Overstimulated?

We all know what happens when our elected officials and bureaucrats get hold of a giant pot of money, don't we?

That's right, out-of-control wasteful spending!

Whether it's a tax, a toll, a fee - you name it - they'll find a way to spend it in ways we never intended.

Check out this morning's Ft. Worth Star-Telegram article on how our transportation funds were spent. That's right, they were spent on everything but transportation!

One reason is that state legislators often require the Texas Department of Transportation to spend its enhancement dollars on pet projects by attaching last-minute "riders" to the department’s appropriation.

North Texans pay twice (or thrice):

Meanwhile, drivers in Dallas-Fort Worth, the nation’s fourth-most-congested metro area, are being asked to pay tolls on a growing number of roads and could face higher gas taxes in the coming years to make up for a shortfall of funds to expand highways.

Think it's just a Texas problem? Ask a senior citizen in New York state about the Thruway. Built in the 50's, it's the longest stretch of toll road in the nation and it was supposed to have become toll-free almost fifteen years ago. Instead, tolls continue to increase. Read more here.

So as this new toll hike takes effect, let's look at how they're spending the toll money.

For every toll dollar collected:

• 36 cents goes toward basic operating costs
• 49 cents goes toward thruway debt and capital
• 5 cents goes toward service areas and equipment

Your thruway dollars still support the canal, too. About 9 cents of every dollar supports the waterways.

Yeah, I wondered why it didn't add up.

That's about $80 million a year for a canal that most thruway drivers never use.

Canal directors say it's a better solution than simply taxing New York State residents to fund it.

I get it now.

Taxing New Yorkers might make the whole process more - as the double-talkers like to say - "transparent".

We can't have that, can we?

These folks are spending our money in ways we didn't approve. They're wasting our money in ways we find disgusting. Can you imagine what's happening with that stimulus money?

Check out The Mann Grant here.

It's just the tip of the iceberg...

Pass the Bark, Please

It's difficult to understand what our politicians are thinking. Is getting re-elected more important than our country's future?

Don't these fools understand that billions of people on our planet aren't going to play along?

Think you and I can make a difference when it comes to cleaning up the planet?

Think again!

We're no match for about five billion crazed carbon-burners. Read more here.
We don’t control the global supply of carbon.

Ten countries ruled by nasty people control 80 percent of the planet’s oil reserves—about 1 trillion barrels, currently worth about $40 trillion. If $40 trillion worth of gold were located where most of the oil is, one could only scoff at any suggestion that we might somehow persuade the nasty people to leave the wealth buried. They can lift most of their oil at a cost well under $10 a barrel. They will drill. They will pump. And they will find buyers. Oil is all they’ve got.

Poor countries all around the planet are sitting on a second, even bigger source of carbon—almost a trillion tons of cheap, easily accessible coal. They also control most of the planet’s third great carbon reservoir—the rain forests and soil. They will keep squeezing the carbon out of cheap coal, and cheap forest, and cheap soil, because that’s all they’ve got. Unless they can find something even cheaper. But they won’t—not any time in the foreseeable future.

We no longer control the demand for carbon, either. The 5 billion poor—the other 80 percent—are already the main problem, not us.

Climate change legislation could destroy the American way of life.

If environmental wackos have their way, farmers would do better by planting trees instead of corn. Read more here.

The legislation would give free emissions credits, known as offsets, to farmers and landowners who plant forests and adopt low-carbon farm and ranching practices. Farmers and ranchers could sell the credits to help major emitters of greenhouse gases comply with the legislation. That revenue would help the farmers deal with an expected rise in fuel and fertilizer costs.

Meanwhile, farmers around the world will be converting forests to farmland faster than we can do the opposite.

Allison Specht, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said other studies have largely confirmed the results of the EPA and Agriculture Department analysis.

"That's one of the realities of cap-and-trade legislation. The biggest bang for your buck for carbon credits is planting trees," she said.

I think I know who's behind all this. Could the tree-huggin' Breatharian lobby be pushing this?

Food? They don't need no stinkin' food!

An Insult to All 9/11 Victims

There are numerous 9/11 "Truthers" out there, but the one with the largest following seems to be Alex Jones.

By sounding authoritative while spouting nonsensical garbage, Jones has managed to gain quite a few followers and make an excellent living at their expense.

This snake oil salesman has found his calling:



Jones uses things we know to be true and twists them. He takes listeners on a disjointed journey full of illogical leaps.

The sad part? Our country is loaded with Truthers who are in lock-step with frauds like Jones.

Global Warming Alarmists...

...used CFC's as a springboard. It was a wise move. Like most, I believe that fluorocarbons were damaging to our atmosphere. If it was a scam, we bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Why, then, wouldn't we buy into the "we're cooking our planet and need to stop driving SUV's" movement, right?

The Global Warming vs. Next Ice Age debate seems different. Each side cherry picks data that "proves" their theory.

Read the latest here.

I said recently in my book The Climate Caper that most scientists simply cannot believe that their colleagues would deliberately oversell a scientific conclusion for the benefit of a political cause. Dishonesty of that nature would fly in the face of everything that the rather idealistic typical scientist has been taught about his profession.