Here is further proof that the enviro-radical-left-kook-fringe’s environmental policies and positions are bad not only for the economy but also, ironically enough, for the environment. Looks like Bush wasn’t so stupid after all not signing that farse of a treaty the “Kyoto Golbal Warming” Treaty.
From Today’s Wall St. Journal Editorial Page: (subs req)
The Kyoto environmental protocol committed nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By this standard, the pact’s biggest fans, the Europeans, are failing. And what about the U.S., the global villain for withdrawing approval of the accord in 2001? It’s doing very well, thank you.
Let’s go to the latest numbers from the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen. Most European countries have seen an increase in greenhouse gas emissions since signing Kyoto with great fanfare in 1997. No fewer than 13 out of the 15 original EU signatories are on track to miss their 2010 emissions targets — by as much as 33 percentage points, in the case of Spain.
Or consider Denmark, home of the EU’s environmental watchdog. Rather than reduce levels by 21% as the accord stipulates, Denmark has so far notched a 6.3% increase in emissions since 1990, the base year used in Kyoto. The likely gap between its Kyoto commitment and its emissions levels projected for 2010 is 25.2 percentage points.
And how did the evil capitalist United States do who didn’t sign the treaty and take Al Gore’s adice?
The Bush Administration has continued a longstanding U.S. policy of pushing states, municipalities and private industry to reduce emissions that actually lower the quality of air and water. The U.S. thus saw a modest decline in greenhouse emissions of 0.8% between 2000 and 2002, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy. Overall since 1990, American greenhouse emissions are up 15.8%, but this still puts the U.S. far ahead of many of its European and Asian critics. And this despite U.S. economic growth (and increasing energy demand) that has far exceeded Europe’s.
And out socialist neighbors to the north always quick to criticize the U.S. has egg on its face as well:
Alas, no one is talking about reducing the amount of hot air produced by politicians. At the U.N.’s environmental summit in Montreal last year, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas of Greece spoke grandly of Europe’s continuing leadership in the reduction of greenhouse gases. Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada, another Kyoto diehard, chimed in that America lacked a “global conscience.” For the record, Greece and Canada saw emissions rise 23% and 24%, respectively, since 1990, far above the U.S. rate.
Can we now “move on” and quit having to hear about how the U.S. does more than any other country in ravaging the environment from the whacko greens- many of whom have never left the upper West Side and Pacific Heights?
A double dose of good news this morning…Pundit Review Radio has been extended by one hour each Sunday evening. Our new time slot is now from 8-10pm est. Also, today’s Boston Herald features a solid article by reporter Jesse Noyes on the show and the expanded time slot.
Boston Herald
January 19, 2006
Web pundits plug views on airwaves
Old and new media are converging on WRKOâ??s Pundit Review â?? a show by bloggers about bloggers.
Hosts Kevin Whalen and Gregg Jackson handpick pundits from the blogosphere, giving cyber scholars a chance to sound off via the radio dial.
â??Weâ??re trying to bring the fastest-growing segment of the media . . . to the mainstream media,â? Jackson said. Added Whalen: â??Weâ??ve always seen it as a natural marriage between the best thought leaders in the new media and the people that are active political junkies who tune into talk radio.â?Â
That matrimony is paying off. With the showâ??s ratings on the rise WRKO-AM 680 is expanding Pundit Reviewâ??s airtime to two hours, broadcasting the program Sundays from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. and dropping the syndicated show Beyond the Beltway â?? proving blogs are big even on the airwaves.
â??Thereâ??s been a groundswell of buzz around these guys. It started as just a kind of murmur and now itâ??s kind of a roar,â? said WRKO Executive Producer Tom Shattuck.
You can read the full article here.
Driver in fatal crash held
Salem (MA) Evening News
The driver charged in Saturday’s fatal accident on Canal Street was apparently living under a fake name for months after he was caught illegally entering the country, then released, last spring.
Police now say the man who told them his name was Alex Costa is actually Magno DaCosta, who was stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents as he entered the country last April, according to a warrant issued by immigration officials.
DaCosta was booked, fingerprinted and then given a deadline to leave the country and released just like another illegal and unlicensed Brazilian immigrant arrested last year for running down a Salem police officer at a traffic detail.
How’s that for tough enforcement, please, pretty please promise to leave the country. Are you kidding me? What are they fish? Catch and release? That makes two serious accidents and one fatality in the same city in one year thanks to illegals who were caught and released.
For more on last year’s accident, click here, Put the Illegal Back in Illegal Immigration
Earlier this week Ted Kennedy was interviewed by Andy Hiller of the local NBC affiliate. Hiller asked Kennedy about his belonging to The Owles, an all male club at Harvard. He asked Kennedy if he was a member and Kennedy said no, he just pays $100 per year, for 54 years.
Question: Do any of you pay $100 per year for half a century to an organization that you don’t belong to? Just curious, would love to hear from you if you do.
Hiller also asked Ted if he would pass muster if he went before the Senate Judiciary Committe. Kennedy’s reply, “No, probably not.”
And that was before THIS,
Ted Kâ??s secret love child a secret no more
The National Enquirer splashes this week with a shocking story about Sen. Ted Kennedyâ??s secret love child with a Cape Cod woman whom the mag says he dated during his days as a swinging single.
According to the tabloidâ??s source, the boy, named Christopher, just celebrated his 21st birthday and is â??mature enough to make his own choices about his background and biological father.â?Â
A Kennedy family confidante told the Enquirer, â??This is one of the biggest secrets in the Kennedy family and known to only a few people including Tedâ??s ex-wife, Joan.â? As for the senator, his spokesgal Melissa Wagoner last night called the tabloid tale â??irresponsible fiction.â?Â
Hereâ??s the story according to the Enquirer: Back in 1983, Kennedy, then 51, took up with Caroline Bilodeau, an attractive brunette, several months before divorcing Joan, the mother of his three kids â?? Kara, Ted Jr. and Patrick.
Luckily for his “love child”, his mother was smart enough not to raise him as a Kennedy,
She has always been very protective of Christopher and wanted him to have a normal life, not the life a Kennedy lives.
In honor of the senior senator, today’s word of the day is,
schadenfreude SHAHD-n-froy-duh, noun:
A malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others.
Tom Blumer from BizzyBlog has been all over the Kelo decision from day one. Nice to see that the liberals on the Supreme Court have opened the door for your house to be taken from you by the likes of Pfizer. Now they are coming after your church.
Let’s start with this, no, I do not own any Yahoo stock.
So Yahoo reported quarterly earnings tonight and they were not very good, at least as defined by Wall Street sheep, er, I mean analysts.
Yahoo 4Q Profit Misses Views; Shares Fall
Tuesday January 17, 7:07 pm ET
By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer
Yahoo Fourth-Quarter Profit Falls Short of Analysts’ Expectations; Shares Decline 13.5 Percent
Shareholders suffer a 13% haircut in a matter of minutes, yet the company CEO Terry Semel had this to say,
Everything is going extremely well. We feel great about our company and great about our prospects.
By great about “our” company and “our” prospects, was he referring to his fellow executives who allot themselves free or ridiculously underpriced stock options hand over fist or was he referring to the actual owners of the company, the shareholders? Can’t be the shareholders, they are taking a bath tonight.
This isn’t the first time he has tried to sell his happy horse bleep while shareholders were hurting.
What is it with this guy? You have to question his judgement and not just because he let his daughter appear on the VH1 reality TV show Filthy Rich Cattle Drive, a show that “involves a City Slickers/The Simple Life-like premise, with the privileged children of celebrities working on a Colorado cattle ranch.” This show was beyond pathetic.
This outward confidence in the business masks the reality that there have been 45 sells by insiders totalling 8.2 million shares and not one single buy in the open market.
Check out the insider transactions. It is ridiculous how much stock these guys have given themselves.
CEO Terry Semel sold stock this year worth more than $244 MILLION. What makes this all truly obscene is that Semel exercised his right to purchase 7 MILLION MORE SHARES at prices between $5-$15 per share. Not a bad deal considering that Yahoo stock never went below 30 the entire year. Shareholders pay full price, insiders get shares that are already up more than 100%. The stock would have to drop another 80% before he lost any of his own money, no wonder Semel “feels great” about “our” company.
The story is not any different for COO Daniel Rosensweig who sold approximately $105 MILLION in stock this year. He exercised his right to purchase stock options eleven different times this year, each time the grant was 76,000 shares at discount price of 7.03 per share. What a racket.
I understand that stock options are a big part of attracting and retaining executives, but what Yahoo is doing seems pigish, excessive and not in the best interest of shareholders. If they are selling like crazy, why wouldn’t you?
UPDATE: Maybe the SEC is reading Pundit Review?
SEC seeks to pull covers off exec pay
By Mark Schwanhausser
San Jose Mercury News
It will be easier for the public to discover the million-dollar perks enjoyed by top executives such as Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison under rules federal regulators unanimously proposed Tuesday.
Three of our former guests on Pundit Review Radio are having an interesting conversation about the recent Blog Summit in which the GOP invited select conservative bloggers down to Washington to cover the Alito hearings.
Danny Glover from National Journal’s Beltway Blogroll maintains his healthy skepticism about bloggers in his post The Courtship Of The Blogosphere,
Still, I recoiled at much of the content written by the GOP-approved bloggers last week. Why? Because the content they wrote from Washington, while being feted by the Republican Party, did not pack the same punch as their normal fare. Too often, they sounded more like unofficial stenographers for the GOP than the passionate, independent watchdogs that they normally are.
Matt Margolis from Blogs for Bush and GOP Bloggers disagrees in a post titled Hitting Below The Beltway Blogroll,
Despite the impression given in Glover’s rant, bloggers did not simply throw softball questions at the Senators who spoke with us. I was determined to find out why Alito’s hearings were delayed until after the New Year, despite the fact President Bush wanted Alito confirmed before then. Believe it or not, I actually found myself satisfied by the answer given to me by Senator Frist, and one of his staffers. We constantly wanted answers about what Senate Republicans would do if the Democrats filibustered. Captain Ed was determined to find out why the NRSC was going to spend money on RINO Lincoln Chafee, instead of supporting his conservative Republican opponent in the primary. I don’t know if Ed ever ended up being satisfied by the answers he got from various people he grilled on the subject, but Glover is wrong to infer that the event last week was a love fest. Many contentious issues came up time and time again. Cherry-picking laudatory blog entries from the event hardly gives an objective view of what happened and what our coverage was like.
Veteran newspaper man turned blogger Mark Tapscott provides some interesting insight and perspective that only a 25 year veteran of the print media can in his post, Are Bloggers ‘Kept Sources’ When Blogging at GOP Sactioned Events?
Put otherwise, transparency is the key consideration in evaluating the credibility of a news voice. As long as the RNC-sanctioned bloggers disclosed the nature of their connection with the GOP, there is no reason to assume they ceased being able to talk about what they saw and heard in a maner that provides value to readers. Readers simply need to remember there are other voices, some of which may well possess greater credibility.
This issue is not going to go away anytime soon because the Blogosphere is at such an early stage in its development as an information and opinion source for vast numbers of people around the world. I expect Glover will have more to say and I know I will.
Stay tuned.
I do have to say that I disagree with Danny Glover on one point he made,
The sessions revived, and arguably legitimized, criticism that at least some right-leaning bloggers are tools of the GOP.
Sure, that is what liberal bloggers like Kos claim all the time. The facts however tell a different story. One of the great thing about conservative blogs is that they are a forum for ideas. There are numerous times when conservative bloggers have ‘gone off the reservation’ as they say. Just ask Harriet Miers if that is true. She was nominated by W. and taken down by conservative blogs. Many conversatives objected to Miers not because she wasn’t conservative enough, as the liberals claim, but because she wasn’t qualified enough. In the wake of Roberts and Alito, is there any question that those who opposed Miers were right?
You could point to this post as another example of whacking what you think is wrong, no matter where it is coming from.
More recently, what about the treatment of Julie Myers, daughter of Gen Richard Myers, who was appointed head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement? She was savaged as yet another crony, unqualified appointment by conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin, Debbie Schlussel, among others.
The battlefield of ideas is alive and well in the conservative blogosphere. I think the
fact that the national party is recognizing and courting bloggers to get their message out is far more positive than any alleged conflict of interest among those invited. These concerns will dissipate over time, in my opinion. Soon, bloggers being invited will be the norm, not the exception. It is the content that matters. The blogosphere is one of the few meritocricies left in this world.