Congratulations to the caption contest winner... you know who you are. Your box of Whitman's Sampler is currently melting at the Postal Service, but should be delivered no later than March.   

  John Broder is a good reporter who was rude enough to point out that this particular king didn't have any clothes. NYTimes  (2/14/13) reports: “Elon Musk , the chief executive of Tesla Motors, has now responded in detail to the account of my test drive of his Model S electric car, using the...
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  A funny thing has happened in the fracking wars: All of a sudden, the interventionist groups who are usually fans of centralized power—such as having the federal government issue edicts on carbon emissions—all of a sudden have discovered the virtues of federalism. Specifically, they don’t want state governments limiting the ability of local governments to regulate or even put a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. For example, from this news story about a legal battle in upstate New...
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It can't be worse than what most University of Colorado students consume on a regular basis. Washington Times  (2/12/13) reports: “Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper went to unusually great lengths to learn firsthand the strides the oil and gas industry has made to minimize environmental harm from fracking... The first-term Democrat and former Denver mayor told a Senate committee on Tuesday that he actually drank a glass of fracking fluid produced by oilfield services giant Halliburton…...
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Thank you for your service, Mr. Romesha. Washington Free Beacon (2/11/13) reports: “Former Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha (ROE-muh-shay), 31, will receive the Medal of Honor today for heroic actions during the day-long attack on Combat Outpost Keating in Afghanistan… More than 300 Taliban attacked Keating early in the morning of Oct. 3, 2009, from all four sides and from higher ground. Armed with recoilless rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, machine guns, and rifles, the Taliban...
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If some is good, more is better. Free Beacon (2/8/13) reports: “Interior secretary nominee Sally Jewell previously served on the board of an environmental group that has filed dozens of lawsuits against the federal government, including against the Department of Interior. Jewell, who was nominated by President Barack Obama Wednesday, joined the board of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) in 2004 and currently serves as one of the group’s vice-chairs.”   If China is...
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Carbon tax?  Roadless rule?  Closing off access?  Time to stop shopping at REI and time to stop this nominee. Wall Street Journal  (2/7/13) “In naming Sally Jewell as Interior secretary, President Obama lauded the REI boss as a woman who "knows the link between conservation and good jobs." Tell that to Kevin Lunny. Mr. Lunny runs an 80-year-old California oyster business that had the bad luck decades ago of being enclosed in a federal park. On Monday, as Ms. Jewell polished her...
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It's good to get out the whetstone and sharpen the sword.  And while the fight is never won or lost on the study field, this is where we like to begin the battle. IER  (2/5/13) reports: “This paper illustrates that Congress has chosen to evaluate only one small piece of the economic effect of opening federal tracts to oil and gas leasing. By ignoring the investment phase, the CBO — upon the instruction of Congress — substantially underestimates the economic effects of current policy...
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  During the debate to retain the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) last year, wind advocates offered a variety of spurious claims in an intense lobbying effort to keep the favorable tax treatment. In one case, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) warned that new wind installations would decline precipitously if Congress allowed the PTC to lapse. If this argument is correct, it would stand to reason that the one-year extension and expansion of the PTC included in the fiscal cliff...
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A government owned stadium, powered by a heavily regulated electricity infrastructure, all pushed hurriedly towards unreliable, taxpayer funded green energy? What could go wrong? DOE  (2/3/13) reports: “To make this the greenest Super Bowl, the New Orleans Host Committee has partnered with fans and the community to offset energy use across the major Super Bowl venues. The exterior of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome features more than 26,000 LED lights on 96 full-color graphic display panels,...
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  A recent article in the Washington Post proclaims that U.S. oil imports are falling to their lowest level since 1987. The decrease in imports is a combination of two things, Americans using less oil because of an economic downturn and increased domestic production. The increase in domestic production can be attributed to the increased usage of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and directional drilling to unlock oil from the many, vast shale formations the United States is blessed...
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