Let me get this straight………………….

1.     We're going to have a health care plan
2.     Written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it,
3.     Passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it,
4.     Signed by a president that also hasn't read it, and who smokes,
5.     With funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't  pay his taxes,
6.     Overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and
7.     Financed by a country that's broke.

What possibly could go wrong?

Carbon prices plunge - I hate it when that happens

Carbon prices plunged yesterday in the aftermath of the
Copenhagen conference on climate change, dealing a blow to
the credibility of the European Union's carbon-trading
scheme.

Financial Times

I told you this was just another corrupt scheme to make rich speculators richer and the rest of us pay the freight. Increases in energy costs is the result of cap and trade. Along with a new industry just as rapacious as oil and gas, just without any real assets.

A more likely explanation?

A discussion of how cosmic radiation, influenced by solar activity results in cloud cover that (surprise) contributes to earth cooling or warming.

Cloud Mystery by Henrik Svensmark et al 52 minutes in 6 parts

But no fun since we can't blame evil man/industry/cows/oil/economy for our impending lack of doom.
The sky ian't really falling after all.

Reply to Senator Jim Webb regarding health care reform 12/15/2009

Thank you for your thoughtful and well-considered work. I agree with most of the things that you say here. For example, it does not make sense to me to add another generation of people between 55 and 63 to medicare, when it is bankrupt already. It doesn't make any sense to take away money from medicare, which can't cover the costs now nor reimburse providers in a sustainable manner in order to give coverage (likely equally broke) to millions more people. I also support medicare advantage programs as they provide a choice in many areas of the country that would not have adequate services for the elderly otherwise. If we took people's money with a promise that we would provide a decent program to pay for medical care in the future, then we need to make good on the promise. That includes the medicare "gap" that is not covered in the budget for the current. We need to be honest with our seniors, our medical care providers, and with America's taxpayers as well.

For Medicare Part D, the so-called donut hole, can we not provide a program similar to flexible spending accounts that will help people meet those expenses without penalizing them by treating it like an asset or taxing it like a benefit? This should be something people could fund while they are still working.

I also agree that we should import less expensive drugs. The argument that they are not safe is silly. The drugs we make here aren't safe either, as a large number of recalls, law suits and faulty research results have shown over the last decades.

Correspondence from Senator Jim Webb regarding health care reform, 12/15/2009

Knowing of your interest in the ongoing debate in Congress over health care reform, I wanted to update you on a number of votes and positions that I have taken during the process.

Together with 60 of my colleagues, I voted in favor of proceeding to debate the proposed health care reform legislation. I have yet to decide whether I will support final passage of the bill.

What is in the Clean Energy Act passed by the House?

Read Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's summary

Most disturbing to me is the politicians once again choosing winners and losers. Which category is your state in?

No doubt I am over-simplifying this but....

The EPA has declared that CO2 is a pollutant. (So is sea water and plastic, but let's not go there.)
While they have not determined how they are going to regulate it, because of their authority (the clean air act), their power is pretty much limited to setting a cap on CO2 production.

There is some debate about whether the clean air act gives them the necessary authority, and so any regulation they come up with will likely be the subject of years of legal maneuvering. The Supreme Court has already determined that the Clean Air Act is broad enough to include greenhouse gasses and that EPA is required to regulate it. This has nothing to do with scientific study, fact or climate fanatic (for or against control) opinion. It is determined based only on the clean air statute.

The House proposal is known as cap and trade. Trade in this context means trade for money. The EPA proposal would be cap and penalize. Between the two, I think cap by itself is a fairer action. But then, congress would not be calling the shots and we know how they feel about that. In the end, the government is going to get a lot of money from industries that exceed their CO2 limits.

Settled science?

First of all, scientific theory is not proven through a ballot. It is proven through empirical processes. It is not settled by what could happen until it really happens. And even then, a better model may come along to explain what happened.

Having said that,
17,200 scientists dispute global warming
(3,000 UN politicians disagree)

2nd CNN meteorologist challenges manmade global warming theory

Over 30,000 scientists sign a petition against the man-made theory
Even climate extremists are having a bit of trouble with the data

NASA can't make up its mind

Brit's Met Office revisiting data

Answers explanation of atmospheric composition and what contributes

updated with this source from Science Daily, which doesn't appear to have any particular bias:
No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years

Here is a detailed discussion of factors besides anthropomorphic CO2 that affect temperatures and an explanation of the actual values instead of just percentages. Takes some time to digest. 

Climate Change - observations

13 reasons and counting for questioning Al Gore and company. (Not counting all of the political and financial motivations.)

1) The climate changes all on its own. This can be shown with data - lots of data.

2) CO2 (carbon dioxide) is emitted by all animals and is food for plants. It is not a bad thing anymore than oxygen is. (Oxygen is actually a bad thing - it causes most things to oxidize or burn. That is a destructive process, but it does release energy, which is why we use it to live.)

3) CO2 is a small percentage of the atmosphere. Nitrogen is by far the most prevalent gas. Depending on which parts of the atmosphere you want to include, nitrogen plus oxygen represent 99% of the atmosphere. Water vapor and argon are next, making up most of the last 1%. CO2 represents less than .03% or .0003 or 3 parts per 10,000.

4) CO2 concentrations go up and down for natural reasons like volcanos. Volcanos, the director of Goddard Space Center says, produce the most CO2 of anything. Since plant life contributes a lot to the reduction in CO2, why not blame plants? Those bad plants just haven't been busy enough, time for some genetic engineering. Of course cutting down trees doesn't help the situation, but most plant life is oceanic.

5) How many measurements does it take to find the difference that man makes in that .03%? Statistically, way more than we have available. If CO2 is such a small component, think how serious a minor error in the measuring equipment would make. Let's say I am measuring the atmospheric content and I make a .001% error (pretty small error). If that error is in measuring CO2, whoa, that's like plus or minus 1/3! Like um, the temperature is 100 plus or minus 33 degrees. Quite a variation. I hope a pigeon didn't sneeze on your probe.

6) The period in which actual temperature measurements are available starts in 1850. Everything that went on before is conjecture. And as the now revealed hoax shows, if the conjecture did not fit the desired result, they simply changed the basis for conjecture until it did. That conjecture is consistent with the desired outcome until about 1980. After that, it no longer supports the predetermined conclusion. So, they just stop using it and substitute real temperature data instead. And when real temperature data doesn't support the predetermined conclusion (which it doesn't), then they fake it some more.