CAPTION CONTEST: The Official Portrait of Richard Windsor, I mean Lisa Jackson, Which Only Cost You $40,000

Courtesy of Sean Hackbarth, who writes:

The EPA spent 40,000 of our tax dollars on this oil painting...


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Matt offers: "Thanks to Climosil, I feel fresher than ever."

CHART: Despite federal government, oil production booming in ND

In spite of a radicalized, lawless EPA, North Dakota's oil production is fracking booming:

It's no secret that North Dakota has been in the middle of an oil boom since about 2008, but a new chart from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Mineral Resources, shows just how steep the increase has been...


...As of 2006, the state was only producing about 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day, putting it on par with other mid-tier oil producing states like Kansas, Colorado and Montana. But new hydraulic fracturing techniques and the opening of the massive Bakken formation to drilling changed all that, and as of January 2013 the state was producing an average of 770,000 barrels of crude per day, for a total of 23,834,000 barrels per month. That's double the amount the state was producing just two years ago.

It is a lot of oil, to be sure, but even with this recent explosion in production North Dakota is in just third place nationally. Texas produces a staggering 2,220,000 barrels per day, and the rigs that operate in the U.S. Federal Offshore region account for another 1,389,000 barrels per day. North Dakota currently accounts for about 10% of all U.S. crude production.

And virtually all of this production is occurring in spite of the federal government. In fact, in 2012 alone, "oil production on federal land decreased by 11 percent."

It would appear that the EPA is -- now that the election is over -- bound and determined to stop fracking at all costs.


Hat tip: BadBlue Financial News Network.

Advanced Levity Commences as Global Warming Con Game Implodes

Every. Single. Prediction. Every single one by the Climatards (which is the term they prefer, I hear) has turned out wrong, but none as spectacularly as this:

No, the world isn't getting warmer (as you may have noticed)... [and] official predictions of global climate warming have been catastrophically flawed ... the ‘scientific basis’ for [reshaping the] economy and spending billions in taxes and subsidies in order to cut emissions of greenhouse gases...

Steadily climbing orange and red bands on the graph show the computer predictions of world temperatures used by the official United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The estimates – given with 75 per cent and 95 per cent certainty – suggest only a five per cent chance of the real temperature falling outside both bands.

But when the latest official global temperature figures from the Met Office are placed over the predictions, they show how wrong the estimates have been, to the point of falling out of the ‘95 per cent’ band completely...

The graph shows in incontrovertible detail how the speed of global warming has been massively overestimated. Yet those forecasts have had a ruinous impact on the bills we pay, from heating to car fuel to huge sums paid by councils to reduce carbon emissions.

...Academics are revising their views after acknowledging the miscalculation. Last night Myles Allen, Oxford University’s Professor of Geosystem Science, said that until recently he believed the world might be on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than five degrees this century... But he now says: ‘The odds have come down,’ – adding that warming is likely to be significantly lower... Prof Allen says higher estimates are now ‘looking iffy’.

...The graph confirms there has been no statistically significant increase in the world’s average temperature... Its source is impeccable. The line showing world temperatures comes from the Met Office ‘HadCRUT4’ database, which contains readings from more than 30,000 measuring posts. This was added to the 75 and 95 per cent certainty bands to produce the graph by a group that amalgamates the work of 20 climate model centres working for the IPCC.

...In the Seventies, scientists and policymakers were just as concerned about a looming ‘ice age’ as they have been lately about global warming – as the Time magazine cover pictured here illustrates... Temperatures had been falling since the beginning of the Forties. Professors warned that the trend would continue and food crises were going to get worse because of shorter growing seasons.

Newsweek magazine reported that evidence of cooling was so strong ‘meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it’. But, it lamented, ‘scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections’. It said the planet was already ‘a sixth of the way towards the next ice age’.

While recently every kind of extreme weather event has been blamed on warming, in the Seventies the culprit was cooling. One article predicted ‘the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded’, along with ‘droughts, floods, extended dry spells and long freezes’...

The recent leak of the Climategate 3.0 emails offers additional evidence that global warming is about as genuine as a mother-in-law's hug.

Not that any evidence would dissuade the lawless extremists at the EPA.

STUNNING PHOTOS OF POLLUTION IN CHINA: Could Someone Let the EPA Know About This?

As the EPA tries to micro-manage industrial policy in the United States using unlawful and impossible dictates, the world's worst polluter goes unmentioned in the U.S.:

In China, public anger over secrecy on environment

When China's environment ministry told attorney Dong Zhengwei he couldn't have access to two-year old data about soil pollution because it was a "state secret", it added to mounting public outrage over the worsening environment.

...The environment has already been one of one of the most frequently raised issues at the annual parliament session and China's authoritarian government has admitted it has a problem... China does not usually allow public scrutiny of governance, particularly on sensitive issues such as corruption and security. But public anger over the environment may force authorities to accommodate the public in small ways...


...A choking smog in Beijing in January, far above hazardous levels, has been one of the most dramatic signs of China's environmental problems, but Dong is convinced that soil pollution is the country's "silent killer." ... Citing "state secrets", the environment ministry last month denied a request from Dong for information on data on soil samples that was collected in a national survey that started in 2006 and ended in 2010.

...And just last month, the government acknowledged for the first time that pollution had given rise to "cancer villages", admitting that cancer rates in villages near factories and polluted rivers were far higher than they should be.

In short, while the EPA tightens the screws on America's already clean industries using flatly unlawful tactics, America's policy-makers ignore the elephant in the atmosphere.

New technology could drive zero-emission, clean coal-powered cars; Richard Windsor hardest hit

I wonder what the overstuffed radical named "Richard Windsor" thinks of this innovation?

New technological advances may make it possible in the near future to engineer a coal-powered car so clean that it produces nearly no polluting emissions, including carbon dioxide...

“There are many exciting possibilities for the clean coal technology,” says Liang-Shih Fan, a chemical engineer and director of Ohio State University’s Clean Coal Research Laboratory. “We found a way to release the heat from coal without burning it. This could be applicable for many industries.”

Fan last week disclosed that he had discovered a way to get the energy out of coal without burning it, using iron-oxide pellets as an oxygen source, and contain the reaction in a small chamber from which pollutants cannot escape. The only waste product would be water and solid coal ash -- no greenhouse gases. As an added benefit, the metal from the iron-oxide is recyclable.

The energy creation process is commonly known as “oxidation,” and is the chemical combination of a substance with oxygen. The use of the process is envisioned by Fan and his colleagues as a replacement for old-fashioned coal power plants, which spew greenhouse gases.

If the technology can be successfully miniaturized enough to fit into cars, the fueling infrastructure needed to service them would not be all that difficult to develop, experts say.

My question, above, was rhetorical, of course. We know what "Richard Windsor" and her ilk think of anything that empowers the individual and freedom of movement: they despise it.

For these sixties-retread radicals, it's not about carbon dioxide, or pollution, or global warming, or climate change, or whatever they're calling their religion these days. It's about control over you, the individual. Restricting your movement, controlling the private sector, and setting industrial policy.

As Mark Levin often says, "Green is the new Red."


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Feds: Jesse Jackson, Jr. Used $750,000 in Campaign Funds to Buy a Michael Jackson Fedora and Gold Jewelry, Wasted the Rest

Taste is, of course, highly subjective:

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was charged today with violating federal law by misusing $750,000 in campaign funds...

Federal authorities allege that Jesse Jackson used campaign funds to purchase a $43,350 men’s gold-plated Rolex watch, $5,150 worth of fur capes and parkas, and $9,588 in children’s furniture. The purchases were made between 2007 and 2009, according to the criminal information, which authorities noted is not evidence of guilt.

Other expenditures listed by prosecutors include $10,105 on Bruce Lee memorabilia, $11,130 on Martin Luther King memorabilila [sic] and $22,700 on Michael Jackson items, including $4,600 for a "Michael Jackson fedora."

The government also alleged that Jesse Jackson made false statements to the House of Representatives because he did not report approximately $28,500 in loans and gifts he received.

As they say, the nut doesn't fall far from the tree.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

Smart Car: Driver killed after her micro-sized vehicle hits a... motorcycle

"Smart" isn't the brand name I'd use to describe a vehicle like this.

A woman who died in hospital after a collision between her car and a motorcycle in Surrey has been named as Freda Lawry.

The crash between the Smart car and the bike happened on 27 January on the A245 Byfleet Road in Cobham...

The motorcyclist, a man in his 30s, was taken to George's Hospital in Tooting, where he remains in a serious, but stable condition, Surrey Police said.

President Obama's mandate for vehicles to reach 54 miles-per-gallon over the next few years means that more people will needlessly die. And that's not me guessing, that's the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency.

In order for auto makers to hit the government imposed mileage standards new cars will have to lose weight. Strong metals like steel will be replaced with light weight metals or plastics. But while these cars of the future will get great gas mileage they will also have less bulk to protect drivers and passengers from injury or death in a crash.

...The NHTSA, Brookings Institution, Harvard School of Public Health, National Academy of Sciences and USA Today discovered a shocking reality. Even past and current mileage standards have resulted in thousands of additional fatalities, and tens of thousands of serious injuries, every year – above what would have happened if the government had not imposed those standards.

They also learned that drivers in lightweight cars were up to twelve times more likely to die in a crash – and far more likely to suffer serious injury and permanent disabilities.

Increasing mileage requirements by a whopping 19 mpg above current rules will make nearly all cars even less safe than they are today.

When President Obama says, in regards to gun control, "if we can only save one child," we know he's engaged in demagoguery.

Thousands die each year thanks to insane CAFE standards and Democrats could care less.

THE FUTURE OF OUR PROGRESSIVE UTOPIA: Wood-Burning Trucks

The Democrat Party's incessant drive to centralize more and more power in Washington, DC seems to have no limits.

Virtually every aspect of our lives is controlled within the Beltway, from the kinds of light-bulbs we can buy, the mileage our cars must get, how much electricity our washing machines can consume, and how much water can pass through our shower-heads. Worse yet, Democrats can't point to any blueprint that tells us when they'll be done centralizing power and authority.

If we need a model for where they're headed, it's got to be North Korea. All governmental power and industrial policy is centralized in one man. There are no separation of powers, there are no individual liberties, there are no checks and balances, and there's nothing protecting the individual from a lawless government.

Which leads me to this, the inevitable result of the EPA's warmal colding scam and its attendant war on oil:

...North Koreans [must] power their vehicles using gasifiers, which produce immense heat and break down biomatter, like wood, into a usable fuel. North Korea is just crawling with these mostly-wood-powered pickups and equipment haulers.

For decades, North Korea relied heavily on the USSR, China, and Iran to keep the cheap oil flowing. However, the USSR no longer exists, China seems increasingly displeased with North Korea’s behavior, and new sanctions have put the squeeze on Iranian crude. This has meant that many North Koreans must improvise when it comes to getting their old-school trucks moving. Wood is one of the few resources available in abundance in North Korea, and so it wasn’t long before the resourceful citizens (inspired by Dear Leader, of course) figured out that gasification was their only real solution.

Gasification has been around for a long, long time, first gaining widespread use after World War II. There are still people out there (and we do mean “out there”) who use gasifiers to power their rides, though it is far from an ideal situation as the burner must be feed a steady diet of wood in order to operate. They’re also loud, unreliable, and inefficient, but they work most of the time, and in North Korea, that is all that really matters

...It seems as though gasification will remain at the fringes of society for the foreseeable future, unless some worldwide calamity depletes our oil supplies overnight. Then all those wackjobs who predicted the end of the world might have something to celebrate, though one look at North Korea is a glimpse at just what such a world might look like.

And if the EPA has its way, gasifiers may be the only way to get around.

Like I said, the modern Left's endgame looks a lot like North Korea to me. Because the Democrat Party won't tell us when they'll have taxed enough, spent enough or regulated enough.

Which is precisely why you and I revere the Constitution and the strict limits it sets on government. And that is why the Left despises the Constitution; adherence to our nation's highest law prevents them from seizing all of the powers they desperately crave.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER SLAPDOWN FOR WHITE HOUSE: EPA slammed for mandating use of nonexistent biofuels

It seems like just yesterday that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blasted President Obama's unprecedented act of claiming the Senate was in recess to place unpopular appointees on the National Labor Relations Board. Oh, that's right. It was just yesterday.

Slamming the administration in a blistering unanimous decision, Chief Judge David Sentelle wrote, "We will not do violence to the Constitution by ignoring the Framers’ choice of words."

Early this morning, The Daily Caller reports, another federal judge slammed the Obama EPA for mandating the use of nonexistent biofuels. Go figure.

A federal court delivered a serious blow to the Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel agenda, ruling that the agency exceeded its authority by mandating refiners use cellulosic biofuels, which isn’t commercially available.

The court sided with the country’s chief oil and gas lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, in striking down the 2012 EPA mandate that would have forced refineries to purchase more than $8 million in credits for 8.65 million of gallons of the cellulosic biofuel. However, none of the biofuel is commercially available.

“[W]e agree with API that EPA’s 2012 projection of cellulosic biofuel production was in excess of the agency’s statutory authority,” reads the court decision...

The Obama administration is operating without any concern for the law. I believe that they have failed to consider the full implications of their behavior.

Lawlessness begets lawlessness. Which explains rallies like this one.

And signs like this.

If a president operates with reckless disregard for the law, why would the citizenry behave any differently?

CHART: America's Disappearing Fathers

Truly tragic:

In every state, the portion of families where children have two parents, rather than one, has dropped significantly over the past decade. Even as the country added 160,000 families with children, the number of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million. Fifteen million U.S. children, or 1 in 3, live without a father, and nearly 5 million live without a mother. In 1960, just 11 percent of American children lived in homes without fathers...

The spiral continues each year. Married couples with children have an average income of $80,000, compared with $24,000 for single mothers.
“We have one class that thinks marriage and fatherhood is important, and another which doesn’t, and it’s causing that gap, income inequality, to get wider,”

...Though income is the primary predictor, the lack of live-in fathers also is overwhelmingly a black problem, regardless of poverty status, census data show. Among blacks, nearly 5 million children, or 54 percent, live with only their mother...

[One black father] is quick to blame the absence of fathers to deaths or incarcerations, though women point out that many absent fathers live around the corner...

The inconvenient truth? The "War on Poverty" and the Left's failed welfare state policies have decimated the two-parent family and ruined the lives of millions.

Of that, there can be no debate.

Richard Windsor Resigns as Head of EPA

Or is the name Lisa Jackson? I'm so confused.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has decided to resign her post as top environmental regulator, a move that comes as Congress applies pressure on her for complicating oversight of the EPA by using at least one secondary email address under an alias.

...Lawmakers and the EPA inspector general wonder if Jackson used a private email account created under an alias to develop those policies in a way that would be invisible to watchdogs and congressional oversight...

...Jackson used a private email under the alias “Richard Windsor” to correspond with EPA colleagues, a decision her staff defended by saying that her official email account received too many messages for her to use it efficiently.

Her official email received too many messages?

Gee, I'm no Bill Gates, but I figure with 17,000 employees and an $8 billion budget the EPA could marshal the necessary brainpower to add a lisa.jackson2@epa.gov to their Exchange server.

Investors Business Daily summarizes the story as a question: "Is The EPA's Lisa Jackson Trying To Dodge A Federal Probe?"

Answer: of course she is. Just add this scandal to the list.