Government for sale

Democratic senators comprise 13 of the top 15 recipients of lobbyist cash in 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Couple that with the strong likelihood that the same senators will be lobbyists in just a few years, and you have a political climate that is ripe for corruption.

Choosing to make life harder for young workers

Karl Smith is the Assistant Professor of Public Economics at UNC-Charlotte, and he has studied retail employment over the past 20+ years. Given that retail sales have, in real dollars, risen nearly 40% since 1990, he posits that retail employment of teenagers (age 16-19) should be higher than it is.

In his article, What the 'End of Retail' Means for Young Workers, Dr. Smith ignores the fac that the minimum wage has gone up over that same period. Young people first entering the workforce are the least productive and least valuable workers in the world. Yet, the government has made it more and more expensive to hire them. Hiring less of them is a perfectly rational and predictable response by retailers.

The fastest way to get young people int the workforce and contributing to society is to eliminate the minimum wage. But the unions won't allow that to happen.

Obama rewrites history

Pres. Obama has once again attempted to revise history. Here are his remarks to reporters during his meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada and the president of Mexico.

"Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary event by overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress."

Only in Obama's world does a vote along strictly partisan lines constitute a "strong majority". November can't come soon enough.

This is what we pay the senators to do?

It has been yearly 35 months since the United States Senate has passed a budget. Harry Reid, and other top Democratic senators, refuse to even vote on a budget. And yet, they make the time to hold hearings on possible bounty programs in NFL teams.

Conservatives must make it an absolute priority to win back the Senate in 2012.

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