Motor drive upgrades are an easy way to boost plant performance. Given the energy-saving, efficiency-first environment of today's production line, will advanced motor controls eventually displace most conventional fixed-speed motor drives? Put another way: If your ultimate goal is to bring product t
In today's active, time-constrained world, even tumor patients don't have time for treatment. What to do? Wear this: The NovoTTF-100A. It's portable, cancer zapping headgear and it just got FDA approved. More »
Time was, the word "entrepreneur" was rarely heard in engineering classrooms. Nowadays, engineering schools offer classes on entrepreneurship. This begs the question, "Do engineers make good entrepreneurs?" Are the classes now being offered going to turn out a whole new class of engineers that are g
SPECIAL GUEST EDITORIAL
by Scott Portman
As a budget was agreed upon earlier this week, there still remains some controversy over the decision to only cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by only 16 percent in total. Business leaders and GOP representatives remain frustrated with the lack of action to cut down on the EPA’s lofty and expensive regulations that in their opinion, effect industry revenue and employment growth.
As the resolution certainly pleased some and upset others on Monday, many of these business leaders and Republican reps still see a polluted future in business, with reference to EPA regulations. The $1.6 billion cut to the EPA represents just half of the cut that was hoped for, in regards to the EPA. The EPA cuts agreed upon in the resolution would only serve to cut down on some of the smaller initiatives of the EPA that have little impact on business and the environment.
The GOP has used the early months of the year to point out the flaws in certain initiatives of the EPA, primarily the Clean Air Act. They view the Clean Air Act as an enabler to the EPA’s power in monitoring businesses through the Cap and Trade Agenda. The GOP took further steps to lessen the EPA’s power by introducing the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 just last month. This act was developed to take direct aim at the cap and trade agenda, as well as taking some of the power and decision making away from the EPA.
Republicans James Inhofe, Fred Upton, and Ed Whitfield helped to introduce the Energy Tax Prevention Act and were adamant about the change that it would bring upon and how it would help the people. In a post release draft they exclaimed that “With this draft proposal, we are initiating a deliberative, transparent process that we hope will prevent EPA from imposing by regulation the massive cap-and-trade tax that Congress rejected last year. We firmly believe federal bureaucrats should not be unilaterally setting national climate change policy, and with good reason: EPA’s cap-and-trade tax agenda will cost jobs, undermine the competitiveness of America’s manufacturers, and, as EPA has conceded, will have no meaningful impact on climate.”
Inhofe and other Republicans have been forward in saying that they aren’t looking to destroy the EPA, they would just rather see their resources be used more proficiently on things that will help the US citizens more directly. For example, an EPA initiative such as asbestos removal, which has a direct impact on citizen health, should be given more resources and effort. Asbestos removal helps prevent numbers of mesothelioma cases every year in the United States. Through the EPA’s efforts to abate this material from areas all over, they are in some cases, saving lives. As mesothelioma life expectancy is very small and severe, an increased effort towards a program like this could help save citizens directly from environmentally related and life threatening risks.
Amidst all the controversy that has surrounded the US budget for the past month or so, the GOP will certainly look to continue their effort to show the EPA regulations for what they truly are, unnecessary. Even though the EPA budget has been decided on for the year 2011, further exploration of cuts to unnecessary regulations should be invested, while effective programs should be given more resources in the long term.
Scott Portman is a health, safety, and political advocate. He has a great passion for economics and American fiscal policy. He is a graduate of University of South Florida and is an aspiring journalist.
Moderate Republicans support Free Market principles
From Eric Dondero:
The Washington Examiner reports "All Senate Dems, including Manchin, vote to protect Obamacare funding":
All Democrats in the U.S. Senate just voted to preserve funding for the national health care law, with the measure being rejected by a 47 to 53 vote straight party line vote.
As the Examiner and other major media sources have noted, at least four Democrat Senators who are vulnerable in next year's elections, voted for the measure to preserve funding. From Doug Gibson, the Political Surf blog:
The four are Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Claire MacCaskill, D-Mo., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Jon Tester, D-Mont. Those four states trend conservative and all four are facing tough races next year.
Of interest to Republicans, every single moderate Republican to their great credit, voted to defund ObamaCare. This includes two well-known moderates who are up for reelection next year and one - Olympia Snowe - who is facing a primary challenge.
Karen Casey on maintaining our own perspective and integrity.
I’ve been posting some amazing time lapse videos of the night sky here lately, and I’ve been trying to set the bar pretty high. I like all the ones I’ve seen, but they have to have something special, something that sets them apart, for me to embed them here.
This one does just that. Earlier this month, photographer Terje Sorgjerd went to Mt. Teide in the Canary Islands to photograph the sky. He was upset when a Saharan sandstorm blew across the sky, ruining his video… or so he thought. What really happened was magic. Pay attention 30 seconds in to see the stunning results*:
Simply breathtaking. The dust blows overhead, glowing golden as it’s illuminated from below by city lights, while above and beyond the Milky Way itself ponderously looms into view.
As the galaxy shows itself, look at the dark lane bisecting it. Feathery and ethereal, those dark fingers and tendrils are actually vast complexes of dust, long chains of carbon-based molecules floating in between the stars. Created when stars are born, age, and die, this dust litters the plane of the galaxy. Seen edge-on, it absorbs and blocks the light from stars behind it, creating ...
From Eric Dondero:
The Pat Quinn/Rahm Emanuel/Dick Durbin/Rod Blagojevich/Barack Hussein Obama State strikes again.
Note the blatant editorializing in this "news report" by the Gate House New Service out of Springfield (via GalvaNews.com)"Illinois House moves to ban trans fat in foods":
Illinois is poised to become the second state in the country (after California) to ban artery-clogging artificial trans fats.
The Illinois House last week approved a bill to eliminate artificial trans fats from restaurant and bakery food and food sold in school vending machines by January 2013. Cafeterias operated by state and local governments and schools would not be included in the ban until January 2016.
“Trans fats are like bacon grease pouring down your sink clogging your pipes,” said Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, sponsor of House Bill 1600. “That’s exactly what trans fats do to your arteries. You can still have fried foods and baked goods without trans fats.”
Naturally, Republicans, and one brave rural IL Democrat, are the only ones standing against this Nanny-State imposition on individual liberties. Continuing:
“It’s yet another nanny-state mandate on the public when the businesses and communities are perfectly capable of making these decisions themselves,” said Rep. David Leitch, R-Peoria.
“We don’t have to be a watchdog for everyone,” argued Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley. “We tell people to do a lot of things, and it would probably be good if they did them, but maybe at some point they’d like to decide on their own if they should do them or not.”
Editor's note - This website has few opportunities to praise Democrats. Rep. Mautino (photo - right), thank you.
From Cliff Thies:
Sarah Palin hits a home run in Madison!
"I am so proud to be with you today. Madison, these are the front lines in the battle for the future of our country."
 Bahama Islands Info | Ross University fully transitions Medical Education Review Program (MERP) to ... Bahama Islands Info FREEPORT, Grand Bahama – While planning is still under development for Ross University to determine the reopening of its School of Medicine program at the Bahamas campus, the University has relocated its Medical Education Review Program (MERP) from ... Ross moves MERP to Freeport CampusThe Freeport News |
Latest - Trump at 26%, Ron Paul at 5%
From Eric Dondero:
Our own contributing editor Roger Stone is quoted in an article on the ABC News website this morning, "Donald Trump's Political 'Pit Bull': Meet Michael Cohen - Not What You Might Think, Top Trump Aide Voted For Obama In 2008." An interesting bit of info pops up in the article regarding Ron Paul's presidential campaign. Seems the Paul camp has already hit at Trump.
A case in point, Stone said, was Cohen's one-day Iowa trip that led to questions about his role as both a Trump Organization employee and a promoter of his boss's potential presidential campaign -- questions that he sought to answer by stating unequivocally that the trip and the website were paid for, not with any of Trump's money, but out of pockets of Cohen and Rahr, who made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry.
Still, the trip triggered a complaint to the Federal Election Commission by a supporter of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who alleged that the trip violated election law.
Back in February at C-PAC Ron Paul supporters shouted and jeered during Trump's speech. He shot back, "You're guy, he can't win." Which brought even louder denunciations from the young Paul supporters.
Very latest poll from PPP (via ANI) released yesterday:
Trump leads with 26 percent votes, followed by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's 17 percent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 15 percent and ex-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's 11 percent votes.
Rounding out the bottom of the list were former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with 8 percent, Texas Republican Ron Paul with 5 percent, Minnesota Republcan Michele Bachmann and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty with 4 percent votes.
Waverly council to vote on new medical facility Chillicothe Gazette The meeting will take place at 7 pm in council chambers, 201 W. North St. » The Southeastern Local School District Board of Education will meet at 6:30 pm Monday in the board conference room. Leading the agenda is the approval of letters of resignation ... |
New book released on Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls-Wilder
From Eric Dondero:
Ayn Rand has gained an enormous amount of attention these past few days for the release of the film Atlas Shrugged. But another contemporary libertarian associate of Rand may also get her due with the release of a new book "The Wilder Life." Wendy McClure, a self-described Wilder fanatic from Chicago is the author. She's currently on a book tour. Quoted in St. Louis Today:
"I think it's because the descriptions were so vivid and also something about the point of view … there's immediate identification."
Continuing from Stltoday.com:
McClure collected at least six bonnets herself while traveling to "Little House" sites in Missouri, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and New York. During her trips, she waded in Plum Creek, watched pageants and Laura look-alike contests and beheld Pa Ingalls' real fiddle in Mansfield, Mo.
McClure read the nine-book series in the 1970s and early '80s and thought the "Little House" stories were "almost as self-contained and mystical as Narnia or Oz," she writes in "The Wilder Life."
A libetarian inspiration for Sarah Palin
And on the libertarian connection to the series:
She's also not the kind who dredges up quotes to promote libertarianism. Nor does she home-school or read New Pioneer magazine for survivalist tips.
"Little House on the Prairie," read throughout the world, is the book Sarah Palin's sister cited in 2008 when asked what the vice presidential candidate liked as a child. In 2009, Judith Thurman recounted that citation as part of a story about how Laura and Rose both became successful writers, crabby collaborators and critics of the New Deal.
As Thurman wrote for The New Yorker, Rose Wilder Lane is considered with Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson "a founding mother" of libertarianism. She left her estate and the rights to the "Little House" books to her close friend, Roger Lea MacBride, a Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1976.
In addition to her own pioneer novels, Lane wrote a biography of Herbert Hoover (her papers are at his presidential library) and nonfiction such as "The Discovery of Freedom" and "Give Me Liberty."
MacBride added to the "Little House" oeuvre by writing fiction featuring Rose and publishing some Wilder material after Laura died.
Order the book from Barnes & Noble.
Background - Roger MacBride, Rose's adopted grandson, lent great inspiration to this very website. He was my friend, Clifford's friend and served as National Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus from 1992 - 1995. I was with Roger the last three weeks of his life. He and I (and Libertarian Party of Alaska Chair Scott Kohlhaas) walked the halls of congress lobbying for the abolishment of Selective Service during the 1995 GOP Revolution. We visited with 5 congressmen, including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California. Note also, Roger was a Vermont state legislator in the mid-1960s, and was the very first person ever to run for public office as a "libertarian," when he ran for Governor of VT in 1966 in the GOP primaries. He is best known for having cast an electoral vote in 1972 as a Nixon delegate for the Libertarian ticket of John Hospers/Toni Nathan, making Nathan the very first woman in US history to receive an electoral vote (12 years before Geraldine Ferraro and 37 years before Palin.)
UploadFTP: Rich Functionality Combined with Maximum Convenience Online PR News (press release) Brightek Software has announced the release of Upload FTP, a new FTP client that has been developed with inexperienced users in mind. Though there are many useful features such as synchronizer, task scheduler and auto priority speed control, ... |
Using Hypnosis to Gain More Control Over Your Illness Gainesville Sun A study by radiologists at Harvard Medical School, published in 2000, found that patients who received hypnosis during surgery required less medication, had fewer complications and shorter procedures than patients who did not have hypnosis. ... |
Woman who started Let Freedom Read turns efforts to jail Enterprise-Record "Anything from preschool to middle school, anything my kids have read." Don Kidd with Mr. Copy at 119 Main St. continues to offer his store as a drop-off for book donations. Freedom plans to expand her children's book project to medical offices. |
Harvard Medical School adviser: Should shingles victim get the vaccine? Detroit Free Press A shingles episode boosts immunity to the disease, but we don't know how long that immunity lasts -- and we do know that immunity tends to wane with age. Complex medical questions rarely have simple yes or no answers. In this case, new research will ... |
Disabled vets: 'We get to be athletes' Boston Herald The four patients from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, will join 11 other members of the Achilles Freedom Team of Wounded Vets for the 26.2-mile race. One will run; the others will hand-cycle. “I'm looking forward to Heartbreak Hill ... Wounded Vets To Tackle Boston MarathonWCVB-TV |
