are expected in a matter of weeks.
    “It’s not just the election, but the reaction to the election, that we’ll be watching for,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.
    One alternative to McChrystal’s call for additional troops for a counterinsurgency is to use special forces and unmanned drone aircraft for tactical strikes on the Taliban and al-Qaida leadership, a move that would require much more U.S. action in Pakistan but fewer troops.
with key elements of the climate legislation. Several said it would be a huge challenge — perhaps impossible — to try to get a climate bill passed this year.
    The idea to remake cap and trade into pollution reduction and investment came from Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., author of the bill unveiled Wednesday. He came up with it about a month ago to refocus attention on what the bill would do, not how it goes about doing it.
    “Cap and trade doesn’t mean anything to people, “ Kerry said in an interview, insisting that “this is an actual description of what’s happening here.”

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00300&AppName=1

Every time the Dems get into trouble with a bill they change the name in hopes that people won't know it's the same bill. No matter what color you paint it this bill is a turkey and should not become law to please the left wing environmentalists.

Quoted Text

Forget ‘Cap and Trade’ and auctions, carbon tax is the way to go

    In the Dec. 15 Opinion column, Arlene Atwood made an excellent point in that the permits sold or exchanged under the “Cap and Trade” feature of our country’s energy policy will have the unfortunate consequence of concentrating pollutants to areas where fossil-fuel plants, steel mills and other major emitters of greenhouse gases are located. To make matters worse, the cost at recent auctions of these permits was only about one-tenth the cost estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to sequester and store the carbon dioxide produced (less than $3.50 per ton of CO2 at auction vs. an estimated cost of $20 to $50).
    “Cap-and-trade” has been tried and failed in the EU [European Union] since the mid-1990s. The simplest and most verifiable way to discourage the release of CO2 is what is referred to as a “carbon tax,” but it should really be called a “carbon compensation” fee and should be set at about $35 per ton of CO2 on domestic releases and applied to all imports of both energy products and manufactured goods. The amount of CO2 produced in the combustion process of fossil fuels can be accurately calculated.
    Although Ms. Atwood’s point on pollution credits is very good, global warming is not a sham: smart thermostats will be valuable in leveling electrical demand, not depriving people of necessary heating; and the e-mail hacking in the United Kingdom was more of a distraction by the skeptics to undermine the climate change conference in Copenhagen, which was pathetic even without their efforts.
    Lastly, the use of 1998 temperature data as a starting point in evaluating the trends of global temperature is fraudulent. The very least that should be used is a 10-year moving average covering the last 40-50 years, which would confirm the increasing temperature trend.
    The most encouraging news of late on global warming is the opportunity to reconsider the building of the 100 MW hydroelectric plant on the Cohoes Falls. That will do more for this region on climate change than the Copenhagen conference.

THOMAS J. DONOHUE
Schenectady

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00502&AppName=1

Maybe we should all stop breathing.....we are carbon based creatures.....oh----that's right we ARE taxed right TO DEATH.......


......GET OFF MY BACK......DONT TREAD ON ME.........................


happy decomposing Mr. Donohue..........