Do natural disasters help the Left's agenda?

First off, our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the earthquakes and related tsunamis on the Pacific. A friend from elementary school and her husband are in Hawaii.

This natural disaster, and the nuclear reactor failure on the coast in Japan, has sadly created political capital for President Obama and his Green Energy Agenda. Every time I have heard energy plans from this Administration, it has been to aim the goals on two sources, wind and solar. He has refused nuclear, and has called oil and coal "energy of the past" in an attempt to force us into inefficient and cost-rising sources such as corn ethanol (which corrodes engines), wind, and solar. There seems to be Cloward-Piven in place for this Administration to believe in their mantra.

With the cost of gasoline creeping past the $1 per litre range ($3.85, remember you have to add 11%-17.5% based on where you live considering how much alcohol is in the fuel), and the goal of $2 per litre gasoline, they have successfully taken us out of the ladder-frame trucks and into tiny monocoques. With the nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan caused by the plant failure from the earthquake, the Left can keep the ban on new nuclear plants imposed since Three Mile Island in 1979. With all that's left, the only sources of energy available are wind and solar. That's exactly the Obama goal. No industry for us, mandate the green goals to let others overtake us.

Sometimes you wonder what the next disaster will do for Obama to push their next anti-industry rant. ◙

Opinion Digest

Paul Driessen: Greens Shackle National Security and Renewable Energy.

End of the American Dream: The Green Agenda Is About Getting Rid of As Many Humans as Possible.

Doug Giles: ObamaCare, Alinsky, and useful "Christian" Idiots.

Roger Hedgecock: Single Payer Coming Under ObamaCare.

All Your Nation Belong To Us. Ole, ole, ole, ole! Death to the USA!  ◙

Lenin's Birthday Digest

Thursday, most of the nation will celebrate hideously under the “Earth Day 40” anniversary banner the 140th birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Vladimir Llyich Lenin.

With this President's appetite for destruction of industry (see why GM and Chrysler were seizedd, as executives wanted trucks, and Obama wants the auto industry to make tiny “save the earth” cars), abolition of industry because of “global warming” (what a crock), no oil drilling permitted, no forest farming of trees permitted, Cap and Trade that would kill more industry, the glorification of the Service Employees International union at the expense of everyone else, and the “can't touch this” attitude where nothing is allowed except quiet to “save the earth” and destroy jobs, it has become “All Hail O Obama For Thee Brings Every Good,” an insult to Haydn, whose Die Jahreszeiten states from industry brings good, and industry is being attacked in Lenin's Birthday.

Capitalism Magazine: Philosophies of Lenin and “Earth Day”.

Front Page Magazine.

Examiner Magazine

Town Hall.

The Guardian.

CNS News: US must look at other nations' energy policies.

And don't forget that this is the 10th anniversary of Elián González's seizure by Janet Reno, Deval Patrick, and the Clinton Justice Department, deporting him to Cuba where instead of escaping Communism, the now-16 year old is a slave of “Dear Leader”, in ways that President Obama would envision all of America becoming. This Justice Department consists of many Clinton era staff, and they were responsible for this wrong-headed deporting in order to push for Communism for someone who wanted to escape. The “father” in this case actually was a cover for Castro, and liberal leaders have always supported Communism. Was it ironic that it was a Lenin's Birthday seizure to promote the facets of Communism? Nearly sixty years ago, Khruschev warned “We Will Bury You.” Now, Obama is letting Communism bury the United States. ◙

Falsehoods of Global Warming, Bad Christmas Music, and Raunchy Glee

By Bobby Chang

Globull Warming. The Copenhagen Summit on Global Warming is upcoming, and with the numerous charges that the Global Warming Crisis (or as some people call it, Globull Warming) is a hoax, I wonder how much of our economy has been destroyed by this Communist idealism of Gaia worship that has prohibited the manufacture of productive appliances in favour of “energy efficient” unproductive appliances, the prohibition of larger vehicles in favour of tiny cars (and led to the seizure of two US automakers for failure to comply with Chicago Style Policy including contributing to political opponents, and the third caving to the standards requested by other countries after accepting the government’s new standards), the increased mantra of “cap and tax” and “wind and solar energy only”, along with lightbulb bans, television bans (as seen in California), and numerous other types of stupidity brought along by a media and textbook publishers that has provided cover for the numerous activists whose goal is to throw us into a Taliban-like Stone Age in regards to the prohibition of numerous technologies that has provided us extra convenience.

In the excerpts of Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten, the Autumn segment we sang states, “All hail, oh industry from thee brings every good”. The belief system of the Gaia worshipper in the Global Warming hoax feels that industry brings every bad thing and Gaia brings good by prohibiting us from using anything they do not approve. It has turned into a Soviet-style command and conquer with the Global Warming hoax. What industry-killing ideal is the next proposal of this anti-business, anti-industry Administration? Why do we need to cave to the standards of the extreme environmental activists based on their false teachings and not based on safety, logic, or what works best?*

This President and the rest of the ruling Left would envision even if we refuse to ratify any of the hoax, that their transnationalists in the Department of Justice and courts will simply enforce foreign countries’ laws on us in this case.

A Family’s Tragedy, Hope, and An Old Friend. My Bible study teacher’s daughter-in-law is suffering from a recurrence of cancer again, and the opportunity came to participate in her church’s production of Händel’s Messiah this fall as a guest choral member in her honour as she fights this dreaded disease. The irony in all of this was it came as part of visiting her church through a choir soprano who shared the same voice teacher as I had years ago (“The Cheesehead”, who admits she comes from a long line of Packers fans -- not my present teacher which she might call names because she is from the land of the Purple Number Four) as part of not being at my home church on Pink Sunday because of its endorsement of Komen. With just Happy Hour (final practice) remaining, practicing with Suzanne Ringer has been very intense and I admire our entire team as singers and teammates. Happy Hour practice will include members of the Philharmonic, and that just wet my appetite further for great church music from an organization whose concerts I have attended.

Of course, this comes at the expense of the home church, which once again has offered a karaoke programme from Edgar Bronfman Jnr’s Warner Music Group featuring a gaggle of pop tunes accompanied by a $200 karaoke DVD. The music leader turns an AGO organist into a Powerade bottle, punched out, then raising the karaoke disc, similar to a Pepsi product.

But once you’ve paid a pumpkin pie to an accompanist, numerous checks to musicians, and shared in studying music of sound doctrine, what good is it to sing from pop tunes lacking any doctrine or theology and is carried only by the beat of a karaoke machine with the trendy material that fades away?

Not Too Glee-ful. The quality of music in our schools seems to be an issue after I read a few friends were watching the Sony Pictures Television’s Glee. The hit SPT series’ songs have become an issue as I considered how many of these songs sung by the school clubs would be considered appropriate for school use. But again, after we’ve established political correctness by banning the sacred, anything else is now acceptable. Unfortunately, as we see in Glee, the material is highly objectionable.

The list of songs used by the Glee cast include “Jump,” “Last Christmas,” “True Colors,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Imagine” (yes, the John Lennon song that envisions a society without God), “Bootylicious,” “Thong Song” (Mark “Sisqo” Andrews), “Gold Digger” (Kanye “I Can’t Stand Miss Swift” West), “Push It” (Cheryl James and Sandra Denton), and other songs that are not appropriate for our schools. Some of these songs are too explicit, yet this generation, watching MTV, BET, and others, think it is suitable for schools, and Sony has placed these songs into the hit show youth watch. Do they know what they are watching?

Jobs or Union Rewards? The “jobs summit” by President Obama was nothing short of the President pushing ahead to spend more taxpayer money to reward unions and states that supported him with union jobs that will not produce but will provide another gaggle of money to his cronies, while the free market dies. Is this another case of this country turning into the USSR this “Dear Leader” envisions for us? No thanks. Unemployment is 20% here and your policies are the problem.

Oh, By The Way. Oh, by the way. Why are we glorifying Festivus and Kwanzaa, but punishing days of faith? Furthermore, what is with the obsession with the Twilight (occult or vampire) series and This Is It (worship of a dead pop star who died of drugs) with their debut nights? In both cases newscasts were showing the long lines of people lining up to see the midnight premieres of both movies. I thought the lines were extremely long from what I saw and seemed to rival those of students lining up at Krzyzewskiville for tickets to a choice games.

* [Ed] Mr. Chang had participated in the University of South Carolina Summer II Chorus production of excerpts of Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten in a five-week period that started in July 2009, with performances August 2 and 4. See the July and August 2009 sections of this blog to read his reflections of all eight practice sessions, the week leading to the performances, the takeoff on classic advertising to promote the concert, and his post-concert reflections.

Stupidity in Government: Leno Promotes Obama Cars

By Bobby Chang

Did anyone notice that Rush Limbaugh's participation in Jay Leno's version of the BBC's Top Gear segment "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" features a celebrity driving a car built by the government that fits the feds' standards?

The 2011 Ford Focus electric plug-in, based on the Mazda Axela (also called the Mazda3), is smaller than the current Focus, and seemingly has Ford offering (except for the Mustang, Taurus, and F-Series) badge-engineered Mazdas, which makes Hiroshima the centre of Ford's operations, not Dearborn. It was recently uncovered they had accepted $5.9 billion in taxpayer funds to convert a plant that made trucks into one that made the Obama Approved Electric Cars such as the Focus plug-in demonstrated on Leno's new primetime programme. Of course, remember that GM and Chrysler were seized mostly because neither automaker built their product lines around the sub-compact, mini, and microcars that Ford told the feds they would offer, instead of the profit-making trucks and their variants that GM and Chrysler made as the majority of their vehicles.

What Leno is doing with the Top Gear style segment is to promote the type of cars the government wants us to drive, and turn us into Europe in the auto industry too with the tiny cars. This is taxpayers funding social engineering again by promoting small electric cars as part of their "save the earth" mantra that may not carry many, but saves the earth. And that reminded me of the report recently that taxpayer money went to a few electric car manufacturers to help push their variants of electric cars -- first Tesla (in the same lot that gave Ford and Nissan their cash), and now an electric car company pushed by Al Gore.

At this rate, can families even have a car once we get through this disturbing idea that the government should force us into electric cars?

Orwellian Doublespeak

By Bobby Chang

While it's not directly mentioned in 1984 by George Orwell, it is well-believed that doublespeak is displayed in the famed Orwell novel of a Communist-style society that is envisioned by the British author. I have noticed doublespeak in our society, from the White House to even our churches.

Health Care Reform. To impose an extremist European-style socialism by forcing rationing of health care (see the long limits in Europe; I have had too many friends with severe injuries in recent years they would never be allowed treatment under proposed socialised medicine), strict limits on coverage, excessive regulation on what types of treatment would be allowed (such as the Oregon case where the woman was told they wouldn't pay for her life-saving medicine, but they'd be willing to pay for medicine to kill her), and worst of all, Big Brother watching over every move made by a person. They are willing to create a gaggle of Michael Schiavos to kill people on their own will. If seeing Terri die at her unfaithful husband's cruel hand in order to marry another man was cruel enough, how much worse can it be when it takes place the afternoon where you are seeing Terri's sister speak? How can health care reform work if they want a friend who has a dangerous growth in her spine left untreated and force her to die by taking euthanasia pills instead of fixing the problem by removing it?

Cash for Clunkers / Auto Task Force. The Sierra Club in 2001 began a "War on Sport-Utility Vehicles" that went after them for various reasons that do not make sense. Yet by the time of massive fuel price increases, they began winning the war. Now with the new CAFE standards, Auto Task Force, and Cash for Clunkers, liberals are winning the war against SUV's. Mid-size SUV's from Detroit are being phased out in favour of the hip "crossovers" which are small and mid-size cars raised to look like an SUV, but do not have the capability, towing (front-wheel drive), durability (no ladder frame), or safety of one, which Rush Limbaugh would call symbolism over substance. Cash for Clunkers is part of the war, since every SUV sent to the crusher has been replaced by a small car.

Worship. One of the most common doublespeak in our society today is in churches with the term "worship". It has, through the push of the major labels, become codeword for rock music in church. "Worship" as used in many choral books, now means "rock music," especially when "praise" is added, but often "modern". To an entire generation, we have seen "worship" has become a code for rock music. Churches have discarded sacred choral groups for modern rock bands to appease a generation that have lost touch with choirs and do not attend choral events. Whatever is left has been mostly rock music. Last month, I practiced some Die Jahreszeiten in preparation for the next night's practice on a piano at church. I saw a few suspicious microphones and monitors sitting at the foot of the pulpit and was not amused, wondering if this was a rock concert setup, and not church. I asked why this was a rock music setup. The youth responded by telling me this was worship music, not rock music. I informed them of the Orwellian doublespeak, and none of them changed their tone. They had been sold, hook, line, and sinker what concerned me -- they only know "worship" as doublespeak for rock music, and could not break through it.

Obama's Social Engineering of the Auto Industry

By Bobby

I read an older issue of The Limbaugh Letter where Rush Limbaugh warned over a decade ago in his newsletter about an upcoming liberal war on the sport-utility vehicle.

Around the same time, the Big Three of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler knew that despite government requests of them to manufacture small cars, they were not providing profits to the automakers the way production of minivans, sport-utility vehicles, crossovers (the Jeep Grand Cherokee is one), and trucks have to them, considering the durability. The automakers' advertising campaigns were built on trucks and their durability, as we have seen with country singers, NFL players, and Sprint Cup drivers marketing on trucks.

Environmentalists were very unhappy with the trend towards trucks because they demanded fuel economy to become the only standard, and wanted a push towards smaller vehicles, similar to what happens in Europe.

Meanwhile, the sales charts in the United States clearly favoured the truck market. Americans wanted vehicles that had rock-solid backbones in ladder frames, the ability to carry cargo that allowed them to tow a boat to their favourite fishing spot, their bicycles for a mountain bike climb, a kayak for rafting, or golf clubs to carry a foursome to the gold course. Businesses -- both small and large -- need trucks to carry the load for their work duties. Families, who could not purchase cars because of the government's fuel economy policies that made family wagons impossible, decided to buy vans and truck-based sport utility vehicles that could carry the load that the passenger cars, weakened by the standards of the CAFE and Gas Guzzler Tax standards, could not.

Environmental activists such as the Earth Liberation Front, Earth FIRST!, and others were tired of America's push for trucks. In some cases, trucks were torched, slashed, and damaged at dealership lots by such activists.

When the price of fuel increased, concerns grew about vehicle sales as people began looking at the weaker passenger cars to save fuel costs. Some legislators wanted to open major oil patches closed by liberal activists since the Carter Administration, only to be shot down by filibusters.

In 2006, the environmental activists, along with other liberal activists (homosexual special rights groups, unions, et al) took back the legislature, effectively naming Nancy Pelosi the new de facto leader of the United States. Under the Pelosi Administration, they put down the coup de grace against the US automakers, enforcing a new 35 MPG fuel economy standard designed to close the loophole of trucks that had become the cash cows of the automakers. Furthermore, they refused to drill for oil, and endorsed inefficient alternative energy that made little, if any, sense.

That, along with a recession caused by the economic policies of the Pelosi Administration, drove down American automakers who built their entire fortune on trucks. Liberal leaders knew the trick. Automakers had built their entire fortunes on trucks, and with the election of Barack Obama and the supermajorities in Congress, the activists had the perfect storm to brew.

Meanwhile, the American vehicle sales were clearly tipping towards trucks. Trucks were now over 50% of vehicle sales, and a pro-environmentalist administration could easily work on putting the brakes on US automakers that built their products based on trucks. The liberal leadership wanted the auto industry like the judicial system -- based on Modern Europe. Europe is full of minicars and microcars, with subcompacts being the "regular" size vehicles in the continent.

They could now use social engineering to attack the automakers. Ford caved first, by agreeing to discontinue production of the "Panther" line (Town Car, Crown Victoria), and converted a huge revenue-making truck plant to one that produced plug-in Focus. The Focus would become Ford's largest car, with the importation of the Fiesta minicar and Ka microcar in the planning stages.

But when General Motors' Rick Wagoner, who has clearly been the architect (along with Bob Lutz and others) of basing their lines on trucks, found the President, it was the President who fired the leaders on the spot, seizing the automaker in an attempt to bankrupt them and force them to produce the type of cars Ford produces, and Japanese automakers Toyota (iQ, Prius, Yaris) and Honda (Insight, Fit) produce.

Chrysler also had the same fate, considering their innovations have been truck-based, save for the Dodge Viper, since the 1980's, with the K-Car (which gave us the minivan), and the 1994 Dodge Ram truck, which rejuvenated the brand's trucks. Once again, the President demanded microcars, and forced a sale to Italy's Fiat, where they could force down microcars such as the Punto and Topolino, produced in Serbia at the former Zastava plant that gave us the Yugo. (Fiat bought Zastava in 2008.)

Sadly, the evidence is clear that crashes involving the type of cars the Obama Administration is forcing on what had been Detroit's three major automakers (one volunteered, two by force) is going to create severe problems. I have been in two nasty crashes, and was able to walk away from each. In the government-mandated microcars, the drivers would be severely injured, with death nearly certain from the worst of the crashes. Many of these crashes would require a driver to have a six-point safety harness, a crash helmet, and a HANS device just to survive, since basal skull fractures are almost certain to happen with a microcar colllides with a mid-size vehicle or larger.

What we are seeing with the automakers is that the President is using his social engineering and socialist policies to force Americans into the 2-seat microcars of Europe because they are the only vehicles he wants; he wants to legislate the family sedan, truck, SUV, and business vehicles out of business in order to support these environmentalist policies of the fringe of Gore, Hollywood, and other activists. He wants to outlaw America's love affair with the automobile and trucks of the past 50 years and replace it with a socialist engineering project similar to the Trabants of East Germany or Volkswagen Beetles of the 1930's.

When the only vehicles left on the market are Trabants, the Administration will have successfully defeated the automakers, and the people. But it shows how environmentalist activists are in excessive control of this nation to appease its worst offenders.

Sources:

Wall Street Journal
NRO - Planet Gore
NRO - Planet Gore
Unhypnotize.com

Lenin's Birthday Means More Communist Restrictions

By Bobby

The celebration of Lenin's Birthday (April 22, 1870) has become increasingly used by liberal activists to push for fringe environmentalism through the "Earth Day" celebrations. It is intentional that the celebration is held on the birthday of the father of the CCCP, since the ideals of the CCCP's supreme father are those of the fringe environmentalism.

The announcement of a "climate change" bill that will be cleared by liberals through their tactics of prohibition of debate and discussion, and it features limits on carbon dioxide (what plants breathe!) and greenhouse gas emissions, including a "cap and trade" effort to charge exorbitant fees on energy produced by coal, gas, and other sources, in an attempt to push for the only two energy sources that are acceptable to liberal activists, wind and solar. The "wind and solar" mantra is pushed like a Buddhist mantra and the bill also includes mandatory energy production from sources they want (wind and solar), and tougher "energy" standards to virtually ban the internal combustion engine. These "green energy" proposals have destroyed Spain. What does this President and Congress want, us to copy failed policies of countries whose laws now override our laws?

In the end, liberals have a push to take away private property and make everything in control of the government. The increasing philosophy of Communism as endorsed by this Congress and President is continuing through this earth worship agenda, and let it be known that Lenin's Birthday is the ultimate way to celebrate this liberal philosophy. When the Resurrection of Christ is not allowed to be observed, but the Birthday of the Father of the CCCP is celebrated in our schools and media, it is a sad state of affairs to see what liberal activists have decided in secularising this country to create a New World Order of earth worship, "wind and solar", and other mantras designed to destroy this country.

Attacking Talk Radio: Advertisers First

By Bobby

It had to come back to me this evening as I read about the Obama Administration firing the head of General Motors.

Over the past few years, GM advertised aggressively on talk radio, especially on the major conservative programs. I remember hearing ads on major conservative shows.

The Pelosi Administration started imposing new money-losing rules to automakers in an effort to force them into microcars. Chrysler called "uncle" and Fiat offered a third of Chrysler in return for allowing them to work on the Fiat Punto microcar. Ford hired "agents of change" (note the Obama campaign rhetoric) and had 100 (mostly pro-Obama supporters) drive 2010 European Fiesta microcars in an attempt to make the cars feel good for their 2011 launch in the US. GM was too focused on their bread and butter, as Bob Lutz had said their money is made on trucks and family cars, and while they had the Volt, it was still too large for the Pelosi/Obama Alliance, where cars must be microcars, energy must come from wind and solar, and worship of Gaia is the only worship allowed. Worse yet, GM refused to comply with the liberal mandates, so they said if they were to produce what the feds want, the feds had to pay them to do so.

Take the Obama, Pelosi, and Reid victory, and the attitude of "we won, we can do anything we want, and we'll destroy talk radio, first by going after its advertisers".

Take both the Obama/Pelosi energy policy to force microcars, then the attitude against talk radio and its advertisers, and it's clearly no coincidence why Mr. Wagoner was fired. It was clearly aimed at the car guys running GM (Lutz) and its advertising on great radio shows. Liberals are now showing automakers the only way is to stop advertising on talk radio, and making only microcars.

What's the next target?

* * *
One hidden story not mentioned about the Obama Administration's demand of Chrysler accept a partial buyout by Fiat is that the Administration wants everyone into two-seat microcars, and nothing else. This could mean the Fiat Topolino -- the legitimate successor to the Yugo -- being sold in the US. The Topolino is built in the same Serbian plant that gave us the Yugo 55, as last year Fiat bought Zastava, the automaker that gave us the Yugo.

Brace yourself -- Yugo's back with its new Italian boss. And this time they have Chrysler. So here comes the Fiat Topolino, the Yugo that has new ownership of Italy.

Can you imagine this Administration deciding the cars we have, and they want us back in a Yugo, just like the Paul Shanklin parody says on the Rush Limbaugh Program.

Not in the Dark

By Mitchell

I admit that I don't usually blog at this hour, or on the weekend, but this deserved a special note. I just got up to turn out the lights.

As you might have heard, tonight at 8:30 we were all supposed to celebrate "Earth Hour," which means we were all supposed to sit in the dark for an hour. (Of course, the liberals who thought this whopper up are pretty much in the dark anyway.)

Anyway, it's well past 9:30 - so why am I just now turning off the lights? It's because at precisely 8:30, Judie and I turned on every single light in the place, everything that wasn't already on. The bedroom closet, the bathroom, the lights under the cabinets in the kitchen - everything. For one glorious hour, as many of downtown Minneapolis' buildings went dark, our condo shone in a brilliant blaze of glory. (Well, after all, the Good Book does say not to hide your light under a bushel, right?) Even the television was turned to the brightest program I could find: Hockey Night in Canada.

And so as the hour came to an end, and this oh-so-earnest gesture came to an end, and while our lights went off as others came on: what, you may ask, do I - a horrendous offender of the public good, a man who thumbs his nose at the environment, a beast who obviously wants the next generation to suffer for his sins, a downright mean guy - what do I have to say for myself?

Ain't I a stinker?

What are you "giving up" for Lent? Not a Christian you say? Not necessary these days!

By Ray

Giving up" something for the forty day period of Lent in the Christian calendar has been a time honored practice since the earliest days of the church. Up until recently the practice of attending church on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, has been a practice observed only by Catholics where foreheads are marked with the sign of the cross made from the ashes of burnt palms to remind them that their mortal existence is only temporarily on this earth.

Recently some Protestant denominations, thanks to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ movie in 2004, have began to observe that practice also. Most intriguingly atheists and environmentalists are "giving things up" and having ashes marked on their foreheads, a sign that "Remember, O person, from dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return" in tribute to the Mother Earth, Gaia or whatever force they owe allegiance.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE RETURN OF ORIGINAL SIN
Officials want us to observe a ‘carbon fast’. It’s further evidence that environmentalism is about managing human behaviour rather than nature.
by Frank Furedi

It is reassuring to know that Britain’s energy and climate change minister, Ed Miliband, suffers from a powerful sense of guilt.

Miliband has acknowledged that he is a sinner. Today he joined the Right Reverend James Jones, bishop of Liverpool, and the Right Reverend Dr Richard Chartres, bishop of London, to issue a statement calling for a carbon fast this Lent. Apparently Miliband has seen the error of his ways. He says the ‘carbon sin’ he will miss most is ‘driving short distances into town’. For Miliband and his ecclesiastical partners, a carbon fast during Lent is something like a holy command: Bishop Jones insists ‘there is a moral imperative for those of us who emit more than our fair share of carbon to rein in our consumption’.

The promoters of this Lenten carbon fast – the Christian charity, Tearfund – say the idea for turning Lent into an environmentalist publicity stunt came from another Miliband. It says that when Ed’s brother, David Miliband, was minister for the environment, he met with the bishop of Liverpool and informed him that the Church has ‘a major role to play in changing people’s hearts and minds’. In the spirit of having a conversion on the road to Damascus, the good bishop saw the light; Tearfund says ‘a lightbulb switched on in the bishop of Liverpool’s head, and he thought that during Lent we should call for a carbon fast’.

The campaign for a carbon fast is a morally illiterate attempt to recycle the practice of fasting during Lent as a form of environmentally correct behaviour. The aim is to provide religious authority to the condemnation of everyday behaviour that green moralists find objectionable. So, the tips offered to those embarking on the carbon fast include: don’t drink water from a plastic bottle; forget about having your morning latte (it uses too much water apparently); turn down the lights; eat ‘slow food’ (fast food is too carbon-intensive); and give the dishwasher a break (1). Through rebranding these environmentalist rituals as moral obligations, campaigners hope to invest their cause with meaning.

The carbon fast is a semi-conscious attempt to turn environmentalism into a caricature of a religion. The idea of original sin has been reinvented as a wicked act of ‘carbon emission’. There are a number of ways that the green sinner can gain absolution. Those with lots of money can win redemption by purchasing ‘carbon offsets’; the rest of us will have to go through various rituals: recycling garbage, avoiding disposable nappies, using reusable bags, all of which provide proof of our sacrifice and faith. Those most committed to the faith will go further, of course, and stop eating meat and having babies. Those who refuse to embrace any of the above rituals are stigmatised for their moral depravity and denounced for committing crimes against the planet. The main purpose of the carbon fast, it seems, is to make people feel guilty about the fact that they have a life.

Increasingly, environmentalism is less about managing nature than pursuing a moral crusade to manage, and alter, human behaviour. There was a time when standards of behaviour were judged according to moral codes based on religion or on secular philosophy. Such moral ideals sought to provide guidance for those who wanted to lead a good life. Ideas about right and wrong were closely linked to our sense of humanity; acts were judged according to a robust system of human meaning. In the twenty-first century, however, moral disorientation means we find it increasingly difficult to give meaning to moral concepts. In a desperate search for moral coherence, many politicians and religious leaders have embraced environmentalism as a provisional solution to the problem. Hence the carbon fast: they fast not for religious reasons, but in order to make sacrifices for the environment.

Campaigns against climate change are more and more resembling all-purpose moral crusades. In the name of protecting the environment, crusades have been launched to make people consume less, conserve more energy, have fewer babies, and reduce human ambition. Instead of a moral code being used to judge our behaviour, human action is assessed from the point of view of its impact on the environment. So now, after all these years, we discover that staying married is better than getting divorced. Why? Because marriage is better for the planet, apparently. This novel celebration of family values was put forward by the Australian senator Steve Fielding at a meeting of a senate environment hearing in Canberra. Instead of defending marriage on the basis that it possesses some inherent virtue, Fielding supports it because it is superior to the ‘resource-inefficient lifestyle’ that comes with divorce. Once upon a time, warring parents were advised to stay together ‘for the sake of the children’ – now they are implored to stick it out ‘for the sake of the planet’.

Climate change and the return of gluttony The way in which environmentalism resurrects the idea of sin is clear in the return of gluttony. Many greens believe that fasting should not only be for Lent, but for life; they make intimate links between people’s everyday habits and the future of the planet. Environmentalists, public health campaigners, a posse of vegetarian crusaders against meat consumption, lifestyle gurus and policymakers now claim that the obesity crisis represents a moral peril threatening the planet. So big-time fasting is called for.

Ian Roberts, professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, argued in New Scientist in June 2007 that ‘pandemic obesity is an energy vortex’ and therefore ‘it is time to treat it as the potential environmental catastrophe that it is’ (2). He counsels people to stop thinking of obesity ‘only as a public-health problem’ since ‘many of its causes overlap with those of global warming’. What is interesting about Roberts’ diagnosis is the way his denunciation of greedy individual behaviour is linked to a call to protect the planet from gluttonous individuals. His target is people who literally gorge themselves to destruction, and who through their immoderate behaviour threaten the future of the world. They could do with fasting – and not just during the 40 days of Lent.

Roberts depicts the ‘global obesity epidemic’ as an ‘unlikely driver of climate change’. He says that as people have become more dependent on their cars, and other labour-saving devices, they have cut the energy they expend while ‘increasing the amount of fossil fuel they burn’. He evokes a haunting image of an ever-expanding army of fat people whose voracious appetites are creating dangerous climate change. ‘It’s no coincidence that obesity is most prevalent in the US, where per capita carbon emissions exceed those of any other nation, and it is becoming clear that obese people are having a direct impact on the climate’, contends Roberts. ‘The worse the obesity epidemic gets the greater its impact on global warming [will be]’, he says. Here, through the issue of obesity, Roberts is condemning the American way of life itself. America and its legions of obese citizens are portrayed, not only as a threat to themselves, but as a threat to the global environment and people across the world.

In previous times, religious leaders denounced sinners and accused them of being responsible for misfortunes afflicting the community. In the twenty-first century, some are rediscovering the old sin of gluttony, and rebranding it ‘obesity’. The obese lifestyle is deemed inherently sinful, and is said to pose grave dangers to humanity.

According to Professor Roberts, it all starts when someone ‘decides to drive rather than walk the half mile to the office, just to get there a few minutes earlier’. This seemingly innocuous small gesture contains the potential for truly dreadful outcomes, he says. Now in full flow, Roberts points out that the indolent individual who drives to work might have ‘gained a kilogram of fat, and as the weight continues to pile on he eventually finds it harder to move around and is loath to walk or cycle anywhere’. Slothful fat people waddling around, gasping for air, soon become afflicted with ‘back pain, arthritis and shortness of breath, or worse’, claims this public health professional turned preacher.

By now, Roberts can’t resist really raising the stakes. He warns that obesity ‘increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoarthritis, infertility, gallstones, and several types of cancer’. Even worse, obesity leads to low self-esteem, ‘which leads to comfort eating and perhaps heavier drinking, too’. This descent into existential hell is bad enough for the individual and his community, but worse still are the consequences for the environment: ‘His greater bulk and higher metabolic rate will cause him to feel the heat more in the globally warmed summers, and he will be the first to turn on the energy-intensive air conditioning’.

The message of ‘eat less and help to save yourself and the planet’ is endorsed by fearmongers on both sides of the Atlantic. American public health experts and environmentalists frequently join the panics of obesity and climate change together. According to Jonathan Paz, a health science professor at the University of Wisconsin and president of the International Association for Ecology and Health, obesity is the ‘number one epidemic’ blighting the US. He claims that the leading causes of death are ‘related to either sedentary lifestyle, air pollution or motor vehicle accidents and if we could begin to confront climate change and have greener cities and more walkability and bikeability, we would have increased level of fitness, reduced air pollution, and reduced greenhouse gases’.

In recent years, the obesity-climate change nexus has been promoted by numerous public health officials. Howard Frumkin, director of the US Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, talks about the ‘co-benefits’ of tackling global warming and obesity-related illnesses through encouraging daily exercise, like walking to school or work. Frumkin argues that ‘a simple intervention like walking to school is a climate change intervention, an obesity intervention, a diabetes intervention, a safety intervention’ (3). In the same vein, one researcher boasts that he can demonstrate that ‘adopting previously recommended levels of daily exercise by substituting the distances covered during one hour of walking or cycling for car travel could help alleviate three of the most pressing problems that all countries face: oil dependence, climate change and health care’ (4). That is some claim.

Of course some moral crusaders insist that people do more than just get out of their car. Dr Robert Lawrence of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health wants people to eat less meat. Apparently, global meat production accounts for 18 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Its consumption is apparently linked to a variety of diseases, such as colon cancer. A paper published in the Lancet says that in order to minimise the health risks posed by the worldwide growth of meat consumption and of climate change, the production of meat should be substantially reduced. It appears that the benefits of cutting out meat would be further enhanced if there were fewer mouths to feed. The paper concludes that the ‘total consumption of animal foods would, of course, be reduced by the further slowing of world population growth’ (5). It seems as if our joined-up scare tactic has found another cause to embrace: the classic fear of population growth. Why stop at reducing weight? Why just fast? Why not reduce the number of people living on the planet in the first place?

At a time when government ministers and leaders of the Church embrace gimmicks such as a ‘carbon fast’, it is important to remind ourselves that moralising about our lifestyles will do little to improve the environment. On the contrary, this stigmatisation of human ambition undermines our confidence to experiment and innovate and to develop the techniques and practices that will put problems right. Instead of adopting the role of make-believe penitents, we should be encouraging society to invest in innovation and research. Instead of bowing to the divine authority of the planet, we ought to uphold the age-long project of humanising the planet. Spiked

A Lack of Logic

By Bobby

The US automakers are being forced into submission by the federal government and the salacious obsession of modern liberals that control the government with the "global warming" malarkey that is being used to eliminate the family car and business truck and to force everyone into a two-seat microcar or hybrid that is what fringe environmentalists demand everyone have. No wonder a few conservative legislators when the 2007 fuel economy standards were passed as part of an "energy" act that is about pushing the "green agenda" through the same Pelosi tactics we saw pass the European Socialist Act of 2009 (as Sean Hannity calls it) with a veto-proof majority called it the "Buy a Toyota Act" by noticing how it forces automakers to make microcars or tiny hybrids since they are the only vehicles that would comply with federal fuel economy standards.

We have seen in the 26 months of the Pelosi Administration the liberals' appetite of wanting automakers to submit to their standards of vehicles that save fuel but nothing else. Would you rather use fifteen two-seat microcars that make 45 MPG each to travel 150 miles to take a youth soccer team (14 cars with players, parents and coaches driving them, only one player can fit into each car, and one adult to drive them, and another with some gear), that would use 60 gallons of fuel for the trip, or two 20 MPG full-size SUV's, that carry seven players and two coaches each, with all the gear loaded, and use just 30 gallons of fuel for the trip?

The current administration, both in Congress and the White House, want us to believe 60 gallons for the same duty that could be done in just 30 is better because they are "saving the earth".

Furthermore, the power of automakers, with the $500k compensation limits on executives and the tilting of labor relations by the administration, has been changed where unions have more control, power, and compensation than management. Union bosses can now be paid in the millions while executives are restricted in compensation. This problem is also coming to banks, and when "card check" is passed, they can force the banks to unionise, and clearly the power goes to the unions since they are not restricted the way management is restricted.

The problem with automakers has been liberal policies that are designed to force us into tiny microcars they demand we have, and they do not care about businesses, industry, or anyone who needs the popular trucks that is the bread and butter of automakers. The feds' mandate to shrink vehicles gave us the SUV and truck trends, and the new CAFE standards is designed to close the loophole that gave us this move, and to give liberals their utopia of us driving microcars. Remember the "That's a Family" reference to just two people? That's all they think a family is.

And what about the unions' control? Just how much worse can it be?

Reflections

By Bobby

• When I think of George Michael, I think of the retired Washington-area sportscaster whose Sports Machine was a popular syndicated programme for many years nationally, and not the sexual deviant pop star. Lindsay Czarniak was one of the recurring reporters on the show, and finished her six-week stint on TNT.

• My voice teacher returned home and while on the plane, she loaded a text message on my phone asking how was my birthday. I giggled and we spoke but she was awaiting to disembark the plane, pick up her luggage, and await the site of her home (and her cats).

• A report Tuesday on Fox News confirmed that the fringe environmentalists have a bigger lobby than the oil companies. No wonder they are controlling our energy policy banning drilling for oil, lightbulbs, and family cars in recent energy acts passed.

• Common sense in legislatures is that the legislators are supposed to serve their constituents, and not fringe radical Marxists. What does it say when the Michigan legislators, knowing the struggles of their Big Three automakers, decide to betray their own constituents and instead pass legislation designed to ban the family car and trucks that they produce, and favour the microcars of Germany and Japan? In fact, the de facto President (Pelosi) and her left-hand man (Reid) came to the ceremony that passed their “energy act” that couldn't be vetoed because of the supermajority vote in a Japanese hybrid.

• On the other hand, when Pennsylvania-based Comcast found foul play in the NFL's Sunday Ticket DirecTV monopoly, they went to Arlen Specter, who has come to defend his own constituent against the NFL's concept. In each case, the legislators had a choice of either helping or hurting their constituents. The Michigan legislators (Dingell, Stabenow, Levin) chose to sell out to Tokyo and also the huge Marxist-Leninist environmentalist lobby and hurt their own constituents in GM, Ford, and Chrysler. The Pennsylvania legislator (Specter) chose to defend his own constituent, Comcast.

• Does it seem the MOVEON.ORG Revolution of 2006 has led to the inflation problems thanks to their refusal to drill for oil and too the mandate that our food be used as inefficient alcohol fuel instead of food? Consider that most of the corn used is not for grains now but to make the booze under federal “renewable fuel” standards. Get rid of the inefficient Gaia worshipper-written “Energy Independence and Security Act” which should be called the “Pelosi Environmentalist Anti-American High Inflation Act”. The fuel provision is behind the increase in the cost of food, and the legislators, who sold their souls to the environmentalists, refuse to understand that, preferring to go by their feelings.

Environmentalists and Socialised Oil Companies To Blame for Economic Crisis and High Oil Prices

By Bobby

One of the biggest controversies in the country has been the excessive cost of oil, and especially of gasoline, with the cost of gasoline reaching over the dollar per litre range, and E10 hitting slightly under it. In reading an article in the May 24 edition of The Washington Times, they noted that dictatorships in Venezuela (Hugo Chávez), Iran, Russia, and other such countries, not firms such as Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum, Total (France), and Chevron, have control of the oil fields worldwide. Combined, the major private oil companies (Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum, Chevron, Total, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch) have only seven percent of the world's oil fields. Most oil fields worldwide belong to state-run companies, as over 20% is owned by Saudi Arabia's nationalised oil company, 10% each for Iran and Iraq national oil companies, and considerable stakes (more than the Big Five private oil companies combined) by the Venezuelan (Petroleos de Venezuela dba Citgo), Russian (Gazprom, Yukos, Lukoil), and Communist Chinese (Sinopec, CNOOC, PetroChina) national oil companies.

When the state-run monopolies nationally hold control of considerable oil stakes (a clear majority) instead of the private firms, they can impose strict standards that help protect their nation's interest at the expense of commoners, such as those who own shares in the the six major firms listed. Forced nationalisation of oil companies since the 1990's has created an unfriendly atmosphere for private oil companies to drill and find new resources, as the government monopolies in Russia, Venezuela, and Iran want high prices to fund social and political causes. In Russia's case it is for state workers. In Venezuela, it is to subsidise their 12-cent per gallon gas, and in other dictatorships in Central and South America, it is to help fund their military, especially to attack the Free World, as they are aligned with the Venezuelan dictator.

In order to keep prices high, the national oil companies reduce production and refuse to invest in new technologies to develop more oil fields. Combine that with over 35 years of energy policy in the United States that has been in control of the environmentalist movement that has been called by Czech Republic President Václav Klaus as one of the biggest dangers relating to the economy, and you can understand why the price of oil, and gasoline, has been excessively high as the perfect storm of nationalised oil companies' intent to keep supply down with high demand to fund socialist causes, especially to attack free nations worldwide, and the environmentalist movement's “save Mother Earth,” bans on energy development (such as offshore and ANWR oil drilling) movement, aka Gaia Worship, has combined to but the kibosh on oil.

The environmentalist movement's sham of an energy act in 2007 is a reason food costs have increased, as the grains that would be used for food has instead been forced to produce ethanol to comply with alcohol in fuel mandates that do not work. My truck has lost over 10% in fuel economy because of E10, and we have had to replace the carburetor in our Husqvarna lawn mower because of E10 corrosion (please note that Husqvarna has a lawn tractor plant just eight miles from home). The local boat dealer sells gasoline, and he informs his customers that the ethanol mix does not work with two-cycle engines or marine equipment, and E10 hurts the marine equipment he sells because of the corrosion. Furthermore, ethanol mixed with gasoline destroys the primary reason ethanol is used as a fuel – high compression engines with compression ratios that cannot be used with gasoline engines and also safety. (General Motors' Saab BioPower engine can run with compression ratios in the 12:1 range with ethanol only; with any mix of gasoline and ethanol, the compression drops down into the 8:1 range because of the octane levels. The deaths of Sachs and MacDonald in the 1964 Indy 500 led to a ban on gasoline at the race because of the survivability of Johnny Rutherford in an alcohol-fuel car in that crash despite leaking alcohol.)

The environmentalists are winning the war now. Making the world's Big Two automakers Toyota and Honda, with their minicars, destroying American automakers who rely on larger vehicles, and even destroying businesses and industry that need pickup trucks, vans, and sport-utility vehicles for their business use by forcing automakers to cease those vehicles in favour of microcars that cannot even fit a family of four, is part of the agenda of the environmentalist movement that wants to destroy businesses to support their green world which is actually pushing the nation back to Communism.

When you see the high cost of fuel now, you can clearly put the blame on a mix of socialist oil companies run by governments who wish to advance a social agenda for their nation by making other people worldwide paying for it and an environmentalist movement aimed at destroying businesses worldwide with their “green movement” in an attempt to have the rest of the free world to submit to the same socialist and Communist causes.

Full Disclosure: Mr. Chang owns shares in the following oil-related companies: Exxon Mobil (XOM), Ashland (ASH), Marathon Oil (MRO), Murphy Oil (MUR), and Transocean (RIG).