The US government has a website, http://www.ready.gov.  It’s another attempt at scare mongering in the style of the old “duck and cover” advice after WWII.

The fun thing is that these pictures are so ambiguous they could mean anything!  Here are a few interpretations below. Enjoy!

Example of innocent child playing recklessly while uncaring parents stand by

Have you seen situations across Colorado like this…(R rated – for possible injury)

While I typically hate to post photos of such dangerous situations, the current epidemic of children operating non-motorized vehicles has gotten out of control.

Fortunately, as the Post reports, “Bill sponsor Rep. John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, promoted House Bill 1147 as a way to prevent life-changing brain injuries in children.”

This bill would include the, “Use of a bicycle helmet or other appropriate helmet for children ages 2 through 17 while using a bicycle, scooter, skateboard or inline skates on public streets.”

In a rare bi-partisan event, the Post also reports that,  ”Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, said that if the state is going to protect noggins, it might as well protect other sensitive parts, and he backed an amendment requiring boys to wear a ‘crush-resistant athletic cup’ as well.”

Example of innocent child protected by the state of Colorado

Since we have bi-partisan support to save Colorado’s little noggins (and maybe family jewels) we might as well go further and make it mandatory for all children on public and private streets. What’s good for the two year old peddling his tricycle on the sidewalk surely must be good for the one year old infant learning to walk.

With new laws comes new enforcement as well and don’t fear as the bill provides for stiff penalties for helmet law breakers. As Denver Daily reports under the bill, law enforcement officers could issue an “informational traffic citation” to minors aged 2-18 who are riding bikes on public streets without a helmet.

Colorado’s finest will soon be able to patrol the streets ridding Colorado of dangerous minors daring to roll their HotWheels down the sidewalk without the proper protection. Well, actually, that’s not true entirely. HB 1147 would only allow an “informational traffic citation” which has no real legal consequences but police will still be allowed to scare the crap out of the kids and that might just be enough to end the “Death Race” on Colorado’s streets.

P.S. B.Y.O.B

Politico reported that,

As the results were displayed on twin large screens in the ballroom — and even before Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio could announce who had won — a cascade of boos came down from a crowd that views Paul and his fervent supporters as irritants. Paul’s backers responded with cheers, though, when their candidate was then proclaimed by Fabrizio as the winner.

A spokesman for the conference rushed over to reporters after the announcement to make sure they had heard the unmistakable boos when the screen first showed Paul had won the straw poll.

CPAC 2010 drew more voters than any time in CPAC’s history with 2,395 participants, up from 1,757 in 2009 and 1,558 in 2008. How do we explain Ron Paul’s popularity at CPAC despite many conservative’s grumbling and booing at his success?  ” The results are skewed by Paul’s popularity amongst younger voters” say many different talking heads. Yes, 54% of the voters were between the ages of 18-25. That definitely is a major factor as Ron Paul’s popularity among college students has been apparent since his Presidential campaign.

However, according to the polling data, there was actually a smaller percentage of college voters than 2009 when Mitt Romney won the poll. Romney’s percentage of the vote actually increased from 20% to 22% which indicates that Ron Paul either took votes away from Palin, Pawlenty, Gingrich, and Huckabee among others or, a whole lot of Ron Paul’s supporters came to CPAC to see him and represent his views. The general impression around the blogosphere is we should dismiss this straw poll. However to dismiss the poll entirely would be a mistake.

If we look at the other polling data at CPAC we find many interesting things:

• Of the two issues participants found most important were “Reducing the Size of Federal Government” and “Reducing Government Spending” (two issues that are complimentary as one begets the other)
• Cutting Federal Spending was considered the top priority Republicans should consider when it comes to fiscal policy (It was like a tent revival with so many speakers being reborn with the limited government church…again)
• A 37% disapproval rating of Republican members of Congress (No guessing as to how the Paul supporters voted in this one…Is there anybody listening?)
• A 2% favorable rating of Harry Ried and Nancy Pelosi (that’s around 40 people voting who felt really awkward at CPAC according to my embarrassingly low math skills)
• Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee won the most unfavorable person at CPAC award with a 44% disapproval rating (it’s all part of his bringing people together plan)
• Jim DeMint has the lowest unfavorable rating making Jim Demint, “Mr. Popular” (DeMint happens to love Ron Paul’s Audit The Fed bill….the irony of it all)

My conclusion from the poll:

• Ron Paul can turn out the most active young conservatives (libertarian leaning) of any potential candidate…period (they aren’t going away)
• Cutting spending and government is clearly the #1 issue for the CPAC attendees with the “war on terror” a distant 3rd (it’s the economy stupid)
• More than half the attendees feel the Republicans will pick up 30-40 seats in 2010 and they may be right (1994 again?)
• There is an small contingent of anti-war/non-interventionists conservatives in the GOP who are becoming quite vocal (sorry neo-cons)
• Ron Paul’s economic message and ideas are taking hold even if his popularity among mainstream Republicans isn’t (60 appearances on FOX News helps)
• There is no clear cut front running candidate for 2012 (as long the leadership in the GOP remains the same this may not change)

Overall, it appears as if reducing the size of federal government and spending are the top concerns for conservatives at CPAC. How future prospective front-runners like Romney and Palin address this could determine their future. If Ron Paul does run in 2012, I would expect an even bigger battle at GOP county and state conventions than 2008 and it certainly got ugly in some places.

Here are the full results from the Washington Post:

2010 CPAC Straw Poll Results
Ron Paul 31%
Mitt Romney 22%
Sarah Palin 7%
Tim Pawlenty 6%
Mike Pence 5%
Newt Gingrich 4%
Mike Huckabee 4%
Mitch Daniels 2%
John Thune 2%
Rick Santorum 2%
Haley Barbour 1%

Watch how Fox News attempts to marginalize the victory:

Not to mention Mike Huckabee’s recent attacks on CPAC (notice how Jonathan Martin of Politico downplays the Paul win as well).

Politico ran a poll after Paul’s victory titled “Who should have won CPAC’s straw poll?” Evidently 60% of 46,414 people agreed with the original results. Mitt Romney actually lost points:

Politico is currently planning to run another poll titled, “Who should have won the ‘Who should have won CPAC’s straw poll?’ poll?” My guess is they’ll be unpleasantly suprised again. At which point they’ll begin to exponentiate their titles. I’ve tried to simplify matters for them and calculate a limit to their denial:

Let x=The amount of times Ron Paul wins something.

and

Let D(x)=The amount of denial (from Republicans and the MSM) and consequently an issuing of a new poll trying to circumvent the previous one.

The curve looks like this:

Denial of the mainstream media and Republicans as a function of Ron Paul’s success, where D(x) is Represented by Emoticons and X is Represented by Paul Heads.

This function is obviously an exponential graph of the form a^x where a is some number greater than, but not equal to 0 and x is the variable (representing Paul’s victories).

Taking the limit of a^x as x goes to infinity we get the following result:

lim as x->infinity of (a^x) = infinity

Clearly the laws of mathematics agree with what we’ve known all along: there is no limit to the denial of mainstream republicans and media.

Failure to match other countries’ efforts in clean-energy development could mean the U.S. will swap a dependence on foreign oil for a dependence on foreign technology, he said.

“If we don’t start moving,” Chu said at a news conference after his speech, “other countries are moving, and they will look at us as a market.”

Translated, this statement means, if the U.S. Government doesn’t spend as much money as all the other countries in the world we may have to purchase clean technologies from them if they develop a technology that is carbon friendly and cheap (hurry, hide the kids, that would be awful.) However, as Secretary Chu must be aware, the Federal Government recently has given millions of dollars to foreign firms for renewable energy research as reported by the Investigative Reporting Workshop. Apparently, the buck doesn’t stop at Steven Chu’s desk at the Department of Energy.

Unfortunately, it is a near axiom that when government distributes money for any project or endeavor, the politically connected receive the funds. If Secretary Chu is seriously interested in winning the “clean-energy race” and not “falling irreversibly behind other countries” then maybe the Department of Energy could stop giving taxpayers wages to businesses in other countries.

Politicians from both sides of the aisle are guilty of initiating grants for “research” with albeit good intentions in some cases, but disastrous results in most. For instance, not long ago, the latest rage in renewable energy was corn-based ethanol production. Despite many scientists learning early on that corn based ethanol was more inefficient, consumed far more land resources than any other renewable alternative, and increased the cost of food production, the Federal Government, at the bequest of the corn lobby, gave an inordinate percentage of research dollars to ethanol rather than other more efficient technologies.

John A. Baden, Ph.D. of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment writes,

When evaluating ethanol mandates, responsible citizens ask: “What are the probable consequences of the policy, however well intended?” Surely, ethanol is not a pure Green elixir, but rather can be an intoxicating political potion.

As Mark Z. Jacobson, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Stanford says,

The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are just downright awful,” Jacobson said. “Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels.” He added that ethanol may also emit more global-warming pollutants than fossil fuels, according to the latest scientific studies.

If clean-energy research is indeed a “race” then Secretary Chu and the Department of Energy should consider removing grants to foreign companies and stop awarding them for inefficient research. Otherwise, Secretary Chu and the DOE will limp along wasting millions more in our hard earned wages. The question Secreatary Chu should be asking himself is what renewable energies are the private companies researching? You know, those crazy capitalistic companies that only invest in technologies that are efficient and profitable.

]]> http://www.coloradofreedom.net/wordpress/colorado-newsinfo/colorado-energy-jobs-summit-clean-ideas-on-wasting-more-taxpayer-dollars/feed 0 http://www.coloradofreedom.net/wordpress/colorado-newsinfo/keeping-boulder-green-isnt-easy http://www.coloradofreedom.net/wordpress/colorado-newsinfo/keeping-boulder-green-isnt-easy#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:01:52 +0000 Chuck Moe http://www.coloradofreedom.net/wordpress/?p=1993 The city of Boulder Colorado has been having a little trouble getting people to reduce their carbon footprints according to the Wall Street Journal article Boulder Struggles With Energy Conservation.

In 2006, Boulder voters approved the nation’s first “carbon tax,” now $21 a year per household, to fund energy-conservation programs. The city took out print ads, bought radio time, sent email alerts and promoted the campaign in city newsletters.

But Boulder’s carbon emissions edged down less than 1% from 2006 through 2008, the most recent data available

Why can’t the city of Boulder get these carbon emissions down?

“What we’ve found is that for the vast majority of people, it’s exceedingly difficult to get them to do much of anything,” says Kevin Doran, a senior research fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Yes Kevin, controlling the sheeple can be difficult at times. As Paul Sheldon says,

“We still have a long way to go,” says Paul Sheldon, a consultant who advises the city on conservation. Residents “should be driving high-efficiency vehicles, and they’re not. They should be carpooling, and they’re not.” And yes, he adds, they should be changing their own light bulbs—and they’re not.

What is wrong with these people in Boulder? Not changing your own light bulb is a blatant violation of rule #13466453 (2)(c) of the People’s Republic of Boulder Environmental Action Handbook .

Another problem contributing to global warming is flat screen TVs…that’s right, the big flat TV screens.

A local home-theater installer says most customers purchase a power strip, so they can turn off the outlet when they’re not watching. But during the Christmas holidays, 65-inch flat-screen TVs flew off the shelves of Boulder’s ListenUp Audio/Video. “People are definitely going for bigger screens,” manager Bob Murphy says.

Not to fear though, Boulder is looking to get tough on carbon.

City officials are frustrated—and contemplating more forceful steps.

The City Council will soon consider mandating energy-efficiency upgrades to many apartments and businesses. The proposals under review would be among the most aggressive in the nation, requiring up to $4,000 a rental unit in new appliances, windows and other improvements. Owners of commercial property could face far larger tabs.

Boulder also is going to be gracious enough to redistribute peoples tax dollars to assist people in saving energy.

Boulder plans to spend about $1.5 million in city funds and $370,000 in federal stimulus money to hire contractors to do basic upgrades for residents.

In the program, dubbed “Two Techs in a Truck,” as many as 15 energy-efficiency teams will go door-to-door. They’ll ask home and business owners for permission to caulk windows, change bulbs and install low-flow showerheads and programmable thermostats—all at taxpayer expense. The techs will set up clothes racks in laundry rooms as a reminder to use the dryer less often. They’ll even pop into the garage and inflate tires to the optimum pressure for fuel efficiency.

If this seems a bit intrusive, don’t worry, the two techs are experts at tire pressure and,

City officials say most residents want to make these changes; they just never seem to get around to it. In a test run in a lower-income Boulder neighborhood, nearly 70% of homeowners accepted the free upgrades. “We want to take away the financial barrier and the hassle barrier,” said Kara Mertz, the city’s local environmental action manager. That may not be enough.

Not enough? Fortunately,  at about 2:00 minutes into this video, Kara Mentz, the Local Environment Action Division Manager of Boulder Colorado, suggests an additional plan to inspire people, have insulation blowing parties with cookies and tea.

If Boulder needs any more suggestions to help with their “problem”, ABC News reports that Authors Claim Pets Are More Damaging to Environment Than SUVs.

I am a criminal! It is shocking how I’ve managed to evade imprisonment thus far. My crimes: failure to comply with the laws of the land. This moment has been a long time coming. The events leading up to my crimes were set in motion the instant the universe began to expand. When the first elements were being created, and later when the establishment of the universal constants provided the blueprint for the planets, stars, galaxies, and the biological wherewithal for the world we occupy.

The deity of the heavens should have known better. She was foolish and presumptuous to think her sovereignty would remain unchallenged, since her offspring in a tiny pixel of the universe have succeeded in dethroning her. How were they successful you ask? They needn’t bomb her with antimatter. Nor did they impose sanctions on her. War and revolution was also unnecessary. But surely toppling the creator of existence must have required a brilliant display of tactics and weaponry. So how is it these particular beings were successful? Well by statute of course.

Therefore, it is inexcusable when driving on a frictionless surface to ignore the clearly marked road signs and lanes. “They are there for your protection citizen! You could have avoided collision! It is no defense to cite the laws of nature, for our laws supersede your damned deity! Momentum, acceleration, velocity, impulse: such kinematic superstitions are null and void when in conflict with the legislature.”

Of course the supernatural nullification abilities of the legislature aren’t limited to the laws discovered by Newton, Einstein, Planck and others. No. Their ability to overrule nature by simple majority spans every scientific discipline man has devised. Even economic laws are subject to amendment and repeal. Unfortunately, I am also guilty of siding with economic laws when the legislator has voted to suspend them. “Your parents were dumb citizen! They taught you prudence in spending. They advised you to tighten your belt when your pants sag from debt. I am flabbergasted why you would decline to spend your way into prosperity…Not to worry, for I will spend it for you. I have always tried to be forgiving of the handicapped, and will spare you the rod because I am merciful.”

To an alien observer the thought of repealing natures laws by mere statute may seem absurd. Even peasants like me struggle to understand the remarkable abilities of our overlords. Fortunately, a separate evolution has taken place among homo sapiens. One that distinguishes the demigods at the capitol from the rest of us undercooked apes.

Last week, RMGO and NAGR staff held a News Conference on the CSU campus to render the draft policy — which bans even permitted citizens from carrying concealed on campus — null and void.

Here is a video of the  RMGO news conference

Since CSU students have been allowed to carry a concealed weapon on campus, crime has dropped. As I heard someone say on the Lew Rockwell show, “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”

Sign the RMGO petition against this illegal ban.

Click here to sign our petition to CSU.

You can also see the latest news — including some of the press coverage of that event — at www.rmgo.org/csu