Using gas to attack the middle class

Since 2006, the price of gas has increased by more than 55%. That is the effect of a Democrat-controlled Congress and Executive.

The tank of gas that once cost $20 to fill is now $30. To put that in perspective, let's do just a little math...

• In the U.S., the average driver drove 13,476 miles in 2010 (the last year for which data is available)
• The average MPG of a model-year 2007 car in the U.S. is 31.2 (combined)
• These numbers equate to a total of 432 gallons of gas purchased each year.

In 2006, a typical American would have spent about $975 for gas. At current gas prices, a typical American will spend nearly $1,600 for gas this year.

For the wealthy, this difference is trivial. But it matters a lot to a middle-class family. And the Democrats in the Senate and White House simply do not care.

Sources:

• Federal Highway Administration
• Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Death - Every 96 seconds

In 2010, Planned Parenthood performed 329,445 abortions. They will claim that this represents less than 3% of their activity, based on their count of serving 11 million women. However, the percentage is meaningless.

Those 329,445 lives represent an abortion every 96 seconds, every hour of every day. It is more than double the population of Syracuse, New York, and almost as many live in Charleston, South Carolina, or Cleveland, Ohio.

Those children are dead, victims of a ruthless and efficient business that claims to promote women's health.

A Great Use for Solar

Fox News reports that Nissan is launching a hybrid cargo ship, with 281 photovoltaic solar panels supplementing the vessel's massive diesel engines. 

Most cargo ships use diesel-powered electricity generators to power the thousands of electrical devices on-board - from radar equipment to lighting to coffee makers and iPod chargers. The solar panels render the generators unnecessary, thus significantly reducing the amount of diesel fuel burned on each trip.

This innovation is in addition to more conventional energy-saving elements like LED lighting throughout its hold and living quarters, and low-friction paint for the hull.

Look for more of these kinds of efficiency gains in the shipping industry. They realize it's a sound investment, and will help us stretch our finite natural resources.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/02/04/nissans-solar-powered-hybrid-cargo-ship/#ixzz1lVnuBD5W

Extortion on the Left

So now we know that if Planned Parenthood decides that it disapproves of a private organization's decisions, it will bring the full weight of its media machine to bear, painting it as evil and cowardly. How dare they?

Every day, private organizations chooses to fund or not fund initiatives, causes and other organizations. When the Komen Foundation made a corporate decision not to award a grant to Planned Parenthood, they did so based on their own policies and priorities. The uproar by those who felt slighted or offended was amazing to me. And what did Komen do? They caved. They said it was all a misunderstanding. How disgusting. They had an opportunity to show courage and strength. And they chose to show cowardice and weakness.

The Komen Foundation has done some good things over the years. The survival rate of women diagnosed with breast cancer has soared, thanks in part to the work of that organization. It's too bad that their legacy will soiled with the blood of innocent, unborn children.

The Useless U.N.

What is a resolution? In the parliamentary sense, it's a a body agreeing to make a statement, to declare its position. It is that group stating what it believes.

In the hands of a body with moral authority, it can be a weighty and substantial tool. In the hands of the the United Nations Security Council, it is yet another vapid expression of futility.

Even in a case so unambiguous as the legitimacy of Bashar Assad's presidency, China and Russia vetoed a resolution demanding that he step down. Of course, the UN has no power to enforce such a resolution ... at least not without the will and power of the United Status armed forces. But if it had possessed even the tiniest bit of moral standing, perhaps such a resolution would have been taken seriously. Since the UN has no moral standing, it may be just as well that the resolution failed to be adopted. The Devil of Damascus cannot defy a declaration that has never been made.

A Regressive President

Sometimes, it boggles the mind how something so blindingly obvious is utterly ignored by the intellectual elite.

The industrial age is ending, as the President himself acknowledged. Shouldn’t the administrative state be ending as well then? Instead, the President proposes more rules and regulations.
From Progressives and Regressives, Letters from an Ohio Farmer

The administrative state was created in response to the centralization of power in the hands of a few successful men (or, in the case of the Kennedys, Gores, Bushes and Daytons, their children). The administrative state has given us such gems as Sarbanes-Oxley, Frank-Dodd, the Great Society, the Social Security Act and McCain-Feingold. Haven't we seen enough?

Power ... political, economic, and even social ... is now more widely and evenly distributed than ever before. President Obama's desire to expand the administrative is simply an attempt to curtail this distribution, roll it back, and consolidate power in the hands of a few, privileged men.