05.18.08 Briefing • Steve Elliott, Grassfire.org • Subscribe here • RSS

Obama's view of your economic future: "We can't drive our SUVs"

Buried in the sea of Obama's largest crowd (what Drudge calls the "Obama Mass") is the economic ramifications of his latest pronouncements on global warming:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.... That's not leadership. That's not going to happen."

Let's break that down. First, under an Obama administration, "we can't drive our SUVs," which begs the question: "What precisely qualifies as an 'SUV'? Is my family minivan an SUV? Perhaps any vehicle that doesn't deliver 30 miles per gallon will be a banned 'SUV.' Let's move on. " We can't... keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times." My home was set at 70 degrees last night and my office is at 72 degrees all day. I think it's been proven that air conditioning actually does increase productivity. And why pick on '72 degrees'? Why not 76 degrees? What is morally acceptable in this new Obamaworld?

As we continue, our economic future under Obama looks even worse, because Obama establishes that the real moral authority for what we do as Americans is set by foreign authorities. Obama said we can't drive SUVs and set the thermostat to 72 degrees "and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK." Allow me to translate: Obama is a globalist. He sees America as ultimately under the authority of another jurisdiction, namely the global jurisdiction. Obama concluded this section of his remarks by saying, "that's not going to happen." This doesn't sound like the man who is going to bring us all together and get us to work together. This sounds more like America's most liberal senator.

"Threatened" Polar Bear Population Has Actually Doubled In Past 40 Years
The US Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was presented with the real facts of the polar bear population and the gloomy projections of global warming computer models. Of course, Kempthorne went with the models. According to Kempthorne:

"Although the population of bears has grown from a low of about 12,000 in the late 1960’s to approximately 25,000 today, our scientists advise me that computer modeling projects a significant population decline by the year 2050. This, in my judgment, makes the polar bear a threatened species – one likely to become in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future."

So while the actual population of polar bears is on the rise, the models tells us these bears are doomed. This sounds like a hangover from Al Gore's debunked "drowning" polar bears story in "Inconvenient Truth". The polar bear hype is one of the reasons the WPost gave Gore a "pinnocchio" for his movie. According to the Post:

Gore cited a scientific study showing that polar bears had drowned by "swimming long distances--up to 60 miles--to find the ice." According to Andrew Derocher, chair of the polar bear group at the World Conservation Union, studies show that there is a good chance that the polar bears died by drowning but no definitive proof. Storms and hypothermia are other major concerns.

More pronouncements from the Goracle
Now we know that Al Gore's venture funds have put down $1.8 billion in "green" industries. Given that without government mandates there currently is little rationale for these green industries, Gore's investments depend in large part on the success of his environmental crusade. Go here to see Gore push his stock portfolio during a recent "save the planet" presentation. And Gore is not slowing down. Over the weekend, he gave the commencement address at Carnegie-Mellon and restated his theses that "we face a planetary emergency" and have "given the planet a fever." Gore went on to say that man-made global warming is "the most serious crisis our civilzation has ever confronted."

Edwards Endorses Obama and his anti-American worldview
John Edwards' anti-climatic and purely politically pragmatic endorsement of Barack Obama was only noteworthy on two points. First, of course Edwards wants to be the Veep. But what does he bring to the table? Second, Edwards certainly shares Obama's "Hate America First" foreign policy. In his speech yesterday, Edwards echoed Obama's foreign policy thesis in saying that when other countries look at the U.S. "all the world sees now is a bully."

Bill Gates on the next 10 years
When the richest man in the world talks, it's good to listen. Well, at least it's worth a skim. Go here for the transcript to Bill Gates' keynote at Microsoft's CEO Summit. Gates' big new thing is a wipeboard that is interactive like his "Surface" giant computer table (see funny parody here). He sees a big move toward touch-interactive screens in the workplace through tables (Surface) and these boards. I watched his dog-and-pony and I'm not too convinced. Perhaps it was the presenter -- Gates has never had the slick promotional skills of Apple's Steve Jobs.

By the way, just 20 days to Jobs' keynote at Apple's WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) at which the industry is expecting Jobs to announce the iPhone 2.0.

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