That is how much Obama’s policy on oil drilling is going to cost us:

Restrictions on oil and gas drilling will cost the U.S. economy $2.36 trillion through 2029, according to a study requested by state utility regulators and paid for in part by industry-sponsored groups.

Drilling restrictions in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the U.S. coastline are blocking access to about nine years’ worth of U.S. oil and gas consumption, according to the report. Among sponsors are the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the industry-funded Gas Technology Institute, of Des Plaines, Illinois.

Obama is stealing from the future in two ways – by borrowing our grand-childrens money, and by taking away their ability to earn money.

As I’ve been yammering endlessly on about, we need to start a crash course in making, mining and growing our own stuff. The oil and gas is on our soil and off our coasts – surely we can work out a means of obtaining it with minimal environmental impact. But, impact or no, we must obtain it. We all hope for the day when oil and gas won’t be necessary – but that day is, at best, decades away. Meanwhile, we’re fools for sending our money to enemy States for their oil while we have our own.

It is time we started acting like we live in the real world. The liberal dream – nightmare, really – is dead. Time to wake up, and get back to work.

Hello boys and girls. Its kind of a holiday, and I just can’t think of anything worthwhile to put up for the AM. Have at it.

Just astounding how bad this has become:

When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.

It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.

“Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn’t look at the fine print,” Dr. Bisutti says. “But this is just outrageous now.”

As the article goes on to note, this is an extreme case but the bottom line, as I see it, is that the student loan program is a scam which benefits banks and colleges and needlessly burdens the kids. By having easy student loans, a teen or twenties kid can get in to college and its just a breeze – don’t have to pay until after you graduate. This is just ripe for our most inexperienced people to get themselves in a jam.

We recently passed a law putting protections against predatory lending to the young. It doesn’t apply to student loans, as far as I can see. Why? Because bankers who can lobby and colleges/universities who can lobby like things just the way they are. The student loan program is a no-brainer for banks as they are sure to get their money and its a bonanza for colleges because it allows them to continually jack up tuition all out of proportion to the actual costs of education.

In case you didn’t know, the curious thing about student loans is that you can’t get out of them. Ever. No amount of time or filing of bankruptcy will get rid of that debt. This provision was put in because some years back kids were taking the loans and then defaulting – including kids who could well afford to pay, such as doctors and lawyers. By making the change we converted what had been a giveaway to the kids in to a giveaway to the colleges and banks. The ultimate problem is, of course, the giveaway aspect.

It is time to end student loans. Kids will have to get grants or scholarships or just work their way through college. They’ll have to avail themselves of community colleges and, maybe, take 5 or 6 years to achieve a bachelors. Colleges just might have to bring tuition in line with reality. And maybe have a few less tenured professors. And maybe one or two less “Feminist Studies” or other nonsense offerings.

It is unfair to burden kids with massive debt. It is disgusting to enrich bankers and colleges on the backs of kids and the American taxpayer. It is enervating to a free society that someone can go to school without having to immediately sacrifice for it. This is just one of a dozen things where we need to get back to basics: nothing is free and rewards only come from hard work.

Did you see all the massive coverage of that child abuse scandal in the public shools?

No? Neither did I…

In 2004, Hofstra University professor Dr. Carol Shakeshaft published a report for the United States Department of Education titled “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature.” It was presented to Congress as part of the No Child Left Behind Act. In it, Shakeshaft stated:

As a group, these studies present a wide range of estimates of the percentage of U.S. students subject to sexual misconduct by school staff and vary from 3.7 to 50.3 percent. Because of its carefully drawn sample and survey methodology, the AAUW report that nearly 9.6 percent of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career presents the most accurate data available at this time.

According to a study she did of abuse complaints against Catholic priests over a five decade period she concluded that “…the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.” (emphasis added)

And here’s the real kicker – the Church has been getting rid of the bad apples and setting in place systems which will go far towards ensuring there is never a repeat of that horrible scandal. What are the public school systems doing? Well, I’m sure when someone actually get arrested for child molestation, they get fired…eventually.

Here’s what it is: Catholic priests doing wrong = fits liberal narrative. Public school teachers doing wrong = doesn’t fit liberal narrative. And thus the far larger scandal of sex abuse by teachers goes unreported – and unresolved.

When I say we live in an Age of Lies, this is what I’m on about – its not necessary that a direct falsehood be told but, more important, that the full truth is suppressed. The key to societal sanity is to seek the truth – all of it, all the time, no matter how much it hurts. Until the MSM starts telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it will continue to decline…and as long as we, in society as a whole, don’t insist upon being told the whole truth, so will our nation continue to decay.

The truth really shall set you free – but no one ever said it would be painless. But better free and in pain than numbed by lies, as far as I’m concerned.

HAT TIP: Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!

Never mind, I guess:

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers…

…Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.(emphasis added)

Now, liberals, why did you believe this? I’ll answer for you: because liberal people in authority told you it was true and you simply will not question your leaders. You liberals are a bunch of mind-numbed, servile dupes of powers you don’t even comprehend.

Now, start listening to us on the right.

Geesh!

Glenn Reynolds explains:

There were promises of transparency and of a new kind of collaborative politics where establishment figures listened to ordinary Americans. We were going to see net spending cuts, tax cuts for nearly all Americans, an end to earmarks, legislation posted online for the public to review before it is signed into law, and a line-by-line review of the federal budget to remove wasteful programs.

These weren’t the tea-party platforms I heard discussed in Nashville last weekend. They were the campaign promises of Barack Obama in 2008.

Mr. Obama made those promises because the ideas they represented were popular with average Americans. So popular, it turns out, that average Americans are organizing themselves in pursuit of the kind of good government Mr. Obama promised, but has not delivered. And that, in a nutshell, was the feel of the National Tea Party Convention. The political elites have failed, and citizens are stepping in to pick up the slack.

There is one thing I’d like to ask all of you: what are you, personally, doing in 2010 to take our government back?

We all must put ourselves on the line in one form or another. Its not just a matter of voting in November. In fact, if all you do is vote, then in my view you have failed in your duty as an American. It is now time, indeed, for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

And this will upset the normal run of MSMers and leftists:

Israel is waging a covert (special forces) campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities.

Israeli agents have been targeting meetings between members of Hamas and the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, Damascus and Beirut. While Israel’s Mossad spy agency has been suspected of staging (special forces actions) across the world since the 1970s, it does not officially acknowledge or admit its activities.

Had to correct some of the MSM-ese, there. While MSMers have no problem with being stupid, I have a problem with having their stupidity front and center on Blogs for Victory.

Now, please note the “how horrible” tone in the reporting – the sort of tone which is distinctly missing whenever the MSM reports on the cold blooded murder of Israeli citizens. This is the way of the world: Israel using legitimate force against armed enemies is held to be a bad thing – terrorist actions against Israelis are considered understandable, given how “cruel” Israelis are.

Its a strange world we live in – and its just terrible that we live in such an Age of Lies. Here is Israel, a heroic State fighting the good fight against inhuman enemies…and our MSM can’t even clearly describe the situation. Israel should be lauded for taking out terrorists around the world – it saves the lives of innocents, on both sides, when Israeli commandos are able to carefully target selected terrorist leaders. But such is not to be – hatred of Israel (rapidly devolving in to outright anti-Semitism) is just too ingrained.

Its good that, at least, Israel knows that they still do have good friends in the United States and that we hope to return to power, and thus return to being Israel’s true friend in the world.

Vice President Cheney will be on ABC’s This Week – normally, I wouldn’t inflict MSM television upon my worst enemies, but its worth plowing through the sludge to see Cheney. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to – gotta work on Sunday.

From Michael Yon via Instapundit:

…Chaplain Gary Lewis said a prayer, then 1st Platoon left the Gate heading to “Brick 1″

The soldiers checked weapons yet again and adjusted gear, and we walked out the gate, keeping intervals so that a single bomb couldn’t get many of us at once. Sometimes enemies “daisy chain” bombs together like a trotline, killing or wounding many soldiers simultaneously.

The morning was cool, bright and dry, and so the fine dust left perfect boot prints. This was to be the final mission for 1st Platoon in the area before the 82nd Airborne would take over responsibilities at around midnight…

Read it and don’t forget that Yon is reader-supported, so give what you can.

How low can a person go? This will tell you.

Las Vegas really wants to send out a big “thank you” to Barry over this news.

Want to know what is both a relief and a bit of a shock? When you finally start realizing what, “go forth, and sin no more” means. Its not just a command, its a blessing.

Zuckerman for Senate?

Collapse of the Euro “inevitable”?

Saint Valentine’s Day: its not just an excuse for Hallmark to rake in a few bucks.

Israel correctly tells the UN and its anti-Semitic agenda to get stuffed.

As an aside, since I discovered I am half-Jewish, can I be part of the International Zionist Conspiracy? Is there a secret handshake?

How badly does political corruption harm a community? This badly.