Auditors: FEMA Paid $1 Billion In False Hurricane Claims

"Included in that is $10 million in housing assistance that went to 1,000 convicted criminals who already had housing -- in prison.

'FEMA's fraud detection and prevention controls were so weak or nonexistent that these fraudulent applications were never detected, let alone prevented,' said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

The hearings left some members of Congress exasperated because FEMA's top officials never showed up to answer questions. That left a 20-year civil service FEMA employee to field the brunt of representatives' wrath.

'Why weren't these steps taken?' one congressman asked.

'Sir, I think that's a very difficult question to ask a career person,' the FEMA employee answered."

The irony being that it is the career people, and not temporary appointees who should have the best handle on the workings of FEMA and every other Federal agency

Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe

"But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. 'These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios,' asserts Ball. 'Since modelers concede computer outputs are not 'predictions' but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts.'

We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest."

What if it turns out that, as one study suggested, reduced amounts of soot and other light blocking pollutants has actually caused more heat generating light to hit the ground and is thus responsible for what we call "global warming"? Would Gore and his followers suggest then that we all go back to burning coal in our fireplaces rather than using natural gas or electric heat?

Like many politicians, he can only operate in an environment where there is a "boogyman" to be overcome. Let's turn our collective boogyman field glasses on the destructive power of simplistic Powerpoint presentations as a substitute for true substantive debate. The left made a surprisingly stupid mistake when they tried to make the Bush academic record a campaign issue, inviting comparisons with Gore's record. Gore was the type of guy you loved to have in your class to bring the curve down. View the movie as a comedy, if you must see it. We really are dealing with a conspiracy of dunces here. Real scientists hopefully won't be distracted from real work on the issues by all the needless media attention created by the Duncmaster General.

Hurricanes and Global Warming

"Now there’s a few modelers around who know something about storms, but they would like to have the possibility open that global warming will make for more and intense storms because there’s a lot of money to be made on this. You know, when governments step in and are saying this – particularly when the Clinton administration was in – and our Vice President Gore was involved with things there, they were pushing this a lot. You know, most of meteorological research is funded by the federal government. And boy, if you want to get federal funding, you better not come out and say human-induced global warming is a hoax because you stand the chance of not getting funded."

Not news, but news to me.

Impact of Inevitable Sanctions on Iran

According to the WSJ, maybe not so bad...

"For oil-importing countries, even though Iran exports roughly 2.7 million bbl/d in petroleum, a complete cutoff of these shipments could be offset in large measure by increased OPEC and non-OPEC output, greatly diminishing the dreaded prospect of $100-a-barrel oil. Saudi Arabia has the most untapped capacity, in the order of 1.3 million to 1.4 million bbl/d. Other OPEC members, according to the International Energy Agency, have spare capacity of 1.1 million bbl/d, not including Iraq's estimated 700,000 bbl/d. With a total of 2.4 million to 3.1 million bbl/d in idle capacity, OPEC alone could offset a loss of Iranian exports. Furthermore, global oil consumption is anticipated to grow in the range of 1.4 million to 1.6 million bbl/d this year, while new supply is expected to increase by 1.2 million to 1.3 million bbl/d. Much of the imbalance is expected to be covered by OPEC exports of LNG."

WSJ.com - A Beautiful Sunset

"Ronald Reagan used to quip that the closest thing to immortality in this life is a government program. We'd add one modern caveat, which is that under Beltway budget rules tax cuts automatically expire after five or 10 years, but spending programs and tax increases live forever.

The latter would change, however, if a group of House Republicans led by Texan Jeb Henserling and Mike Pence of Indiana succeed in pushing new rules to sunset out-of-date federal programs. Under their proposal that has been promised a vote this summer, Congress would have to reauthorize agency budgets every five years, or they would die. The legislation would also create a sunset commission to recommend program terminations, and Congress would vote up or down on the package. This procedure is modeled after the successful military base closing commissions."

Sounds like something worth writing your congress person (and everyone else you know) about, doesn't it?