The Objective Standard Blog

Topics: Environmentalism

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

End Tax Favoritism for Wind Energy

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 2:39 pm

WindmillYesterday seven members of Colorado’s Congressional delegation urged continuation of the wind energy production tax credit, calling on a conference committee to tack the credit onto a bill to temporarily reduce the payroll tax. (An eighth member later added his name.) Twenty-three governors also recently advocated extension of the wind energy credit.

But the wind tax credit should be scrapped and replaced with lower taxes for all.

Producers of wind turbines claim that dropping the tax credit would mostly stop the expansion of the wind industry and cause thousands of layoffs. But if so, that proves only that wind cannot compete economically with other forms of energy. (That is not surprising, given that wind is geographically dispersed as well as highly variable and thus difficult to convert into usable electricity.)

When Congress “creates jobs” by tipping the scales of the market, it does so only by destroying jobs elsewhere and undermining people’s ability to create valued goods and services.

Morally, such tax credits favor some and thereby violate the rights of others. The tax credits essentially punish other producers more with higher net taxes. Not only does that violate the principle of equality under the law, it violates the rights both of producers and consumers to use their own resources in accordance with their own judgment.

Congress should stop handing out special tax “credits” to those companies best able to play the political game. Instead, Congress should focus on cutting federal spending and uniformly reducing tax rates for all producers.

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

Posted in: Business and Economics, Environmentalism

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Obama Should Help End All Energy Subsidies, Not Play Favorites

Posted by Ari Armstrong at 7:13 pm

Barack ObamaPresident Obama is schizophrenic in his energy proposals.

In a Thursday address at Buckley Air Force Base, Obama said he wants “the same set of rules for everyone.” Yet, on one hand, he said he wants to end subsidies and “taxpayer giveaways” to oil companies, while on the other hand he wants to establish “clean energy tax credits” and mandates that compel people to use politically favored energy sources.

In other words, Obama wants one set of rules for productive oil companies and a different set of rules for his political cronies who run parasitical “alternative” energy companies like Solyndra. Instead, Obama should call for the elimination of tax-funded subsidies and the even-handed lowering of taxes across the board.

A business subsidy—corporate welfare—is an abomination. As Mike Brownfield argued for the conservative Heritage Foundation last year, “The left’s anti-subsidy rhetoric is right on. Ending all energy subsidies, including those for oil and gas, would be good for American taxpayers and consumers.” More importantly, it would protect their rights to control their own wealth. Why, then, do some people condemn corporate welfare for oil companies even as they champion it for their own pet projects? Brownfield notes that, for such activists, “vilifying an industry [oil] is their end game.”

The problem of discriminatory taxes is trickier. However, clearly the wrong approach is to confuse subsidies with tax breaks. A subsidy involves forcibly confiscating the wealth of some parties and giving it to other parties. A tax break involves letting a business keep more of the wealth that it produces and properly owns. The two things are fundamentally different.

That said, the federal government ought not play favorites by punishing some businesses with higher tax rates. Discriminatory taxes violate the basic principle of equality under the law.

The solution to discriminatory taxes is not to impose even higher taxes on the historically favored businesses. To do so would be to act on the flawed principle that two wrongs somehow make a right. Instead, the proper approach is to start by dropping everyone’s taxes to the lower rate. Obama should not try to raise net taxes on oil companies; he should reduce net taxes on everyone paying more.

But Obama refuses to demand “the same set of rules for everyone.” Instead, he wants to pick the winners and losers in the economy—the rights and well-being of energy companies and their customers be damned.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to The Objective Standard and making objective journalism a regular part of your life.

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Image: Creative Commons by Bernard Pollack

Posted in: Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Presidential Candidates

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Interview with Alex Epstein, Founder of Center for Industrial Progress

Posted by Joshua Lipana at 12:41 pm

Alex_EpsteinAlex Epstein is the founder and director of the Center for Industrial Progress and a principal at Master Resource, a free market energy blog. I recently had the privilege of speaking with him about his work, industrial progress, his “occupation” of “Occupy Wall Street,” and his plans for the future. —JL

Joshua Lipana: What is your background, and why did you start the Center for Industrial Progress?

Alex Epstein: I’ve always been interested in science in the broadest sense of the word: gaining a systematic, logical understanding of the world. As a kid, math and science were my favorite subjects, and I developed the conviction that all problems are solvable with scientific thinking. In high school, I was exposed to more and more controversy about political issues, and I decided that I would learn what the logical position on these was. When people told me that these issues were all subjective, I rejected that because I thought that all problems had an objective solution. So I started looking for thinkers in the humanities who focused on facts and logic—Thomas Sowell was a particular favorite of mine. As I read various books on politics, economics, and philosophy, my interest in the physical sciences gave way to a much stronger interest in the humanities, or, as I prefer to call it, the science of human action.

While I have been influenced by many thinkers, nothing compared to what I learned from reading Ayn Rand. I was completely blown away by Atlas Shrugged, which was the first work of hers that I read. I felt like she looked at the world with x-ray vision, and could understand the fundamental causes of problems—and solutions—when everyone else could just see symptoms. I’ve been studying her works intensely since I was 18, and the more I read the more I realize how profound and precise her insights are.

In college I studied a combination of philosophy and computer science. After coming out of college I knew I wanted two things; I wanted to be an intellectual for a living, but I did not want to go to grad school or work at a University. So I became a freelance writer right out of college and after a little over two years I accepted an offer from the Ayn Rand Institute to write full-time, applying philosophy to business issues. That was a great opportunity for me, since I got to do the kind of work I was interested with lots of intellectual support.

Somewhere about mid-way through my work at the Institute I got obsessed with the issue of energy. I studied the history of energy, particularly of oil, and I was struck by a) how much the entire economy depends on energy and b) how much energy production and policy depends on the right philosophy, particularly the right philosophy of industry and environment.

So much of what’s gone wrong in energy in the last 40 years is due to the idea that it’s somehow wrong or tainted for man to transform nature on a large scale. And so much of what has gone right in American industrial history is that this country used to have a philosophy that embraced the transformation of nature through energy and industry—that is, embraced industrial progress. The more I read and talked to experts in the field, the more I saw an opportunity to use my knowledge of philosophy, and in particular Ayn Rand’s philosophy, to change the way people think about energy, industry, and environment.

It was heartening and a little surprising to me how open people in energy policy have been to the idea of examining the philosophical issues in the field—or, as Dr. Robert Bradley calls it, “the debate behind the debate.” Another thing I’ve been heartened by is that people respond very positively to my enthusiasm for energy, which is definitely an outgrowth of my philosophy. I feel more excited about new developments in energy—say, the shale gas revolution—than I do about the latest iPhone. And I really love my iPhone.

The energy industry is producing the most amazing products and it should never be on the defensive about what it is doing. Producing oil, producing coal, producing gas, these are fundamentally things that have doubled the human life expectancy and we should be over the moon about what they have done for our lives.

The more I engaged with intellectuals in energy policy, and the more I engaged with the public on energy issues, the more I became convinced that this was an issue that would benefit from a dedicated, laser-focused think-tank. So I decided to start one. My number one conviction with the think-tank was that its essential focus had to be positive—it needed to offer a positive ideal that people can embrace in place of environmentalism. Thus, the Center for Industrial Progress was born.

My second conviction about CIP was that it should, as much as possible, mirror the practices of a competitive business. As a result, a major priority of mine has been researching best practices for making an impact. I spend a lot of time talking to CEOs, think-tank leaders, media leaders, etc about what works and what doesn’t. And as the Director of CIP, I try to measure the impact of everything we do, so we can get the best results possible.

JL: What are some of the highlights in industrial progress over the last 200 years?

AE: First of all, let’s be clear on what industrial progress is. Industrial progress is the progressive transformation of nature through energy, industry, and technology. It encompasses drilling for oil or creating an iPod. Its most prominent impact is to reshape the world around us to something that’s completely unrecognizable from what it used to be.

Unfortunately, our educational system teaches people that “the environment” is this separate, intrinsically valuable thing that human beings ruin through industry. We’re taught that minimizing environmental impact is the ideal. In fact, the environment we should be concerned about is the human environment, and we should think in terms of how we can maximize our positive impact on the human environment. By default, nature is an extremely hostile place to live, which is why average human life expectancy throughout history is thirty.

In terms of key developments, there are many, but the overall one is just how amazing energy and industry has made our lives. Once you understand that, you can appreciate certain key developments. In energy production, there is the coal-powered steam engine and what that did to human life, and the oil-powered internal combustion engine and what that did to human life, and then the ability to turn energy into electricity, and what that did to human life. All of these made possible the agricultural revolution, the rise of the automobile, the rise of the computer—all revolutions that required massive amounts of cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy.

JL: What are the primary obstacles to industrial progress?

AE: There are two key obstacles to industrial progress: one is a lack of a positive and the other is a negative, in large part made possible by the lack of the positive.

The lack of a positive is the lack of a clearly fleshed-out pro-industrial philosophy that embraces the progressive transformation of nature through energy and technology. Such a philosophy, among other things, would define the proper political policies under which that transformation should take place—namely policies based on individual rights—and it would morally embrace industrialization.

Without the right industrial philosophy, people don’t value industrial progress sufficiently, and don’t know what policies will nourish that value.

Being clear on the positive is indispensable. For instance in oil, you can see throughout history that it is really important that property rights should be based on the principle that the creator of the value in the resource should own it. In a course I gave in 2008, the Triumph and Tragedy of the Oil Industry, I explained how the wrong philosophy of rights has undercut the oil industry from the beginning.

In electricity, you need the right view of competition, otherwise you end up with today’s government monopolized grid.

Unless we have a clear idea of what policy should be, positively, and why, the positive isn’t going to happen, and when the wrong view has a lot of advocates with very clear policy ideas, they’re going to take over. And that’s what happened to the anti-industrial movement, which at various stages has been called the conservation movement and the environmentalist movement. There’s a lot of good literature from Ayn Rand, ARI, and TOS about this movement so I won’t elaborate too much here, but basically making policy based on the idea that untouched nature is intrinsically valuable and that nature should be protected from man leads to the very common phenomenon, which I wrote about in the Industrial Manifesto: Every company who wants to do anything industrial—anything involving any transformation of nature—is met with an endless labyrinth of obstacles.

Again, a huge part of the solution is offering a positive alternative, including in policy, which is why a big focus of ours at CIP will be to roll out energy policy prescriptions.

JL: You recently debated Ryan Rittenhouse of Greenpeace. Where can people see the video of that? And how would you evaluate the debate?

AE: The debate is in post-production and going to be released soon, and I’d rather let people draw their own conclusions about it. I’ll only say that I think the debate shows a clear contrast between the two views. I think Ryan does a good job of representing the serious environmentalist view and I do my best to represent my own view. I hope it comes off very clearly that there is a real choice to be made in terms of what approach we should embrace so I encourage people to watch the debate. There’s a version on the Internet now of the debate but it’s not complete, and the version that’s about to come out is a lot better in quality.

JL: You also recently, as you put it, “Occupied the Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators with your colleague Dr. Eric Dennis, and spoke with some environmentalists there [see video here]. What was the takeaway from this event?

AE: I encourage people to watch it. There is a lot to say about Occupy Wall Street. I think, in general, the whole premise of defining a movement as being against the most successful people in society is incredibly corrupt. It’s not that everyone in “the 1%” is deserving—we don’t have a fully free market by a long shot, we have a mixed-economy and there are plenty of undeserving people in the 1%. But the way you deal with that is by going against the people in Washington making the country a mixed economy. Go after the people who gave bailouts, don’t go against the whole of Wall Street, when most of these people did not even receive bailouts.

It was revealing when Eric, a Wall Street executive himself, talked to a guy who said the 1% don’t produce anything. Eric brought up the most obvious example of why that is not true, which is Steve Jobs, the guy didn’t hesitate to say “to hell with Steve Jobs,” “Steve Jobs didn’t produce anything”—and this was probably the most intellectual guy we met that day. That really captures the essence of what it means to attack the 1% for being the 1%.

And in the realm of energy, the same way they attack the successful as such in the broader economy, they attack anything that’s prominent in this field. They attack fracking—an amazing technology—and they have no idea what fracking is, yet they hate fracking. They heard some story about why it’s bad, and that’s enough for them to advocate a ban.

The alternatives they give for the current sources of energy are usually non-existent; one girl talked about a perpetual battery that Duracell had a patent on. The common thing is they attack an actual value in favor of some non-existent utopia, and in reality their non-existent utopia would just be carnage. They have no idea how a solar panel even works, but they have no hesitation with saying we should destroy coal plants, natural gas, oil, nuclear, for whatever made up utopia they favor. They think “someone will figure it out, I mean someone figured it out so far” which shows their education. This goes back to the whole transformation of nature issue—they don’t regard that as an achievement that had certain preconditions, and that has certain requirements to maintain and improve. It’s a given that we have iPhones and plenty of food whenever we need it, the only issue is attacking “bad things” and getting rid of them, not realizing that the “bad things” they attack are the core foundation of what they’re taking for granted.

JL: Not everybody embraces environmentalism as religiously as those OWS protesters. How do you convince the less committed environmentalists to question their beliefs and check their premises?

New_York_CityAE: The mission of the Center for Industrial Progress is to promote industrial progress as a new ideal for our culture, and the reason I put it that way is because I want it to be a fundamentally positive thing, advocating the positive value of industrialization and certain positive policies that America needs to adopt, rather than just being against environmentalism. Obviously I’m against environmentalism, but I try to emphasize that this is because it stops the good things from happening. That’s how I position myself and the organization and that’s how I try to deal with it with people. I show them that the fuels environmentalists oppose are crucial, and yet they want to ban them. And if you look at the full context, it’s not because of economics, it’s not because of science, what is it? You have some basic discomfort with man transforming nature, well that’s an issue you really need to think about and I’ll argue you need to change your position on. So people will see their premises and why it matters and why it needs to be changed as they come up in practical issues.

JL: What are your future plans for CIP, and how can people support your efforts?

AE: As I mentioned, CIP has a very clear goal of getting Americans to embrace industrial progress as a cultural ideal, and we’re committed to finding and implementing the best way to do that through all of our works.

Our business model for doing this is a hybrid of customer-driven and donor-driven.

I’ll start with customer-driven. It’s very important for us to find ways monetize our activities whenever possible. For instance, there is a significant market for public speaking out there, and there’s no reason why really good speeches on industrial progress—properly positioned—can’t succeed in that market, and if we can’t succeed in that market that means we’re doing something wrong and we need to learn and get better.

In case it doesn’t go without saying, CIP will only accept money to promote its own ideas—to accept money to promote someone else’s agenda would defeat our whole reason for existing.

The second aspect of our business model is donor-driven. Our ultimate goal with the organization is to maximize impact. And there are many high-impact things we can do that don’t get a financial return but do get a cultural return.

For example, we are starting up a program to train people, especially young people and people with industry experience, to become effective advocates of industrial progress. I’ve been finding a lot of talent over the last few months, and I think there will be a huge payoff in training them and having them do original articles for our blog, “Industrial Progress Report.” But doing it right takes a lot of my time, and my partner Dr. Eric Dennis’s time, and the time of other teachers we’ll bring in, and that’s where donors are invaluable.

Another example of this is that I blog about energy and philosophy at MasterResource, the leading free-market energy blog. The head of MasterResource, Dr. Robert Bradley (CEO of the Institute for Energy Research) appointed me as one of the few Principal bloggers there, which is a great opportunity to impact the energy debate—if I can devote sufficient time to it. Again, donors are invaluable here.

In all our activities, customer-driven or donor-driven, the unifying thing is making a high impact, so we continually measure and optimize for results. That’s the bottom line and I think that mentality is going to make a lot of exciting things possible going forward.

For more information on contributing to CIP, financially or otherwise, go to www.industrialprogress.net and click on “Donate.” And if anyone has any specific questions about CIP, feel free to email me at alex@alexepstein.com.

JL: Thank you very much for your time, Alex.

AE: My pleasure.

Related:

Image of New York City: Wikipedia Commons

Posted in: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Education, Environmentalism, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Science and Technology

Sunday, November 6, 2011

FDA Bans Life-Saving Asthma Medications to Protect Ozone

Posted by Joshua Lipana at 10:31 pm

FDAThe FDA will force U.S. pharmaceutical companies to phase out over-the-counter (OTC) inhalers used by people with Asthma. The ban was “justified” on the premise that it will protect the ozone layer.

The proper purpose of government, however, is not to protect the ozone, but to protect individual rights—including the rights of drug producers and consumers to act on their judgment in support of their lives. If there were sufficient evidence that aerosol was destroying the ozone and thus a threat to human life, then free markets and consequent technology would address the problem. (Those who doubt that people would address such problems without government coercion are stuck with the contradiction that the government consists of people.)

OTC inhalers, like countless other drugs, are produced, marketed, and purchased because they enhance or save human lives. The fact that there are “green” alternatives is irrelevant. Morally, individuals have a right to choose what they think is best for themselves. Economically, the green alternatives are more expensive, and, for many people, less effective. Further these alternatives require prescriptions—and thus visits to doctors and all the time and expenses involved therein.

This ban is a patent violation of individual rights. Americans who care about liberty must denounce it and demand its reversal.

Related:

Image: Wikipedia Commons

Posted in: Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Health Care, Individual Rights and Law, Science and Technology

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Support the Center for Industrial Progress

Posted by Craig Biddle at 11:13 am

466px-Sears_Tower_ssAlex Epstein’s excellent new organization, the Center for Industrial Progress, has launched a campaign to raise money in support of the Center’s activities, including a forthcoming debate with Greenpeace, “The Green Energy Economy: Economic Savior or Economic Suicide?” If you value the fruits of industry and can afford to contribute to CIP’s efforts, please enter your donation amount below and click “join.” Thank you for your consideration. —Craig Biddle

Image: Wikipedia Commons

Posted in: Announcements, Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Events

Friday, September 30, 2011

Gates Foundation: Three Obvious Solutions Ignored

Posted by Richard M. Salsman at 4:38 am

600px-BillMelindaGatesFoundationI saw Melinda Gates on TV the other day, saying the Gates Foundation (to which Warren Buffet gives billions) is focused on “solving” three big problems in the world: malaria, polio, and government schools in America.

But these problems have already been solved, have they not? What is the mystery? Malaria? Established solution: DDT; Polio? Established solution: Jonas Salk’s vaccine; Government schools? Established solution: Private , profit-making schools (i.e., capitalism).

Why are these known solutions not adopted worldwide? Because socialists and environmentalists oppose them. Yet while the Gates Foundation seeks “solutions,” it supports these opponents of the existing solutions.

Related:

Image: Wikipedia Commons

Posted in: Education, Environmentalism, Science and Technology

Monday, June 20, 2011

The Summer 2011 Issue of TOS

Posted by TOS Admin at 1:53 pm

The online edition of the Summer issue has been posted to our website. The contents are:

ARTICLES

ObamaCare v. the Constitution
by Paul J. Beard II

The Iranian and Saudi Regimes Must Go
by Craig Biddle

Interview with Reza Kahlili, an Ex-CIA Spy Embedded in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

Interview with Historian John David Lewis about U.S. Foreign Policy and the Middle East

The Government’s Assault on Private-Sector Colleges and Universities
by Craig Biddle

Interview with Andy Kessler about the Virtue of Eating People

FILM REVIEWS

Iranium, directed by Alex Traiman
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl

Temple Grandin, directed by Mick Jackson
Reviewed by C. A. Wolski

BOOK REVIEWS

Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad, by John Bolton

Reviewed by Gideon Reich

The Infidel: Chapter One, by Bosch Fawstin
Reviewed by Joshua Lipana

Why ObamaCare is Wrong For America: How the New Health Care Law Drives Up Costs, Puts Government in Charge of Your Decisions, and Threatens Your Constitutional Rights, by Grace-Marie Turner, James C.

Capretta, Thomas P. Miller, and Robert E. Moffit
Reviewed by Jared M. Rhoads

Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands, by Ezra Levant
Reviewed by Andrew Brannan

Anti-intellectualism in American Life, by Richard Hofstadter, and The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby
Reviewed by Burgess Laughlin

His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman
Reviewed by C. A. Wolski

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl

DEPARTMENTS

From the Editor

Letters and Replies

If you’ve not yet subscribed to TOS, you can do so online or by calling 800-423-6151. The journal also makes a great graduation gift. Subscriptions start at just $29 and are available in print, online, e-book, and audio editions.

Enjoy!

Posted in: Announcements, Business and Economics, Education, Environmentalism, Foreign Policy and War, Health Care, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Science and Technology, The Arts

Sunday, April 24, 2011

TOS’s Week in Review for April 24, 2011

Posted by TOS Admin at 10:57 pm

Week in ReviewNoteworthy news and opinion items from the week ending April 24, 2011

  1. The Syrian Rebels’ Efforts and America’s Self-Interest
  2. Will Libya be Obama’s Vietnam?
  3. Phantom Federal Budget “Cuts”
  4. Peter Schiff: S&P Late to The Party . . . Once Again
  5. The United Nations “Climate Refugee” Prediction . . . D’oh!

1. The Syrian Rebels’ Efforts and America’s Self-Interest

The fall of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria would substantially weaken the regime in Iran—which has long relied on Assad’s regime as a means to provide Hamas and Hezbollah with weapons and aid—and this would certainly be in America’s and Israel’s best interest. An AP report touching on some of the relevant facts begins:

When Syria’s president visited Iran late last year, he received a heroes’ medal and spoke about unbreakable bonds in a ceremony broadcast on national television.

Now, a nervous leadership in Iran has imposed a media blackout on Bashar Assad’s struggle against a swelling Syrian uprising and Tehran faces the unsettling prospect of losing its most stalwart ally in the region.

The Islamic Republic managed to choke off its homegrown “Green Revolution” after the disputed June 2009 presidential election. But now it is being dragged into the uprisings sweeping across the Middle East and stirring unrest in Syria, and unfriendly neighbor Bahrain.

On the deadliest day of the Syrian rebellion Friday—when more than 100 people were killed by authorities—President Barack Obama accused Assad of seeking Iranian help to use “the same brutal tactics” unleashed against demonstrators almost two years ago.

For Iran, its ties with Syria represent far more than just a rare friend in a region dominated by Arab suspicions of Tehran’s aims. Syria is Iran’s great enabler: a conduit for aid to powerful anti-Israel proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Should Assad’s regime fall, it could rob Iran of a loyal Arab partner in a region profoundly realigned by uprisings demanding more freedom and democracy. . . .

Read the AP report here.

The good news is that Syrian rebels are working to bring about regime change. The bad news is that, while Assad’s thugs are slaughtering the rebels (more than 200 in the last few weeks), the Obama administration can’t muster enough pro-freedom or pro-American sentiment to morally condemn the regime or encourage the rebels. In response to the Friday massacre, White House spokesman Jay Carney said,

We call on the Syrian government to cease and desist from the use of violence against peaceful protestors; call on all sides to cease and desist from the use of violence; and also call on the Syrian government to follow through on its promises and take action towards the kind of concrete reform that they promised.

If that tough talk didn’t discourage the regime or encourage the rebels, perhaps a statement directly from the president would. And, as Yahoo reports, Obama was even more “firm.”

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the use of force by the Syrian government against demonstrators. This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now. . . . We call on President Assad to change course now, and heed the calls of his own people. . . . [We denounce these] outrageous human rights abuses. . . . Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria’s citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies.

We strongly oppose the Syrian government’s treatment of its citizens and we continue to oppose its continued destabilizing behavior more generally, including support for terrorism and terrorist groups.

How ever will Assad and his murderous thugs regain their composure?

Read the whole Yahoo piece here.

Granted, we have no idea how rational or pro-freedom the rebel forces in Syria are, but the Assad regime is as anti-America and anti-Israeli as a regime can get, so whether or not the U.S. should morally support the effort to remove him is practically self-evident—unless one’s goal is not to protect America’s interests. Unfortunately, as Caroline Glick explains in Obama’s Altruistic Foreign Policy, this administration’s goal is explicitly not to protect America’s interests. Glick writes that Obama’s senior national security advisor Samantha Power

and her colleagues find concerns about US national interests parochial at best and immoral at worst. Her clear aim—and that of her boss—has been to separate US foreign policy from US interests by tethering it to transnational organizations like the UN.

Given the administration’s contempt for policy based on US national interests, it would be too much to expect the White House to notice that Syria’s Assad regime is one of the greatest state supporters of terrorism in the world and that its overthrow would be a body blow to Iran, Venezuela, Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al Qaida and therefore a boon for US national security.

Read Glick’s article here.

2. Will Libya be Obama’s Vietnam?

Steve Chapman describes the dismal state of Obama’s war/non-war in Libya, and sums up the situation by quoting President Lyndon Johnson “as he pondered Vietnam in March of 1965, before the big U.S. buildup: ‘I can’t get out. I can’t finish it with what I’ve got. So what the hell can I do?’” (What was it that Napoleon said about never getting into such a situation?) Chapman’s piece begins:

Is it too early to declare our intervention in Libya a failure?

More than a month after we started bombing, the insurgency has suffered a string of defeats. The government in Tripoli suddenly looks as permanent as the Sahara.

The U.S., after handing off the combat responsibilities to other countries, got

pulled back in last week to launch drone attacks. Britain and France are sending military advisers to try to turn the rebels into a semblance of a real army.

These forces are not only poorly trained and badly led but grossly outgunned. As a New York Times reporter on the scene noted Thursday, “Taken together, the rebels’ mismatched arsenal and their inexperience and lack of discipline have made achieving the revolution’s military goal extraordinarily hard.” If not a failure, this effort is certainly not a success.

The NATO campaign may have accomplished its simplest goal: keeping Moammar Gadhafi’s forces from capturing the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. President Barack Obama, on the basis of scant evidence, claimed that was necessary to prevent a bloodbath.

But any innocent lives saved in Benghazi may be lost elsewhere as the war settles into a bloody stalemate. Already, hundreds of civilians have been killed in the siege of Misrata, a city of 300,000, and the fight is not over.

The Obama administration imagined that a taste of the lash would put Gadhafi in his place. Either he would stop his attacks, or he would be forced from power, or both. But neither has happened, and neither is about to. Some insiders even worry that he will soon be able to launch a new offensive to take Benghazi. . . .

Read the whole thing here.

3. Phantom Federal Budget “Cuts”

In his latest Forbes column, Richard Salsman considers our politicians’ M.O. in regard to spending cuts, and focuses on both President Obama’s and Rep. Paul Ryan’s plans for the continuing redistribution of our wealth. The article begins:

When financially hard-pressed Americans and firms work diligently to cut spending so as to bolster their solvency, they know the word “cut” had better mean “decrease”—and certainly not its opposite (“increase”)—or they’ll fail to be fiscally prudent. But that’s not the way of it in Washington, where public officials and the breathless media shills claim incessantly that there’ll be a “cut” in spending, when in fact what they mean is: an increase, but at a slightly lesser rate than initially intended (under some previous “baseline” growth rate)

In watching this sleight-of-hand, imagine you’re Alice in Wonderland, hearing Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.” If, like Alice, you ask how a word can mean “so many different things,” you’ll hear this: “The question is—Which is to be master? That’s all.”

Indeed, the crucial political question of our day is “which is to be master,” and we, who deserve to be free citizens in a constitutionally-limited Republic, face masters in government, not only when officials presume it is valid to take and squander our wealth, but also to mislead us about their ways and means of doing so. . . .

Read the whole thing here.

If you’d like to draw a little laughter out of this sad situation, Holman Jenkins has penned a parody in which Obama mocks Ryan’s plan from the perspective of how helpful it is toward Obama’s statist goal. Obama-Ryan Plan: A Progress Report begins:

Good week! We’re getting closer to the goal! I went to GWU and denounced the Paul Ryan plan as a radical Republican plan. You should have heard the howls!

The GOP should put me on the payroll—the tea partiers and their congressmen were rushing to support a proposal that remakes (one more time!) the Republican peace with the welfare state! The Ryan plan got 193 votes in the House by the time I finished selling it. Hoo boy, I amaze myself more than ever—and that’s saying something, since I’ve written two autobiographies to describe how amazing I am to myself!

A radical Republican plan would replace Medicare and Social Security (which Ryan barely mentions) with personal accounts. This is what radical Republicans have wanted for decades—turning a pay-as-you-go welfare state into one based on real savings, real investment and pro-growth incentives.

Ryan is not radical. Ryan gives us “premium support”—which, when you think about it, is a “New Democrat” idea, promoted by Bill Clinton’s Medicare commission, though poor Bill was too tangled up in Monica to do much about it. Premium support makes pay-as-you-go Medicare permanent.

In my speech, I pretended the Ryan plan was a scheme to throw seniors to the wolves because Medicare would no longer cover everything. I still chuckle when I think about it. In case you haven’t noticed, Medicare today doesn’t cover everything! Why do you think seniors buy MediGap insurance? . . .

Read the whole parody here.

4. Peter Schiff: S&P Late to The Party . . . Once Again

On April 18, Standard & Poor’s released this gem: “Because the U.S. has, relative to its ‘AAA’ peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable.” Peter Schiff replied with this one:

The only thing more ridiculous than S&P’s too little too late semi-downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt was the market’s severe reaction to the announcement. Has S&P really added anything to the debate that wasn’t already widely known? In any event, S&P’s statement amounts to a wakeup call to anyone who has somehow managed to sleepwalk through the unprecedented debt explosion of the last few years.

Given S&P’s concerns that Congress will fail to address its long-term fiscal problems, on what basis can it conclude that the U.S. deserves its AAA credit rating? The highest possible rating should be reserved for fiscally responsible nations where the fiscal outlook is crystal clear. If S&P has genuine concerns that the U.S. will not deal with its out of control deficits, the AAA rating should be reduced right now.

By its own admission, S&P is unsure whether Congress will take the necessary steps to get America’s fiscal house in order. Given that uncertainty, it should immediately reduce its rating on U.S. sovereign debt several notches below AAA. Then if the U.S. does get its fiscal house in order, the AAA rating could be restored. If on the other hand, the situation deteriorates, additional downgrades would be in order.

AAA is the highest rating S&P can give. It is the Wall Street equivalent to a “strong buy.” If a stock analyst has serious concerns that a company may go bankrupt, would he maintain a “strong buy” on the assumption that there was still a possibility that bankruptcy could be averted? If the company declared bankruptcy, would the analyst reduce his rating from “strong buy” to “accumulate”? . . .

Read Schiff’s whole article here.

5. The United Nations “Climate Refugee” Prediction . . . D’oh!

Because the United Nations is nothing if not an irrational organization, one should not be surprised when its predictions about the climate, “global warming,” and the like turn out to have no correspondence to reality. Nevertheless, in the battle against irrationality it is helpful to see the facts and numbers surrounding the enemy’s various Big Lies, and in regard to this one, Patrick Michaels delivers the goods.

It’s now one year past the date by which, according to the UN, “global warming” was going to have created 50 million “climate refugees.” Michaels explains why the UN’s prediction was a tad off:

When will our greener friends at the UN learn that it’s just not a good idea to make definite predictions about certain disasters?

This time they have been called out on their 2005 prediction that by now there would be 50 million “climate refugees”—people choosing to emigrate because of bad weather. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) even came up with a global map showing precisely where people would migrate from.

Pretty much every forecast about climate change or its effects should be viewed as a hypothesis rather than a fact. After all, as Firesign Theater once noted, “the future’s not here yet”. But the UN named a specific year (2010) which allows for an actual test of their prediction.

Census takers around the world have inadvertently adjudicated the UN’s forecast. It was dead wrong. Pretty much every recent census reveals that populations are growing rapidly precisely where everyone was supposed to be migrating from. . . .

Folks were supposed to be streaming away from low-lying tropical islands because of worse and more frequent hurricanes. The population of the Bahamas, which catches about as many tropical cyclones as any place on earth, is up 14% since 2000. The Solomons, up 20%. Sychelles: 9%.

Did I mention that global hurricane activity has recently sunk to its all time measured low, despite the UN’s strident statements about more frequent and terrible storms? (Note that the hurricane data is only reliable for the last fifty years or so, hence the word “measured”.)

Is this exaggeration of an affect of climate change by the UN an isolated incident? Hardly. Recent history reveals the UN to be a systematic engine of climate disinformation. . . .

Read Michaels’s whole piece here.

Unsurprisingly, rather than admit it was in error, the UN has attempted to disown its absurd prediction by deleting the damning data from the internet. As Anthony Watts writes:

[G]overnment idiocy at its finest. Not only is the original claim bogus, the attempts to disappear it are hilariously inept. Apparently, they’ve never heard of Google Cache at the UN. Rather than simply saying “we were wrong,” they’ve now brought even more distrust onto the UN. . . .

Fear not, dear readers, because as astoundingly smart as those UN people think they are, they forgot one very important yet tiny detail. The map links to a hi-resolution version of the “climate refugee map,” and if you delete the page above and the map it contains, you also have to delete the hi-res image it links to.

Oops.

I’m always happy to help the UN in times of “need,” so I’ve recovered it and saved it. . . .

Read Watts’ piece and see the UN maps here.

*  *  *

We hope you enjoyed this edition of TOS’s Week in Review. Feel free to forward the link to others who might enjoy it as well.

(TOS does not necessarily agree with the content of articles to which we link.)

Posted in: Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Foreign Policy and War, Individual Rights and Law, Week in Review

Monday, April 18, 2011

On April 22, Celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day

Posted by Craig Biddle at 6:40 pm

Exploit the Earth or Die™

Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology—on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day.

Exploiting the Earth—using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes—is a basic requirement of human life. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.

According to environmentalism, however, man should not use nature for his needs; he should keep his hands off “the goods”; he should leave nature alone, come what may. Environmentalism is not concerned with human health and wellbeing—neither ours nor that of generations to come. If it were, it would advocate the one social system that ensures that the Earth and its elements are used in the most productive, life-serving manner possible: capitalism.

Capitalism is the only social system that recognizes and protects each individual’s right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Under capitalism, people are fully free to choose their goals, to identify the means of attaining them, and to act on their best judgment. Accordingly, those who recognize that in order to live well they and their loved ones need abundant energy, clean air, clean water, and the like tend to use the available resources rationally, with an eye to the distant future. Further, under capitalism, if a person (or corporation) spews toxins onto someone’s land, or poisons his water supply, or in any other way violates his property rights, the offender is held accountable in a court of law. But, so long as a person does not violate anyone’s rights, he is free to act in accordance with his basic means of living: the judgment of his mind.

Environmentalism, of course, does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are free to act on their judgment, they will strive to produce and prosper; they will transform the raw materials of nature into the requirements of human life; they will exploit the Earth and live.

Environmentalism rejects the basic moral premise of capitalism—the idea that people should be free to act on their judgment—because it rejects a more fundamental idea on which capitalism rests: the idea that the requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value. While the standard of value underlying capitalism is human life (meaning, that which is necessary for human beings to live and prosper), the standard of value underlying environmentalism is nature untouched by man.

The basic principle of environmentalism is that nature (i.e., “the environment”) has intrinsic value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of the requirements of human life—and that this value must be protected from its only adversary: man. Rivers must be left free to flow unimpeded by human dams, which divert natural flows, alter natural landscapes, and disrupt wildlife habitats. Glaciers must be left free to grow or shrink according to natural causes, but any human activity that might affect their size must be prohibited. Naturally generated carbon dioxide (such as that emitted by oceans and volcanoes) and naturally generated methane (such as that emitted by swamps and termites) may contribute to the greenhouse effect, but such gasses must not be produced by man. The globe may warm or cool naturally (e.g., via increases or decreases in sunspot activity), but man must not do anything to affect its temperature.

In short, according to environmentalism, if nature affects nature, the effect is good; if man affects nature, the effect is evil.

Stating the essence of environmentalism in such stark terms raises some illuminating questions: If the good is nature untouched by man, how is man to live? What is he to eat? What is he to wear? Where is he to reside? How can man do anything his life requires without altering, harming, or destroying some aspect of nature? In order to nourish himself, man must consume meats, fruits, and vegetables. In order to make clothing, he must skin animals, pick cotton, manufacture polyester, and the like. In order to build a house—or even a hut—he must cut down trees, dig up clay, make fires, bake bricks, and so forth. Each and every action man takes to support or sustain his life entails the exploitation of nature. Thus, on the premise of environmentalism, man has no right to exist.

It comes down to this: Each of us has a choice to make. Will I recognize that man’s life is the standard of moral value—that the good is that which sustains and furthers human life—and thus that people have a moral right to use the Earth and its elements for their life-serving needs? Or will I accept that nature has “intrinsic” value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of human needs—and thus that people have no right to exist?

There is no middle ground here. Either human life is the standard of moral value, or it is not. Either nature has intrinsic value, or it does not.

On April 22, make clear where you stand. Don’t celebrate Earth Day; celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day—and let your friends, family, and associates know why.

Posted in: Announcements, Environmentalism, Events, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Science and Technology

Sunday, April 3, 2011

TOS’s Week in Review for April 3, 2011

Posted by TOS Admin at 11:59 pm

Week in ReviewNoteworthy news and opinion items from the week ending April 3, 2011

1. Islamist Fantasies toward Future Atrocities

FrontPage Magazine reports that the Iranian government has produced a “documentary” claiming that “Ayatollah Khamenei, President Ahmadinejad, and Hassan Nasrallah are talked about in Islamic prophecy as leaders who will wage war to bring about the arrival of the Hidden Imam, which the film says is ‘very close’ to happening.” This development underscores the urgency of eliminating the Iranian regime and of persuading the Iranian people—especially those involved in the Green movement—to embrace the goal of establishing a right-respecting republic. Excerpt:

Reza Kahlili, a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who spied for the CIA and authored A Time to Betray last year, procured the entire film and says it was created by close associates of Ahmadinejad and was shown to top clerics two weeks ago. His chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, is said to have played a role in its creation. Kahlili allowed FrontPage to view a shortened version of the film over the weekend, which he says the Iranian regime intends to distribute to mosques and Islamic centers throughout the region with an Arabic translation and is currently being shown to members of the Revolutionary Guards and Basiji.

The purpose of the film is to make the case that Iran is prophetically destined to lead the war against Islam’s enemies, which is as a prelude to the appearance of the Hidden Imam, also called the Mahdi, who brings the final victory for Islam and reigns over the whole world. It uses current events to argue that “the final chapter has begun” and the Mahdi’s arrival is imminent. Most disturbingly, it teaches that Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah are the individuals prophesied to make this happen. . . .

The current uprisings in the Arab world are viewed as the fulfillment of prophecy and confirmation that they are to wage this final war against the enemies of Islam. . . .

If the film reflects the private views of the Iranian leadership, then it is clear the regime believes it is now on the precipice of leading a coalition to destroy Israel. . . .

The documentary produced by the Iranian government confirms that it believes a final grand war against Islam’s enemies, which will culminate in the destruction of Israel, is not something to be avoided, but something to be sought. Recent events are being interpreted by the Iranian regime as prophetic fulfillments confirming that this war is near and its duty is to lead it. This is not a belief system that the West can accommodate.

Read the article here. Watch the “documentary” here. And for a clear explication of how America should deal with this and similar evil, see “‘No Substitute for Victory’: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism.”

2. The U.S. Arms Its Islamic Enemies—Again

As the cliché goes, insanity may be defined as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Richard Salsman surveys the insanity of the United States once again aiding an enemy of our enemy and apparently expecting different results. Excerpt:

Evidence grows with each passing week that in Libya the U.S. government and its allies are providing air cover and arms directly to its avowed enemies—including thugs from al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, and Taliban—those who’ve devoted the past decade to slaughtering American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Worse, top U.S. and U.K. officials now acknowledge this and condone it.

At this week’s London conference on the Libyan war, while U.S. Secretary of State Clinton said the tyrant Gadhafi must go, U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said that if Gadhafi were to go, Libya could become a hard-line Islamist state, but the “gamble” was worth it. Above all, both stressed, Western allies must convey “humility” and forswear any desire to “impose” its preferred type of law-abiding government in Libya or anywhere else in the region. . . .

This craven and self-sacrificing policy is deadly, yet embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike in the U.S., albeit obscured by quibbles over the timing and tactics of Obama’s invasion. Both believe the world must be made “safe for democracy”–for mob rule and the almighty ballot–which means, in the Middle East: made safe for the rise and spread of Islamic rule. To “accomplish” this end the West is to “gamble” the lives and fortunes of its own citizens, while ensuring that secularism, the rule of law, individual rights and constitutionalism have no real chance in the Middle East, since that would entail “imperialistic colonizing”. . . .

Read the whole thing here.

3. Israel Asks the UN to Help Block Planned Gaza Flotilla

Anti-Israel barbarians are planning yet another flotilla of aid destined for Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and Israel is asking the UN (of all organizations) to help prevent it. Why the Israelis are asking for help from the UN is anyone’s guess, but it’s probably safe to assume that the request is intended to preempt criticisms from the UN regarding whatever steps Israel deems necessary to protect itself later. (e.g., “We asked for your help and you did nothing, so we had to take matters into our own hands.”) The Reuters report begins:

Israel asked the United Nations on Friday to help prevent activists sailing to Gaza on the first anniversary of the bloody Israeli seizure of a Turkish ship that tried to reach the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

The Free Gaza Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist umbrella group, said the May flotilla would comprise 15 ships with international passengers including Europeans and Americans.

“We sail not just for Gaza,” the group said in a March 31 posting on its Website. “We sail to confront an entire apartheid regime that must be dismantled through citizen action.” . . .

Read the whole report here. For a recap of the last flotilla incident and an indication of the proper way to deal with such efforts, see “Israel and America’s Flotilla Follies (and How To Avoid Them in the Future).”

4. China Stealthily Cracks Down on Political Speech

While all eyes have been focused on uprisings in the Muslim world and disasters in Japan, the communist regime in China has been nipping the buds of any anti-tyranny protests that might otherwise erupt there. A report in The New Yorker begins:

Step by step—so quietly, in fact, that the full facts of it can be startling—China has embarked on the most intense crackdown on free expression in years. Overshadowed by news elsewhere in recent weeks, China has been rounding up writers, lawyers, and activists since mid-February, when calls began to circulate for protests inspired by those in the Middle East and North Africa. By now the contours are clear: according to a count by Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group, the government has “criminally detained 26 individuals, disappeared more than 30, and put more than 200 under soft detention.”

Some of the disappeared have resurfaced; in one case that illustrates how strange it’s all getting around here, a novelist and blogger called his assistant to say he was being followed by three men, and then vanished for several days before resurfacing in a hospital, saying that he was “recovering” without specifying from what. He planned to fly out of the country tomorrow. (Others who have disappeared are not listed in the numbers above: the lawyer Gao Zhisheng vanished nearly a year ago; when human-rights monitors at the U.N. asked for information about him this week, the foreign ministry told them to “respect China’s judicial sovereignty”—an unfortunate choice of words, considering that Gao has yet to appear in a court of justice, as far as anyone knows.)

Read the whole piece here.

5. Is America Becoming a Nation of Parasites?

According to the latest from Stephen Moore, the statistics are ugly. (They shouldn’t be surprising, though. A once-productive culture that increasingly regards wealth production as evil because it is selfish will not remain productive for long.) Excerpt:

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills? . . .

Don’t expect a reversal of this trend anytime soon. Surveys of college graduates are finding that more and more of our top minds want to work for the government. Why? Because in recent years only government agencies have been hiring, and because the offer of near lifetime security is highly valued in these times of economic turbulence. When 23-year-olds aren’t willing to take career risks, we have a real problem on our hands. Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles. . . .

Read the whole article here.

6. The Shale Gas Revolution

Here’s a story about a productive hero whose ingenuity is rendering allegedly scarce resources more and more plentiful. (If one didn’t know better, one might call it a miracle!) The article begins:

In the early 1980s, George P. Mitchell, a Houston-based independent energy producer, could see that his company was going to run out of natural gas. Almost three decades later, the results of his effort to do something about the problem are transforming America’s energy prospects and the calculations of analysts around the world.

Back in those years, Mr. Mitchell’s company was contracted to deliver a substantial amount of natural gas from Texas to feed a pipeline serving Chicago. But the reserves on which he depended were running down, and it was not at all clear where he could find more gas to replace the depleting supply. Mr. Mitchell had a strong hunch, however, piqued by a geology report that he had read recently.

Perhaps the natural gas that was locked into shale—a dense sedimentary rock—could be freed and made to flow. He was prepared to back up his hunch with investment. The laboratory for his experiment was a sprawling geologic formation called the Barnett Shale around Dallas and Fort Worth. Almost everyone with whom he worked was skeptical, including his own geologists and engineers. “You’re wasting your money,” they told him over the years. But Mr. Mitchell kept at it.

The payoff came a decade and a half later, at the end of the 1990s. Using a specialized version of a technique called hydraulic fracturing (now widely known as “fracking” or “fracing”), his team found an economical way to create or expand fractures in the rock and to get the trapped gas to flow.

Today, in an age that craves innovation in energy, George Mitchell’s breakthrough in the Barnett Shale has opened the door to a potentially profound change in the global energy equation. . . .

Read the whole piece here.

7. The Senate’s EPA Showdown

While some people work to exploit the earth and support human life, the Environmental Protection Agency works tirelessly to stop them from succeeding. Fortunately, some politicians—including perhaps some Democrats—are coming to recognize the destructive nature of at least certain EPA efforts and are seeking “to mitigate the agency’s abuses.” The Wall Street Journal reports that “Democrats face a moment of truth on regulatory cap and trade.” Excerpt:

The Environmental Protection Agency debate lands in the Senate this week, amid the makings of a left-right coalition to mitigate the agency’s abuses. Few other votes this year could do more to help the private economy—but only if enough Democrats are willing to buck the White House.

This moment arrived unexpectedly, with Majority Leader Harry Reid opening a small business bill to amendments. Republican leader Mitch McConnell promptly introduced a rider to strip the EPA of the carbon regulation authority that the Obama Administration has given itself. Two weeks ago, Mr. Reid pulled the bill from the floor once it became clear Mr. McConnell might have the 13 Democrats he needs to clear 60. . . .

A vote to overrule the EPA is also needed to remove the regulatory uncertainty hanging over the economy. This harm is already apparent in energy, where the EPA is trying to drive coal-fired power out of existence. The core electricity generation that the country needs to meet future demand is not being built, and it won’t be until the EPA is bridled. This same dynamic is also chilling the natural gas boom in the Northeast, and it is making U.S. energy-intensive industries less competitive world-wide. . . .

Read the whole article here.

8. The Economic Absurdity of “Green Energy”

The push for “green energy” is destructive in myriad ways; and clear, concise refutations of the lies employed by its advocates are crucial to the defense of those individuals (such as George P. Mitchell) and industries (such as coal, natural gas, and oil) that actually provide the world with clean, safe, inexpensive energy. Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren have written just such a refutation, in which they list five reasons why “green energy” is economically senseless. Their article begins:

“Green” energy such as wind, solar and biomass presently constitute only 3.6% of fuel used to generate electricity in the U.S. But if another “I Have a Dream” speech were given at the base of the Lincoln Memorial, it would undoubtedly urge us on to a promised land where renewable energy completely replaced fossil fuels and nuclear power.

How much will this particular dream cost? Energy expert Vaclav Smil calculates that achieving that goal in a decade–former Vice President Al Gore’s proposal–would incur building costs and write-downs on the order of $4 trillion. Taking a bit more time to reach this promised land would help reduce that price tag a bit, but simply building the requisite generators would cost $2.5 trillion alone.

Let’s assume, however, that we could afford that. Have we ever seen such a “green economy”? Yes we have; in the 13th century.

Renewable energy is quite literally the energy of yesterday. Few seem to realize that we abandoned “green” energy centuries ago for five very good reasons.

First, green energy is diffuse, and it takes a tremendous amount of land and material to harness even a little bit of energy. Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment and senior research associate at Rockefeller University, calculates, for instance, that the entire state of Connecticut (that is, if Connecticut were as windy as the southeastern Colorado plains) would need to be devoted to wind turbines to power the city of New York.

Second, . . .

Read the whole piece here.

9. Microsoft Assaults Google for Using Its Property to Its Advantage

The Irony here is too rich for comment. The CNN piece begins:

Microsoft plans to file a formal complaint with the European Commission Thursday, accusing Google of abusing its position as the region’s dominant search engine.

The software giant—once subject to its own landmark antitrust investigation in the United States and Europe—claimed in a blog post that Google is preventing rivals from creating a competitive alternative to its search technology. Microsoft operates the two-year-old Bing search engine, which, though a partnership with Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500), is the second-largest search website in the United States and Europe.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) cited several examples of what it said was Google’s abuse of its dominant position.

For instance, the company claims that Google is impeding fair competition by restricting rival search engines from “properly accessing” the Google-owned YouTube for their search results. Google supposedly won’t release YouTube’s so-called “metadata,” which includes video categories, favorites and ratings.

The company also said that Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) released superior YouTube applications for its own Android platform and Apple’s iPhone, but designed a limited YouTube app for Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. Microsoft said it wants to release its own high-quality YouTube app, but it requires access to YouTube’s metadata to do that. . . .

Read the whole article here.

10. Atlas Shrugged Fans Overwhelm Theater Chains

According to a PR Newswire report, demand for the Atlas Shrugged movie (Atlas Shrugged: Part I), which is scheduled to open this April 15, has become so great that the initial release has been expanded from eleven markets to more than fifty. Excerpt:

“AMC called directly to report their online contact system was being hit too hard. They requested we direct traffic to a specific address just to handle the volume,” said producer Harmon Kaslow.

“While it’s unusual for showtimes to be listed this early, the doors of the exhibitors have been thoroughly beaten down by Ayn’s fans. Many of the theaters are now posting showtimes so tickets can be pre-purchased,” continued Kaslow. “And, theaters and showtimes are now being reported as sold-out.” . . .

Read the whole piece here. For information on theaters that will be showing the movie, click here. To demand it in your area, click here. And for a taste of the movie, here’s a newly released film clip:

If you enjoyed this edition of TOS’s Week in Review, feel free to forward the link to others who might enjoy it as well.

(TOS does not necessarily agree with the content of the articles to which we link.)

Posted in: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Foreign Policy and War, Individual Rights and Law, Science and Technology, Week in Review