The fact that Joe Coldwarrior hasn’t been banned at RedState is pretty clear evidence that the Contributors as a group agree with his message about local involvement. His method, though, is crap. I’d hate to think that he learned his skills of persuasion in the U.S. Army. If so, they’re doing it wrong.

Suggested reading (access the Amazon link through Moe Lane’s website):

I feel no need to justify my priorities and my judgment about how I spend my time and money. You presume to know a lot about me. You can learn something about my official and civic involvement, even political contributions, by using Google, because I blog under my own name. You’re not likely to learn much about my other commitments, because that’s private and personal. Let’s just say that God and family both trump politics.

For a number of reasons, I’ve decided that local party politics is not the best use of my time. I live in the second-most conservative parish in what has become a very Red state. The jungle primary system means that the individual candidates, and not the party, sets the agenda. This fall’s congressional election will likely pit two Republican incumbents in the general election. That’s a unique feature of Louisiana politics that I suspect has not factored into Mr. Coldwarrior’s criticism. (Or is it Mr. Warrior?)

And to say that the parish Republicans are moribund would be an understatement. Here is what you get when you click on “Upcoming Events” at their website: an announcement of their annual Lincoln/Reagan Dinner, featuring Judge Andrew Napolitano, February 11, 2010.

I have neither the time, skills or energy to try to fix that.

I know that there’s nothing I can say or do to get Mr. Coldwarrior to agree with me or accept my judgment. I really, honestly don’t care. What I find dismaying is the number of followers who mindlessly click the button so that his turd of a diary floats all the way to the top of the “Recommended Diaries” list, thereby stinking up the joint for days on end.

So that’s why I took my answer offsite.

Yours truly,

Steve ‘Vladimir’ Maley

An editorial from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) expounds upon the economic and strategic importance of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) on the occasion of its 35th anniversary:

35th anniversary of TAPS, June 20, 2012

Since oil first flowed down the 800-mile pipeline on June 20, 1977, TAPS has delivered more than 16.6 billion barrels of oil. For Alaskans, that translates into more than $171 billion in revenues to the state treasury. …
TAPS once carried nearly 2 million barrels of oil a day from the North Slope to the port of Valdez, but is now down to almost a quarter of that. Today, Alaska is no longer America’s second-largest producer of oil, having been surpassed by North Dakota. And North Slope production continues to decline by 7 percent annually.

Without new oil production, throughput in the pipeline could fall enough to threaten its future viability. Shutting down the pipeline would mean closing up shop on the North Slope. Alaska’s oil — like its massive natural gas reserves today — would be stranded with no way to market, leaving the state scrambling to replace the 85 percent of its annual revenue that today comes from oil.

We should all wish TAPS a Happy Birthday and thank a (mostly) bygone generation of decision makers who had the foresight and conviction to make it happen.

But in the story of the passage of the TAPS enabling legislation through Congress there is an object lesson:

Energy policy is way too serious to be entrusted to Democrats.

In 1973, the Senate was deadlocked on a vote to set aside legal and environmental challenges to the pipeline’s construction. Even with the country in the grips of OPEC’s first oil embargo, even with pro-energy Democratic stalwarts like Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) and Russell Long (D-LA) in the Senate, the deciding vote was cast by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. It passed 50-49. One of the dissenting votes was cast by young Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE). (A similar vote on the Keystone XL Pipeline, you may have noticed, is currently going nowhere.)

At the time, the pipeline was expected to cost $3.5 billion and to provide access to 10 billion barrels of oil. The line was built in just over 2 years at a cost of $8 billion, all private dollars. It crossed three major mountain ranges in some of the world’s most challenging conditions.

In its 35 years of service, the pipeline provided up to 2 million barrels per day of domestic oil at a time when it was most needed. Predictions of dire consequences for the caribou and musk ox populations proved unfounded.

These days, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu is the only semi-reliable Dem when it comes to energy issues. There are a few Democratic Congressmen from the energy states, but they are an endangered species.

As the November election approaches, some find it easy to be disenchanted with certain policies of certain Republican politicians. It may be immigration reform, budget control, health care, etc., etc. When those voters give voice to their frustration, it sounds something like this:

There’s no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. I don’t agree with Candidate XYZ’s position on my pet issue, so I may not even vote.

Well, pardon my French, but that’s just stupid.

Even if we were to accept the "no difference" premise on every other issue (which I don’t, BTW), there is such a huge gulf between the GOP and the Dems in terms of energy, that issue alone justifies full and enthusiastic support of Mitt Romney and Republican candidates for the Senate and Congress.

http://impact.nola.com/environment/print.html?entry=/2012/06/rio20_will_be_remembered_as_th.html

In the end, this conference was a conference to decide to have more conferences.

That result was hailed as a success by the 100 heads of state who attended. Given how environmental summits have failed in recent years as global economic turmoil squashes political will to take on climate and conservation issues, the mere fact of agreeing to talk again in the future constitutes victory.

Faced with the real prospect of complete failure, negotiators who struggled for months to hammer out a more ambitious final document ended up opting for the lowest common denominator. Just hours before the meeting opened Wednesday, they agreed on a proposal that makes virtually no progress beyond what was signed at the original 1992 Earth Summit, removing the kind of contentious proposals activists contend are required to avoid an environmental meltdown.

Oscar®-nominated filmmaker Josh Fox, he of the burning water tap, loves to scare people with the provocative word “fracking” and misleading images and claims of its potential to damage the environment, specifically groundwater.

To wit, this screenshot of a cute little animated .gif at Fox’s website gaslandthemovie.com.

It clearly depicts fractures from a horizontal gas well invading a freshwater aquifer. Scary! Now, consider the detail of that portion of the cartoon which depicts the fractures extending vertically up into the shallow water-bearing zone:

“Research is underway”, indeed. How about we look at some of that research? Continue reading →

Price: $1.79/GGE (gasoline gallon equivalent).

From the Daily Caller:

The Democratic Party is facing an awkward problem Thursday because white supremacist David Duke has endorsed a leading candidate in the Democratic Party’s primary race for a New York House seat.

Duke says he’s endorsing Charles Barron, the leading candidate for the 10th district primary on June 26, because of their shared emnity toward “zionists.”

Barron is an African-American city politician who has been slammed as an anti-white racist and as a Jew-hater. However, he’s already got the endorsement of the retiring Democratic congressman, Rep. Edolphus Towns.

Duke is a famous racist who ran as a Democrat and as a Republican in multiple Louisiana races during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

He now portrays himself as a supporter of “diversity,” and as a non-violent proponent of laws that encourage whites and African-Americans to live separately.

“In an election of limited choices, I think Charles Barron is the better choice [because] there is no greater danger facing the United States of America and facing the world than the unbridled power of zionist globalism,” Duke declared in a June 21 video.

But the real enemies, [Duke] said, are “zionists,” meaning Jews.

They “want constant conflict between the two groups so they can use a divide and conquer strategy to rule over us all.”

Jews, and “the international robber-zio-banks… [and] the zionist clubfed,” he said, are “the ultimate real enemies of both our peoples.”

But “Protective Cup”? TMI.

http://www.productsandpower.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Infographic-baseball.jpg