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On October 19, a Washington Post article was headlined "Power Plant Rejected Over Carbon Dioxide for First Time." Let’s hope it is the last time or those of us around the nation who depend on coal to produce over 50% of the electricity we use are in big trouble. Roderick L. Bremby, Secretary of the Kansas DHE, said, "it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing." So the KDHE killed a proposal by Sunflower Electric Power, a rural electrical cooperative, to build a pair of big, 700-megawatt, coal-fired plants in Halcomb. Someone needs to tell Secretary Bremby that greenhouse gases consist of 95% water vapor in the earth’s atmosphere. Or that not a single blade of wheat or corn would grow in Kansas were it not for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Someone needs to tell Secretary Bremby and his fellow global warming simpletons that, between 1970 and 2004, the population of the United States grew by 40%, its Gross Domestic Product by 18%, and electricity consumption by 115%. During that same time period, the aggregate air pollution of the U.S. was cut in half due to advances in pollution control technologies. The United States Department of Energy predicts that overall electricity demand will grow by 45% between now and 2030. The plants in question would have provided power to parts of Kansas and to eastern Colorado. Presumably, electricity is needed by residents, industries and the farmers of Kansas, so where will it come from? To produce anywhere near what the two plants would produce, Kansas would need border-to-border wind turbines or be entirely covered over by solar collectors. It happens that the U.S. has tons and tons of coal. When used to produce electricity, it costs half as much as using natural gas. While the people in Kansas are using electricity, an estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide lack any access to it. An estimated 2.4 billion still rely on biomass—wood, crop waste and dung—for cooking and heating. Meanwhile, despite fears that Kansas will tip the planet into an inferno of global warming, China is building a new coal-burning plant every week. India is making similar plans to provide for its growing energy needs. This is what happens when people responsible for making decisions like where the electricity comes from believe in fairy tales that global warming is "a moral issue" and not one to be based on science. Kansas Governor Sebelius, in her state address said, "The question of where we get our energy is…no longer just an economic issue, not solely an issue of national security. Quite simply, we have a moral obligation to be good stewards of this state." It is hard to believe that the leader of a state where agriculture is a major part of its economy would think that its farmers and ranchers are disinterested in being good stewards of the land. It is even harder to believe that Gov. Sebelius thinks that a lot of businesses and industry in Kansas isn’t going to go somewhere else if they cannot secure energy at a reasonable cost. On the other hand, in his book, "The Late Great U.S.A." Jerome Corsi noted that, "the Council of Kansas City voted on May 18, 2006, to name the Mexican customs facility the ‘Kansas City Customs Port’, despite the fact that it is actually a Mexican possession, staffed by Mexican government customers officials. The $3 million facility will be paid for by Kansas City taxpayers, not by the Mexican government." You cannot invent stuff like this, just like you cannot believe that Kansas is more concerned about global warming than it is about providing the electricity its people will need in the years ahead. This is what happens when the Supreme Court of the United States rules that carbon dioxide, the most essential gas other than oxygen to all life on earth, is a "pollutant." This is what happens when the lies behind the global warming myth become a reason to reject electrical generation at half the cost of other forms. This is what happens when Kansas decides it’s more important to become a hub for the import of cheap goods produced in places that pay their workers a pittance while contributing far more CO2 than we do while ceding sovereign U.S. territory to Mexico! At this rate, in States around America and in Congress, our economy is going to be wrecked by the "environmentalists" who, like the former Soviet sympathizers of the last century, were considered "useful idiots" by Vladimir Lenin. There’s a reason these weekly columns are called "Warning Signs." If people do not understand how their lives and the future of America are being endangered by the schemes of self-proclaimed environmentalists and others, we run the very real risk of seeing our economy fail to be competitive. That is why your donation is so critical to the work of the Center. Please give what you can. Am I the only person who finds the prospect of another Clinton in the White House, trading the job of President with another Bush, obscene?
What she is proposing is a re-make of the widely rejected health care program that would further socialize the provision of health services in America. Does anyone really think the government can function competently enough to do this? Does anyone know how awful such socialized programs are in England or Canada? Certainly, the succession of George W. Bush to the presidency has not proven to be a continuation of the conservative policies put in place by his father’s predecessor, Ronald Reagan. Bush43 adopted Teddy Kennedy’s hideous "No Child Left Behind", one-size-fits-all program to give total control of the nation’s education system to Washington, D.C. He added a prescription payment program to a Medicare system that everyone agrees is going broke. He allowed a GOP controlled Congress to spend money without limits. With the exception of cutting taxes, one would be hard put to describe GWB as a conservative. The good news is that a Bush is not in the chase for the presidency in 2008, but there’s always brother Jeb Bush, the former Governor of Florida, and these days we have to consider his twin daughters as well! The bad news is that the current roster of GOP candidates is not producing much enthusiasm among Republicans. An Associated Press article by Nancy Benac noted that, "forty percent of Americans have never lived when there wasn’t a Bush or a Clinton in the White House." John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, both served in the office, but their terms were separated by eight years. Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt were fifth cousins whose terms in office were separated by twenty years. This trading of the office between two families leads to a kind of in-bred politics that is unhealthy for a democracy that needs new blood and new leadership on a regular basis. That is precisely why the Founding Fathers provided for a relatively short term of four years. While they understood a sitting President could be re-elected, they surely did not anticipate FDR’s grip on the office from 1933 until his death in 1945, but he served in some of the nation’s most troubled times, struggling to pull it out of a Depression and then seeing it plunged into World War II. Voters felt that the continuity of his leadership was essential. Following his death, a Constitutional amendment was added to insure that no President could serve more than two consecutive terms. Americans have always been loath to remove a president during a war unless that war is unpopular. Lyndon B. Johnson choose not to run for the office again after it became clear how unpopular the Vietnam War had become. Richard Nixon came to power with the promise of extricating the nation, at one point saying he had "a secret plan" to do so. The nation was well into his second term before a truce was agreed and Saigon fell. Watergate further tainted his resignation in the face of impeachment. The question is whether an America at war in the Middle East really wants to elect a woman as Commander-in-Chief? The question is whether the electorate is so supine that it cannot imagine a President who is not named Clinton for the next four and possibly eight years? How many times must the Clintons return tainted money from their campaigns? How much tabloid fodder will the First Gentlemen provide if his wife is elected? Just how liberal would another Clinton administration be when the candidate will not even rebuke a Move On.org advertisement defaming a U.S. General serving in the field? The political health of the nation demands new blood, new leadership. That description does not fit Hillary Clinton. Have you visit Alan Caruba’s daily blog? Its rapidly growing audience is kept aware of events that directly impact their lives. Tell your friends about the Center’s website where they can learn about threats to our liberty and to our nation. Keep update at the blog.
©
2007 Alan Caruba. |
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I wonder if the folks at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment think that electricity is made by fairies who live in the garden or that an army of elves produce it? 
Since 1989, Americans have had either a Bush or a Clinton as President and now Hillary Clinton is said to be the front-runner for the Democrat nomination to succeed a husband whose eight years in office were marked by scandal and judgment failures. Since when does having been the wife of a President constitute any kind of qualification to be a President? Granted Hillary is now into her second term as a Senator from New York. However, she hasn’t produced a single piece of significant legislation during that time.