The video of the stumbling and slurred health care rant (complete with flailing arm gestures) by Montana Senator Max Baucus on the Senate floor is certainly good for laughs

but even better is that his defenders say that Baucus always sounds drunk. I guess ole Max never needs to dress up warmly in those cold Montana winters even when Baucus' well-paid (by the taxpayers) girl friend isn't around! Here's an earlier clip of Max Baucus back when he had a beard and appeared on a popular talk show:

Labels: Humor, Max Baucus

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:38 AM -

I'm very disappointed.

On Christmas morning I couldn't find one single gift to North Carolina from Sen. Kay Hagan under the health-care "reform" tree.
Louisiana got a nice package. Florida and Connecticut, too. And Nebraska scored a really big present.

Just six days ago Crooked Harry Reid said that if a senator didn't get his state "something" in the health-care "reform" package, then that senator wasn't doing his or her job.

And Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., upped the ante. He said that every state did "get something" in the measure.

OK. it may be a little late, but I'm still excited. What's North Carolina's gift? Goofy Kay, as everyone knows, won her seat in the Senate last year on Barack Obama's coat tails and ever since she has been in Washington whenever Obama or Harry Reid told her to jump, her only response was "How high?" Goofy Kay has voted for every single thing those boys have dredged up so North Carolina's present has got to be something really good!

Flat screen TVs for every man, woman and child? No, no -- that's way too small.

A new military base ... for every county?

A lump of coal and a power plant to fire it?

Oh, I know: Lifetime exemptions for North Carolina residents and all of their descendents from federal income tax? That would be nice.

Whatever it is, I can't wait for the UPS truck to finally get here. The suspense is unbearable.

(With apologies to Sherman Frederick)

Labels: Harry Reid, Kay Hagan, Obamacare

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:33 AM -

God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.
For Jesus Christ our Savior,
Was born on Christmas Day;
To save us all from Satan’s power,
When we were gone astray.

Labels: Christmas

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:30 PM -

The fun-loving Obamas have brought more "change you can believe in" to the Whitehouse. This time its the Whitehouse Christmas, er Holiday Tree which this year features ornaments with transvestites, Chairman Mao, and Obama's grinning mug on Mt. Rushmore. Heck, nothing says Christmas like transvestite ornaments on the tree!

Apparently the Obamas sought out the well-known NY window-dressing poofter, Simon Doonan, to do the Christmas, er Holiday Tree decorating and he did his usual schtick to shock the squares.

'Let's face it,''he once said, ''window-dressing is a nonessential, poofy profession whose one raison d'être is the creation of desire. I consider myself very lucky to have found it.''

...

A self-proclaimed ''gay half-wit with no future,'' he had just two goals: ''Not to go raving mad like the rest of the family and not to end up working in one of the local factories.''

Sounds like a swell choice to boost the Christmas, er, Holiday Spirit in the nation's house. I worry though about what'll happen if someone suggests that everyone don their gay apparel.

Meanwhile in Obamavilles across the nation, the citizenry can only look on in amazement at this bizarre interloper and his crew of wingnuts.

Labels: Barack Obama, Christmas

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:16 AM -

After weeks of telling everyone that "good boys don't do that," Nebraska Senator Ben "Dover" Nelson couldn't drop his pants fast enough after Harry Reid flashed some serious cash at him:

Why the change of heart?

It appears that the current health care bill’s plan to insure about 30 million uninsured Americans includes a provision to move a good portion of them onto the Medicaid rolls. Needless to say, that’s quite the unfunded mandate to force upon the budgets of our already cash-strapped states.

But there’s one state that today was guaranteed immunity from such a budget-annihilating burden -- Nebraska.  While 49 other states will be forced to scramble and cut and tax and reappropriate in order to meet the new mandates, Nelson’s home state won’t.

That’s because Nelson sold his vote for Reid’s assurance that the feds will pay 100% of any new Nebraska Medicaid costs -- forever.

And that leaves non-Nebraskan taxpayers picking up the tab – forever.

Gosh, that's even more lucrative than a few night stands with Tiger Woods!

But hold on a sec! What about other round-heeled Democrat Senators from conservative states who rolled over for Harry without any such largesse? I bet they are steaming now and thinking about how they could all of a sudden play hard to get too. Maybe they could call up the National Enquirer and offer to sell all their photos and phone messages unless Reid and Obama come up with some piles of cash for them too?

(Hat tip: photo from Ace)

Labels: Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, Harry Reid

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:37 AM -

Golly, who knew? According to the Associated Press' Charles Babington and Jennifer Loven , Barack Obama singlehandedly saved us all from Global Warming! There will always be scoffers, but here's proof that no one can deny: no sooner did St. Obama get his "unprecedented" Global Warming agreement than a vast blizzard hit the Northeast USA. Here's St. Obama's plane arriving back in Washington DC:

Labels: Barack Obama, Ecoweenies, Global Warming

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:13 AM -

If you want a nonstop laugh fest, you can't get much better than the Copenhagen Global Warming Clown Circus. The big news overnight was a "leaked" copy of the final draft agreement:

When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and self-interest of the participants has become obvious to all beholders, when those pesky polar bears just keep increasing and multiplying – what do you do?

No contest: stop issuing three rainforests of press releases every day, change the heading to James Bond-style “Do not distribute” and “leak” a single copy, in the knowledge that human nature is programmed to interest itself in anything it imagines it is not supposed to see, whereas it would bin the same document unread if it were distributed openly.

After that, get some unbiased, neutral observer, such as the executive director of Greenpeace, to say: “This is the single most important piece of paper in the world today.” Unfortunately, the response of all intelligent people will be to fall about laughing; but it was worth a try – everybody loves a tryer – and the climate alarmists are no longer in a position to pick and choose their tactics.

But boy! Was this crass, or what? The apocalyptic document revealing that even if the Western leaders hand over all the climate Danegeld demanded of them, appropriately at the venue of Copenhagen, the earth will still fry on a 3C temperature rise is the latest transparent scare tactic to extort more cash from taxpayers. The danger of this ploy, of course, is that people might say “If we are going to be chargrilled anyway, what is the point of handing over billions – better to get some serious conspicuous consumption in before the ski slopes turn into saunas.”

Of course, the most serious conspicuous consumers are the Third World thugs and clowns that thought Global Warming was the ticket to new palaces, new Mercedes, and more jewelry for their grasping wives. Then there were the United Nations kleptocrats that thought they had finally come up with a way to ride on a gravy train pulled by the taxpayers of the developed world. I won't even mention the religious acolytes of the Church of Global Warming and the voracious profiteers in the developed world who are beneath contempt for trying to force this scam on the rest of us.

This week has been truly historic. It has marked the beginning of the landslide that is collapsing the whole AGW imposture. The pseudo-science of global warming is a global laughing stock and Copenhagen is a farce. In the warmist camp the Main Man is a railway engineer with huge investments in the carbon industry. That says it all. The world’s boiler being heroically damped down by the Fat Controller. Al Gore, occupant of the only private house that can be seen from space, so huge is its energy consumption, wanted to charge punters $1,200 to be photographed with him at Copenhagen. There is a man who is really worried about the planet’s future.

If there were not $45 trillion of Western citizens’ money at stake, this would be the funniest moment in world history. What a bunch of buffoons.

And the sooner we laugh them out of town the better. Speaking of "soon to be out of town," even Santa Obama's last minute visit with a bag of goodies provided by the American taxpayers and a list that he wasn't checking to see who was naughty or nice failed to cheer up the clowns. It must be rough on a man of Barack Obama's vaunted sensitivity that the panhandlers weren't satisfied with his handout. Hmm, while he was there he could have pitched Chicago for the Olympics again.

Labels: Barack Obama, Ecoweenies, Global Warming, United Nations

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:20 AM -

Al Gore may have canceled his $1,200 per ticket book promotion event scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 17th at the great Copenhagen Global Warming Boondoggle, but the Gore effect on the Copenhagen weather apparently lives on - Record Cold To hit Global Warming Conference (Copenhagen To Break Dec 17th Record by 7 Degrees!):

Once again it's bad timing for a global warming meeting as all time record cold temperatures are set to strike the the U.N. global warming conference in Copenhagen.

Last week "warmists" were confronted with reports that November Arctic Sea Ice growth exceeded the 1979-2000 average and that "in general, the ice edge is now at or slightly beyond its average location".

The bad timing for "warmists" this time is that Copenhagen, home to the UN global warming conference until December 18th, is set to break the all time low temperature record for December 17th.

Here is a screengrab of Copenhagen weather from Weather Underground for Dec 17th 2008 that shows the all time cold record for that date (24 degrees) was set on Dec 17th 1997:

(screen grab elided)

As can be seen from this screen grab from Weather Underground, forecasters are predicting this record will be shattered by 7 degrees as temperatures dip down to a record low of 17 degrees on Thursday December 17th:

(screen grab elided)

Actually, if you follow the Weather Underground link for the forecast, the low temperature predicted for the 17th is now up to 21 degrees, so I count it as further proof of the Gore Effect - when Crazy Al stays away the temperature rises.

Labels: Al Gore, Ecoweenies, Global Warming

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:11 AM -

Christopher Booker in today's UK Telegraph provides a bird's eye view of the Global Warming hustlers at work conning the suckers:

What is the connection between Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian railway engineer who has been much in evidence at the Copenhagen climate conference, as chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an Indian-owned steel company's decision to mothball its giant Teesside steel works next month, ripping the heart out of the town of Redcar by putting 1,700 people out of work?

Nothing of this complex story is likely to be heard in the dreary concrete shed outside Copenhagen where, as temperatures drop towards freezing, 17,000 prime ministers, officials and climate activists are earnestly discussing how the planet is warming up towards extinction. But it certainly sheds a little light on a colossal worldwide racket these delegates are helping to promote, because the end of the story is that we shall all be paying to export thousands of British jobs to new steel plants in India, for no gain in the reduction of worldwide CO2 emissions.

In a nutshell, after Margaret Thatcher revived the moribund British steel industry, the steel works at Redcar in the UK was one of the jewels but it was sold to Corus (a Dutch company) which in turn was acquired by the steel part of the Indian Tata conglomerate, Tata Steel. More or less OK so far, but now comes the real con job via Global Warming:

One of Corus's prizes was the Redcar steel works, once Europe's largest blast furnace. It is this which is now to be mothballed, according to Corus because of worldwide "over-production". But this is transparently not the case, since its new owner, Tata, is planning to more than double its steel production in India over the next three years. Furthermore, only last month Corus announced plans to build a 20 million euro plant in the Netherlands, with the help of 15 million euros from the EU and 5 million euros from the Dutch government.

The real gain to Corus from stopping production at Redcar, however, is the saving it will make on its carbon allowances, allocated by the EU under its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). By ceasing to emit a potential six million tonnes of CO2 a year, Corus will benefit from carbon allowances which could soon, according to European Commission projections, be worth up to £600 million over the three years before current allocations expire.

But this is only half the story. In India, Corus's owner, Tata, plans to increase steel production from 53 million tonnes to 124 million over the same period. By replacing inefficient old plants with new ones which emit only "European levels" of CO2, Tata could claim a further £600 million under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, which is operated by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the organisers of the Copenhagen conference. Under this scheme, organisations in developed countries such as Britain – ranging from electricity supply companies to the NHS – can buy the right to exceed their CO2 allocations from those in developing countries, such as India. The huge but hidden cost of these "carbon permits" will be passed on to all of us, notably through our electricity bills.

Thus, at the end of the day, Redcar will lose its biggest employer and one of the largest manufacturing plants left in Britain. Tata, having gained up to £1.2 billion from "carbon credits", will get its new steel plants – while the net amount of CO2 emitted worldwide will not have been reduced a jot.

Golly, paying through the nose to impoverish ourselves and to support the kleptocrats at the United Nations. Sounds like a heck of a deal to me! And speaking of those kleptocrats:

But it just happens that Dr Pachauri's other main job, apart from being chairman of the [United Nations' Global Warming cheerleaders at the] IPCC, is as director-general of the Tata Energy Research Institute, funded by Tata, which he has run since 1981.

I'm sure ole Doc Pachauri is more than worth his weight in gold to Tata. Speaking of which:

Last year, on official figures, buying and selling the right to emit CO2 was worth $126 billion across the world. This market, now enriching many of our leading financial institutions (not to mention Al Gore), is growing so fast that within a few years it is predicted to be worth trillions, making carbon the most valuable traded commodity in the world.

Forget Big Oil: the new world power is Big Carbon.Truly it has been a miracle of our time that they have managed to transform carbon dioxide, a gas upon which all life on earth depends, into a "pollutant", worth more than diamonds, let alone oil. And many of those now gathered in Copenhagen are making a great deal of money out of it.

A truly monumental con job fer sure!

The best part though is that Global Warming is a complete and utter fraud based on cooked data, but it has the key aspect of a truly good con game: the suckers (AKA left wing hacks and pols) want to believe!. Y'all try to keep warm and have a Climategate Christmas:

Labels: Climategate, Ecoweenies, Global Warming

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 1:02 PM -

Whenever I try out the old saw that "a women can never have too many shoes"  on Mrs. Philosopher, she counters that based on my example, "a man can never have too many flashlights." I have to confess that it is true - I have one (or more) for every room in the house and every desk and every vehicle, not to mention special purpose ones like spotlights, lanterns, and penlights.

Lately, I have been reading the LED flashlight reviews, checking out the various on and offline stores, and converting or replacing most of the existing flashlights with LED flashlights. The advantages of LEDs are obvious - much better bulb life and better battery life than incandescent bulbs. In recent years LED prices have gone down and LED flashlights have gotten brighter and started using standard batteries instead of the usually pricey (and unrechargeable) coin cells that used to be typical. LEDs are also showing up in much more than light bulbs, but even sticking to that, traffic lights everywhere are converting to LED as well as many exterior car lights excepting headlights for which LEDs are still not bright enough.

Now here's the big puzzle. How did this major power saving technological improvement occur without Senator Barbara ("Call me dopey") Boxer and some Federal bureaucracy mandating its use like the annoying and poisonous Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL)? It sure is a puzzlement, but maybe, just maybe, it has to do with LEDs actually being better than incandescent bulbs for many applications and not some just some ecoweenie fantasy.

So why don't they make LED replacements for regular incandescent light bulbs? Actually, if you look around you can find some and they provide similar power savings and much better color rendering than CFLs without the poisonous mercury, but at the moment they are still rather expensive. Hopefully they get down the commodity pricing curve soon before the greentards give us all mercury poisoning.

Labels: Ecoweenies, Gore-bulbs

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 3:10 AM -