Mar 5, 2014 | Politics
Washington, DC – March 5, 2014 – If you’re wondering who the hundreds of young people wearing bright green at the upcoming CPAC are, look carefully at the front of their shirts—they don’t say “Greenpeace,” they say “I Love Fossil Fuels.”
“I Love Fossil Fuels” is a project of the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), a for-profit think-tank seeking to bring about a new industrial revolution. Alex Epstein, President of CIP, will be participating in the “Can America Survive Obama’s War on Fossil Fuel?” on Friday, March 7 at 3:30 pm.
Epstein, author of the forthcoming The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (Portfolio/Penguin), is known for debating all comers—from Greenpeace to Sierra Club to 350.org—on the big-picture benefits of fossil fuels. His unique moral and environmental arguments have created thousands of impassioned fossil fuel “champions”—and he aims to create a few thousand more at CPAC.
In a recent Forbes column on CPAC, Epstein wrote of fossil fuels:
"No other fuel has been able to match them in producing cheap, reliable energy for billions around the world"; "Overall life expectancy is up 7 years largely thanks to fossil-fuel-powered industrial progress"; "their industry is fundamentally good for human life—including for a healthier, safer environment."
Before and after the panel, CIP invites you to its suite, “The Power Lounge,” to come learn more about fossil fuels—and enjoy the fruits of fossil fuels, including free food and drink (which we would not be able to afford if we had to depend on sunlight and wind gusts!). Whether you want a signed copy of Epstein’s Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet, a free CIP “Power Pack” of energy wisdom, a free “I Love Fossil Fuels” t-shirt, or some espresso to power you through the afternoon, come join us between 2 pm and 7 pm on March 7.For more info about the event, including media inquiries, contact Lyda Loudon at lyda.loudon@gmail.com or 314-540-1191.
Mar 4, 2014 | Politics
From TIME.com:
Russia’s escalating intervention in Ukraine once again confronts Barack Obama with a foreign policy crisis over which his options are painfully limited, forcing him into a reactive posture that relies on tough, but largely hollow rhetoric.Appearing on short notice in the White House briefing room yesterday, Obama warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that “there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.” Within hours, Putin had requested and received from Russia’s parliament the authority to use force in its western neighbor, whose capital city Kiev saw an uprising against Moscow last month.Putin appears to have calculated that the benefits of maintaining control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, home to a large ethnic Russian population and a major naval base, would outweigh any costs that Obama and the West can impose.He’s probably right.
Mar 3, 2014 | Politics
Matthew McConaughey - GQ Men of the Year 2013 - Leading Man
But a few years ago—about the time Ghosts of Girlfriends Past came out, in which the then 39-year-old deploys his considerable talents to persuade the chick from Party of Five to embrace love—McConaughey checked in with himself and decided it was time for a change. He doesn't want to denigrate the movies that made him rich and famous. “I was enjoying myself,” he says. “My relationship with acting was fine. But like in any relationship, you need to shake things up. It didn't mean what we'd been doing was less than. I just wanted a charge. Like, ‘Let's throw a spark into this.’” There is a note on a crumpled piece of paper on the table here in his Airstream, something he scribbled down and only recently pulled out of some old pants, that speaks to his dissatisfaction. I wish, it says, I enjoyed watching my movies as much as I enjoyed making them.He decided to “go in the shadows” for a while, saying no to things that wouldn't “evolve” him as an actor. “I got much more selfish,” he says. “I'm a fan of the word selfish. Self. Ish,” he repeats, drawing it out. “When I say I have gotten a lot more self-ish, I mean I am less concerned with what people think of me. I'm not worried about how I'm perceived. Selfish has always gotten a bad rap. You should do for you. I wanted new experiences.”
And in Details:
"I'm just as thankful now as I ever was, but I'm choosing to be more selfish. I remember feeling not sure about what I wanted to do and feeling -- I'm not sure despondent is the right word, but a feeling like things are plateauing. I wanted more evolution. I want to feel ascension in the grade. Because I was feeling a lot of ascension in my personal life, qualitative evolution. I wanted to close the gap between who I am and the life I'm living and my work life. So I think I got really selfish."
Matthew McConaughey: 'I have more of a selfish desire now' - Features - Films - The Independent
"Part of it is just growing up and part of it is I'm very turned on and excited about all kind of things. Probably more things now than I used to be. I work hard to maintain the good things in my life that I've built - friendships, work, family, my own time. Sometimes you've got to go,'ah man, I haven't seen my brother in three months'. But it feels really great when you can think:'Boy, all my relationships are good, people that I love are good, and my relationship with them is good. My career, I'm dialled, it feels good. Health is good.' But to maintain that, when things change, you've got to be nimble at times."[...]
If his earliest career plan was to be a criminal defence lawyer, fighting for others, his eventual plan has come full circle to fighting for himself. "I'd say I have more of a selfish desire now when it comes to work," he admits. It has been a long time coming.
Feb 27, 2014 | Business, Politics
James Piereson: The Truth About the 'One Percent' - WSJ.com:
This crusade is based on three questionable claims. One is that the wealthy are mostly Wall Street bankers benefitting from rising stock and real estate prices, or executives who pay themselves extravagant salaries. Another claim is that such people unfairly benefit from a system that taxes capital gains at half the highest marginal rate paid by those who earn salaries and wages. Then there is the assertion that the "super rich" have abundant funds that can be taxed to improve the living standards of everyone else.All of these claims are false.[...]Emanuel Saez of the University of California ( Berkeley ) has shown in a series of papers that, as he writes, "The top income earners today are not 'rentiers' deriving their incomes from past wealth but rather are the 'working rich,' highly paid employees or new entrepreneurs who have not yet accumulated fortunes comparable to those accumulated during the Gilded Age."The typical "rich" person today is someone who works for a salary and accumulates stocks and bonds through savings, retirement plans and (for business executives) stock options.From 1980 to 2010, as the top 1% increased their share of total before-tax income to 15% from 9%, their share of the individual income tax soared to 39% of the total paid, up from 17%. Most were paying federal taxes at the highest marginal rate: In 1980 that rate was 70% and in 2010 it was 35.5%—but it has now climbed back to 39.6%. The share of federal taxes paid climbed dramatically in those 30 years even as marginal rates were cut almost in half.According to the White House budget office, in 2010 the federal government raised approximately $900 billion from the individual income tax, of which about $350 billion (39%) was paid by the top 1% of income earners. The remainder of total federal tax collections (nearly $2.2 trillion in total) was paid through corporate, payroll, estate and excise taxes.Those who want to "tax the rich" to redistribute income to the poor and middle class usually propose to raise the marginal rates on incomes or the capital-gains rate, or both. Yet as Scott Hodge recently documented in these pages , it will not be easy to raise vast sums this way.The individual income tax accounts for slightly less than half of federal revenue and the top 1% already pays a substantial share of that total. Most of the wealth owned by the top 1%, and especially by the "super rich" in the top 0.1%, is also held in stocks, bonds and real estate that are not subject to income taxes until sold. It is a fool's errand to try to raise the living standards of the bottom 60% through higher income taxes on the top 1% or 0.1%.
Feb 27, 2014 | Politics, Sci-Tech
The unsettling truth about "settled science": Charles Krauthammer | OregonLive.comIf climate science is settled, why do its predictions keep changing? And how is it that the great physicist Freeman Dyson, who did some climate research in the late 1970s, thinks today's climate-change Cassandras are hopelessly mistaken?They deal with the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans, argues Dyson, ignoring the effect of biology, i.e., vegetation and topsoil. Further, their predictions rest on models they fall in love with: "You sit in front of a computer screen for 10 years and you start to think of your model as being real." Not surprisingly, these models have been "consistently and spectacularly wrong" in their predictions, write atmospheric scientists Richard McNider and John Christy -- and always, amazingly, in the same direction.Settled? Even the U.K.'s national weather service concedes there's been no change -- delicately called a "pause" -- in global temperature in 15 years. If even the raw data is recalcitrant, let alone the assumptions and underlying models, how settled is the science?Last Friday, Obama ostentatiously visited drought-stricken California. Surprise! He blamed climate change. Here even The New York Times gagged, pointing out that far from being supported by the evidence, "the most recent computer projections suggest that as the world warms, California should get wetter, not drier, in the winter."
Feb 26, 2014 | Politics
From Muslims charge Katy Perry with blasphemy:For some Muslims, the silly pop video is deeply offensive to their fragile religious sensibilities. A petition at change.org demanding YouTube remove the video has already received over 48,000 signatures.
The petition hopes to win major support to show “that people from different walks of life, different religions and from different parts of the world, agree that the video promotes blasphemy, using the name of God in an irrelevant and distasteful manner would be considered inappropriate by any religion.”
[....]The attempt to censor any artistic expression is always a morally dubious activity. The fact that Muslims would attempt to censor Perry’s video is a ridiculous and juvenile response to what is quite frankly a harmless pop video. To think these imbeciles believe their imaginary god would take offence to a Katy Perry video of all things staggers the imagination. It would be a shame if YouTube caved to pressure coming from some silly religious extremists, and removed the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSOMA3QBU0Dark Horse is Perry’s third single off her new album “Prism” and is currently sitting at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 list.The supposed “blasphemy,” the episode with the Allah pendant, can be seen at 1:15 of the video.
