Archive for 2012

WAIT, I THOUGHT CORPORATE JET TRAVEL WAS EVIL: Charter Flights Shadow Union Election.

Lucrative compensation packages and the use of chartered jets by the departing head of the nation’s biggest public-sector union are looming as key issues in a contentious election to fill his position later this month.

Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, traveled by chartered aircraft 18 times since the beginning of 2010, at a cost of about $325,000, according to internal union expense reports viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

And what about the carbon footprint? Doesn’t he care about Gaia?

SAVE THE PLANET: GET OUT OF VERMONT:

Air conditioning in warm regions uses far less energy than heating in cold regions.

So if you want to help save the planet, move out of Vermont and get yourself to Alabama where people know how to live in harmony with Mother Gaia. Moving out of New England could be the purest form of environmental activism; your selfish, earth destroying choice of living in Massachusetts in killing us all. And as for Canada, Gaia’s message is clear: shut it down, now. The Germans for their part could help the planet by moving to Spain and Greece; this might also help with Europe’s financial woes.

Perhaps the blue model politicians whose tax and spend policies are driving businesses and residents out of their states are smarter than they look. They could be green activists, steadily working to save the earth by driving people out of the northeast. We look forward to green activists introducing legislation in Congress to levy new taxes on those whose choice to live in cold states imposes costs on the more virtuous and eco-friendly inhabitants of Texas and South Carolina.

It only seems fair.

You do care about the planet, don’t you?

NOW THAT THE CONTROVERSY’S BLOWN OVER: Peter Gleick Reinstated at Pacific Institute. “The water and climate expert Peter Gleick, a scientist who masqueraded as a board member of a conservative organization to gain access to its confidential financial information, has been reinstated as president of the Pacific Institute, the environmentally minded think tank that he founded. . . . The statement said the Pacific Institute’s board of directors had accepted Dr. Gleick’s apology for misrepresenting himself. It added that no other staff member was involved in his subterfuge. . . . By saying that its investigation, carried out by unknown parties, confirmed Dr. Gleick’s account, the institute was implicitly backing the scientist’s claim that he was not responsible for cobbling together a document labeled a fake by Heartland, which he disseminated along with other genuine ones.”

Upholding the high ethical standards for which the climate science field is known.

DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE! I just got this “emergency alert” email from the UT Police: “UT ALERT! Black bears sighted on campus. Last seen in the area of White Ave/Volunteer Blvd headed eastbound. More info to follow.”

UPDATE: Reader Rachael Pereira writes:

In the past month, we’ve had 3 bears in downtown Orlando. Which is unheard of! Your UT link reminded me that we spent Friday evening glued to the tv watching the most recent bear-up-a-tree story.

That one was right next to a major highway near a sports arena in the rape-and-murder district.

Good thing they got the bear out before that happened to him . . . .

PROF. JACOBSON: “Failure” Is Not A Race. “Far from being the issue no one talks about, race is the issue that gets talked about by Obama supporters with great frequency because it distracts from Obama’s abysmal failure as a President.”

JIM TREACHER: Another innocent bystander has to move out of his home because of the George Zimmerman lynch mob. “The sensationalized, fact-deficient coverage of this case has achieved the desired results. The networks got their ratings. The politicians got their talking points. And if it means innocent people get caught in the middle of the racial enmity they’ve fomented, obviously it’s considered acceptable collateral damage. Congratulations, geniuses. Job well done.”

An awful lot of folks in politics and the media seem awfully eager to lynch a black man.

THIS KIND OF THING JUST KEEPS HAPPENING: Obama tries to hit Romney on teachers, cops. Mitt pounces. “In a sign of precisely how nimble the Romney campaign has become, the digital ink hadn’t even begun to dry on this latest attack before they were out with a response. Speaking of, ‘it didn’t work then,’ we are reminded that we already tried dealing with the issue of employment for teachers and first responders by pumping federal dollars down a rat hole. We called it the stimulus. And it was so badly crafted that the money frequently went to bailing out state budgets and pretty much everything but saving the targeted jobs. And in the rare cases where schools did benefit in the short run, once the money was gone the employees were let go anyway. . . . You can expect to see this rather ragged, ‘Mitt wants to lay off cops and firemen’ theme trotted out on the Sunday shows tomorrow. But it looks like they’re not going to get off a clean shot… assuming the networks bother to check with the Romney campaign.”

As my father-in-law once said, when they talk about taxes it’s always for teachers, firemen, and police — but when they spend your taxes, it always seems to go to some guy in a leather chair downtown you never heard of.