A whole lot going on in the world this weekend as we prepare to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you don’t believe in the resurrection, please be respectful of those who do.

UPDATE: The Lord has risen.

 

Carney tries to defend the indefensible and then dodges the question: http://savingtherepublic.com/blog/tag/obama-voted-for-oil-subsidies/

Never mind that obAMATEUR LIES about “subsidies” – “But on top of these record profits, oil companies are also getting billions a year — billions a year in taxpayer subsidies “.  There are no tax payer “subsidies” to the oil companies.  These are legitimate TAX DEDUCTIONS that any manufacturer can take from the taxes they pay.

Never mind that oil companies “profits that go up every time folks pull up into a gas station.” is another half truth.  Oil companies profits are a result of other non-fuel related products as well.  Never mind that obAMATEUR does not differentiate between GROSS PROFITS, NET PROFITS or PROFIT MARGINS.  Never mind that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT makes more in taxes on a gallon of gas than the oil company does in profit.  Never mind that oil companies pays billions in taxes to the federal government.

Never mind that ACTUAL DIRECT SUBSIDIES to “green energy” companies have been a waste of money and he wants to “double down” on these same failed activities – “we should be using that money to double-down on investments in clean energy technologies that have never been more promising — investments in wind power and solar power and biofuels;”  Yeah, like Solyndra and other failed green companies that received direct tax payer subsidies and failed while the executives received bonuses.

Never mind, that these green energy “developments” will take the same amount of or more time to develop than to drill a new field.  Once developed, these new energy sources will have to have an infrastructure to put in place to distribute it across the country.  More than likely, these new sources may not be a direct fuel replacement for existing cars, trucks, aircraft, trains etc. etc. These green energies are not a direct replacement and drilling must continue until these sources become more economical or viable.

But why quibble about details? For obAMATEUR, the lies makes good politics during an election year for his mindless dumbed down drones.

The movie, “The Hunger Games” debuted Friday with box office sales of nearly $70 million, and is on track to book between $130 and $140 million in its first 3 days.  My neighbor’s daughter read the book for school, and has been telling me a little about it.  Although she hasn’t come right out and said it, I suspect that one of the reasons the movie, based on the first book in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins, has resonated with young people in particular, is that many of them have a relatively hopeless view of the future and don’t see the premise as all that unrealistic.

There have been apocalyptic/post-America books and movies around for as long as I can remember.  What are some of your favorites, and why do you think this latest example of the genre has so captivated audiences?

It looks like Europe has finally united and bailed out Greece — or have they?  Darrell Delamaide’s column at MarketWatch yesterday puts the whole Greek bailout process into perspective.

To start with, the bailout is not for Greece, but for German, French and other foreign banks who willfully abandoned due diligence to buy more Greek debt than any financial analyst would have thought the country could sustain.

After months of nail-biting negotiations, Greece finally reaches agreement on a bailout to prevent a debt default next month.

The 130 billion euros ($171.9 billion) in aid agreed to by Europe’s finance ministers in their marathon session will go into a managed account to make sure it goes directly to Greece’s creditors when their bonds fall due. Read MarketWatch’s full coverage of the Greek deal.

The agreement was made possible when the Greek Parliament a week earlier approved a package of draconian austerity measures, which they, as well as the European finance ministers who insisted on it, know they will never be able to deliver.

Antonis Samaras, the leader of the center-right New Democracy party, said as much during the debate when he urged members of his party to go along with the austerity measures in order to get the bailout done — and then they could be renegotiated after Greek elections in April.

In the shambles that is Greek politics, Samaras’s party is leading in the polls, though it is not expected to win an outright majority.

Even as German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was leading the charge on Monday to wring more austerity out of the Greeks, one of Germany’s top economists branded the bailout “illusory” and said the type of deflation being exacted of Greece is unrealistic.

Asked in an interview on Monday with Spiegel Online whether this new bailout could save Greece, economist Hans-Werner Sinn answered, “No, and the politicians know it can’t.”

From the MarketWatch’s full coverage story linked above:

The euro initially popped higher after euro-zone finance ministers and international officials announced an agreement to provide Greece with 130 billion euros ($172 billion) through 2014. Greece will also launch a debt swap that will see private bondholders accept a 53% write-down on the value of their holdings of roughly €200 billion worth of Greek government debt.Z

Gee, that sounds familiar.  Where have we seen a government screw private bondholders as part of a bailout package?   Looks like Europe has taken a page from the Obama playbook.

The comments following Darrell Delamaide’s column are as interesting as the column itself.

Oil production in North Dakota has boomed to the point that the state now produces nearly as much oil each day as OPEC member Ecuador.

But a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could bring a halt to the boom that has virtually eliminated unemployment in North Dakota.

The state now has 200 rigs pumping 440,000 barrels of oil daily in the Bakken shale formation, according to the Heartland Institute. The state’s unemployment rate is holding at just 3.5 percent, with many oil industry jobs paying more than $100,000 a year, and “we have 18,000 jobs looking for people,” North Dakota Republican Rep. Rick Berg told The Hill.

“If our country’s GDP grew at 7 percent, as it does in [my] state, most of our problems would be over in two years.”

The North Dakota legislature is using some of the state’s oil revenue to fund $1.2 billion in infrastructure improvements, including roads and schools. Public schools will receive $340 million in oil-related revenues over the next two years, and oil money will pay for a disaster relief fund and a reduction in property taxes.

Also, the legislature has ordered that 30 percent of the funds from the state’s 6.5 percent oil extraction tax be sent to the state’s Legacy Fund, which cannot be touched until 2017, when accrued interest will become available for spending.

One reason for the boom: “The regulatory environment was already low in North Dakota, certainly better than California’s and some other oil-producing states,” said Brett Narloch, executive director of the North Dakota Policy Council.

“As we move forward with oil production, I expect the business environment to get better.”

Most of the Bakken shale production is occurring on private land, but analysts and state legislators fear the EPA may still seek to shut it down, the Institute reported.

The federal agency is currently investigating hydraulic fracturing (fracking) production techniques, which are used in shale oil production.

Narloch said: “If the EPA decides to ban fracking, that shuts down the entire industry since so many of the wells operate by that procedure. It would kill this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

*******************

Permatorium in the Gulf, driving rigs off to other countries
Ban on offshore drilling along nearly all of the Eastern Seaboard
Fracking banned in New Jersey (thank you, Governor Christie)
No drilling in ANWR
Keystone pipeline shut down

And now there is this new threat from the newly empowered EPA, which has been given, through presidential fiat, unlimited power and authority to (1) make a unilateral decision about what is or is not “pollution” and (2) the power and authority to do whatever they want to address the alleged problem.  Congress did not approve this power shift, and has no control over it unless they stand up to Obama and take that control back.

I’ve been watching the news all morning as the showdown on the so-called Payroll Tax Cut heads toward a climax.  Numerous commitments this afternoon preclude me from offering my take on it right now, but the issue deserves an open thread.

 

Have at it — play nice.

We have seen at least two versions (the first two could be one in the same) of Barak Obama (aka the obAMATEUR).

1) Barak Obama the Senator.

2) Barak Obama the Candidate.

3) Barak Obama the President.

We saw a man critical of Iraq and GITMO who promised to close GITMO, try terrorists in US courts, and bring the troops home from Iraq ASAP.  The drones swallowed it all.  Then the man became pResident…..

… and everything changed.

Victor Davis Hanson sums it up nicely.