California has a choice: encourage proper land management, or go all Green&Sustainable™. They've been doing the latter for years, and somehow, it doesn't look as though their "vehicle emissions standards" are all that important in the great scheme of things.
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SEATTLE - Seattle lawmakers are discussing the idea of requiring home and landowners to get a permit and pay a fee to cut down a tree six inches in diameter or larger.
Nope, you don't own that land, the city does. I'll pay attention to the clowns when they start paying my property taxes.
Hasn't happened yet, so I continue to ignore them. Here in Portland, they expect "owners" to buy a permit just to trim a tree - and after you pay, some bureaucrat tells you whether or not you can do it. The fee is, of course, nonrefundable.
When they start paying the taxes, I'll start paying attention.
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Seattle bureaucrats underestimated the cost to run their new streetcar line (under construction at the moment) by about $8 million.
The city broke ground last year on the new $177 million, 1.2-mile streetcar route. The city has high hopes for the new line as a crucial transit link across a downtown growing ever more congested. It expects that the new streetcar, when it opens, will more than quadruple ridership on the entire streetcar system, which has failed to meet ridership projections.
Failed to meet ridership projections? How can that be? Like most west-coast cities, Democratics have had a strangle-hold on Seattle for years. They can do no wrong.
Oddly, it seems that residents don't ride 19th-century fixed-rail because it doesn't take them where they need to go, much less when they need to be there. Democratics never learn; they just keep throwing more taxpayer money into their failed projects.
And it always costs way more money than they claim.
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In five years, the state lost 3.5 million people who chose to relocate to friendlier environs. Crime, traffic, and politics seem to be the driving factors.
The Golden State continues to rank No. 1 as the state that has waved goodbye to more residents, about 143,000 last year, than welcomed those who have moved here, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report. Mike and Velvet Ambuski, from Hesperia, are among those who have relocated because they wanted to live in an area with less crime, better jobs, friendlier people, improved services, less traffic and a more politically conservative atmosphere. “You can only tell your scared kids so many times that gunshots are fireworks."
Obviously, the only thing to do will be to raise taxes and fees on those who remain. But at least they'll have a 119- mile bullet train line from nowhere to nowhere. Maybe.
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The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday it has denied a petition by environmental groups to regulate concentrated animal feeding operations like factories under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA decision, posted in the Federal Register, answers a petition filed in 2009 by The Humane Society of the United States and other environmental groups.
The groups sought to bring concentrated animal feeding operations under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. The section requires stationary sources of air pollution to adopt the “best system” for reducing emissions. The groups said farms with a large number of animals harm human health, poison the environment and cause climate change.
So cow farts are responsible for all of the snow and bitterly cold temperatures in the midwest and east. Alrighty then.
Whatever would we do without HSUS and Sierra Club?
I may do my part to help Save The Planet™ by cooking up some steak for dinner this evening.
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Elizabeth WarrenVerified account @elizabethforma 22 hours ago
Remember, whether it's cold or hot, it's All Your Fault. That's why it's so important for politicians to fly down to Brazil and back, or over to Paris and back, in order to solemnly discuss the severity of the problems that you are creating.
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If you have a home in the Portland city limits, you might want to consider putting it on the market now. That's because the city council passed another regulation that takes effect January 1: any home placed on the market on January 1 or thereafter must undergo an "energy audit", and copies of the results must be submitted to the city and to each prospective purchaser. Needless to say, that will impose hundreds of dollars in additional expenses upon the seller, but it's all good, because it's part of the Democrat politicians' effort to save the planet - at your expense, of course.
You get to pay a few hundred for the audit, and you get to pay for all of the copies that must be distributed. You thought you owned the property? You fool.
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Well, we know one thing for sure; "journalists" don't know squat about guns. USA Today recently published a story about the deadly AR-15 "assault rifle" in which they depicted the fictitious "chainsaw bayonet" as a rifle accessory, but they've been outdone in the ignorance category by Columbus, Ohio's NBC channel 4. They demonstrate the awesome power of the AR-15 by shooting a watermelon.
There's just one teensy, tiny little problem with the 8-second clip, which would be that the shooter isn't using an AR-15 rifle - that's a 12-gauge shotgun. But it blows up the watermelon real good, don't it?
Why I don't believe broadcast "news" stories.
I wonder how many people fell for this one.
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All three west-coast governors are jetting over to Germany to "fight global warming".
At the UN Climate Conference in Bonn next week, Governor Brown will highlight the economic development opportunities and jobs supported by green innovation and affirm Oregon's commitment to fighting climate change.
Apparently, the governors out here have never heard of Skype. Or maybe theirs is a special jet, powered by unicorn farts.
Jetting halfway around the planet to jaw about the importance of reducing our carbon footprint makes about as much sense as saving money by deploying drug-sniffing police bunnies.
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And then we'll tax you higher.
Oh
We're gonna rock down to
Electric Avenue
And then we'll tax you higher.
The latest plan the cash-strapped state's working on: $3 billion in subsidies to persuade people to buy plug-in cars.
The Financial Times recently reported that BCA Research, an independent investment research firm, estimated that, excluding subsidies, the cost of an electric car right now is $16,000 more than an equivalent internal combustion engine car.
They don't know where they'd get the money for those subsidies, but you likely do.
Of course, the reason why electrics cost so much more than petrol-powered vehicles is because those incredibly polluting batteries (mining being the big environmental issue, there) cost way more than a standard combustion engine. And the batteries cost around $15,000 to replace when they start losing their ability to hold a charge.
The Prius batteries use nickel from the mine in Sudbury, Ontario, although they plan to move to Lithium-Ion batteries (you know, the ones not allowed on planes because they have a tendency to explode and catch fire).
Here's the environmentally-friendly source from which Toyota has been deriving the nickel for their batteries:
“Right now a used [all-electric] Nissan Leaf that’s coming off a lease is going for like $7,000 or $8,000. So we could have some more incentives, so more people in moderate-income communities could actually afford that car,” Ting said.
Oh-kay...now, if you lease a Honda Civic Si for three years, it's going to have a residual value of $16,000 to $19,000, if not more (depending on mileage, features, etc.). So why would a Green&Sustainable™ Leaf come off a lease at $8,000?
Would that be because the battery's losing its charge capacity and will therefore need to be replaced at a cost of roughly $15,000? Yeah, that's a "moderate income" expense, as far as Democrat politicians are concerned. For most people living in the real world, not so much. Most of us have to actually spend less than we take in; Democratics do the opposite.
Is subsidizing - with tax dollars - politically-correct electric vehicles a core function of government? How many potholes could they repair with $3 billion?
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