Friday 9 January 2015

In praise of US senator James Inhofe

The US global warming establishment, which  includes most mainstream media, is scared to death as senator James Inhofe takes charge of the important chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee:

This is how Democratic activists like to think of Inhofe: as a doddering caricature of conservative values who, given a platform such as the chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will regularly supply punch lines to the opposition. They see him as an untethered radical off in a world apart even from his conservative colleagues; a Don Quixote with Jesus as Sancho Panza, on a quest to rein in overzealous lefties. Their hope is to use him as a foil. Their worry is that his maneuvering could cause a lot more damage when he is wielding a gavel than when riding a horse.
Climate change is certain to be a major issue for Congress in the next couple of years. Tom Steyer, the billionaire Democratic environmentalist, topped the list of campaign donors in the past election cycle; there’s still the Keystone XL pipeline to figure out; and a number of new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency are set to take effect this year. On all this, Inhofe aims to take center stage.
“Expect huge and enormous fireworks in the committee,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the committee. “[Inhofe’s] going to go after everything, and I’m going to stop him dead on the floor of the Senate. . . . The biggest denier of all is the chairman of the environment committee — that’s a cruel joke.”

However, for all those who do not wish to be part of the leftist greenie global warming mafia, there is reason to celebrate:

"It's not happening," Inhofe said during the AP interview. Climate changes detected in recent years are part of a natural cycle that takes between 25 and 35 years to complete, he said.
"We've gone through this since 1895 five times," Inhofe said. "There's not warming going on. We're now in the 15th year of cooling."
He said regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency will kill the economy and jobs. He has urged the agency to abandon stricter rules on refinery air pollution and to reject their own scientists' recommendation to tighten a standard for the main ingredient in smog.
As the likely chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Inhofe will lead an effort to boost oversight of the EPA and try to thwart its agenda.

Thursday 8 January 2015

A tale of two CVs

Extracts from the official CVs of the Finnish and Swedish Prime Ministers make interesting reading

Prime Minister Alexander Stubb:

1999 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) international politics, London School of Economics
1995 Master of Arts (MA) political science, College of Europe, Bruges
1994 Dîplome de Langue et Civilisation Française (DL), Sorbonne Universitet, Paris
1993 Bachelor of Arts (BA) political science, Furman University, South Carolina, United States
1988 Matriculation (magna cum laude), Gymanasiet Lärkan, Helsinki
1986 Highschool Diploma, Mainland Highschool, Daytona Beach, Florida, United States

Language skills
Finnish, Swedish, English, French and German
Publications
Eleven books on the EU, about 30 academic articles on the EU and over 100 columns

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven:

Trade union training
School of Social Work and Public Administration, Umeå (1½ years)
Welder training
Upper secondary school, business programme(2 years)
Compulsory school (9 years)

Mr. Löfven´s official CV page does not include any information about his language skills. However, this brief video gives a hint:




PS

It goes without saying that a less educated politican can be as good a politician as an educated one. However, in our globalized age it certainly helps to have language and educational skills.

Monday 5 January 2015

Vladimir Putin named most corrupt Person of the Year



"Putin has been a finalist every year so you might consider this a lifetime achievement award. He has been a real innovator in working with organized crime. He has created a military-industrial-political-criminal complex that furthers Russia’s and Putin’s personal interests. I think Putin sees those interests as one and the same."

Another well deserved award for Vladimir Putin:

Vladimir Putin has been named the 2014 Person of the Year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an award given annually to the person who does the most to enable and promote organized criminal activity.
Putin was recognized for his work in turning Russia into a major money-laundering center; for enabling organized crime in Crimea and in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine; for his unblemished record of failing to prosecute criminal activity; and for advancing a government policy of working with and using crime groups as a component of state policy.