Don, you are spot on .

I had a hard time finding a central point to this homage to prolixity and hyberbole. As an actual Conservative I am saddened by this seemingly endless current rise of scattershot, right-wing populism that passes itself of as part of a legitimate political ideology. These kinds of unstructured, infecund ramblings only work to give ammunition to the "Nanny-Staters" and "P.C. Police" (whom you apparently detest so vehemently) who see anyone who views Liberalism as the virus that it is, as heirs to the proverbial Angry White Man.

So, you think that "Both Beacon and Capitol Hills have lost total respect for the taxpayer’s hard earned dollars." I'm willing to bet that you would completely support a Romney presidency, though. Because I'm sure the guy who said that "corporations are people" and that he's "not concerned about the very poor" has loads of respect for middle class people's money.

Brian - Are you deliberately trying to mislead readers with the "not concerned about the very poor," or did you not hear the statement in context? Most of the mainstream media just clipped that piece of the statement out of the discussion to do exactly what you just did. If you didn't hear the rest of it, you should search for the clip just for knowledge. There are many other things to use against Romney, but that one shouldn't be one of them....and he shouldn't have felt the need to apologize for what he said.

Don - I agree with your comments. We The People are in trouble. Franklin D. Roosevelt once stated "Taxes, after all, are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society". Well, with 50% not paying any dues the organized part is going to fall apart pretty fast.

Your right Bob. The other problem we should address is the spending addiction our government enjoys. Billions if not trillions of hard earned tax dollars remains unaccounted for by this and past government's, this administration being far worse than any other. Keeping the First Lady in the air is costing us dearly. She refuses to fly with her husband if he will delay her vacation by a couple of hours. She also fly's with nearly 100 staff members and friends.

In response to your comment "Phoney environmental threats are destroying our economy."

I will quote from the Executive Summary of the Massachusetts Releases Climate Change Adaptation Report:

"These warming trends have been associated with other observed changes, including a rise in sea level of 22 centimeters (cms) [8.7 inches] between 1921 and 2006, more frequent days with temperatures above 32°C (90°F), reduced snowpack, and earlier snow melt and spring peak flows (Frumhoff et al., 2006, 2007;
Hayhoe et al., 2006)."

http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/eea/energy/cca/eeaclimate-adaptation-execsummary.pdf

And from by Vandana Rao, Ph.D., and Tim Purinton
"The world is warming at an unprecedented rate - an undisputable fact agreed upon by scientists the world over. Observations show that average annual temperatures are increasing, sea level is rising, and precipitation patterns are changing. Changes that once occurred over geologic time are now happening over the course of a few decades. In addition, a United Nations panel just reported that some of the
extreme weather events seen around the world in recent years are a consequence of anthropogenically-induced climate change and can be expected to be exacerbated in the next few decades."

The full reports can be found here:

http://www.mass.gov/eea/air-water-climate-change/climate-change/climate-change-adaptation-report.html

I am shocked and disappointed by some of the comments I'm reading. I find it impossible to believe that your views have not changed over the years. Keeping people out of the work place is not new, and should be addressed without delay.
The central point of the piece is that our government must be downsized. The debate should include ways to improve what has failed the people placing us on the edge. Money is being thrown into the wind, people are being left behind. The government has become corrupt. Anyone can vote today. We don't know where our President was born, he has no paper trail, yet he is our "Commander in Chief placing our troops in unnecessary harms way. Illegal's are smart enough to take jobs American's refused. Today they are running restaurants for the owners and achieving great levels. Yes I get upset when people justify allowing Americans to live a life on welfare while Illegal's take over. Many are good friends of mine, the problem is they jumped the line waiting to come here. I would do the same thing. They don't want welfare they want to support their families, God bless them. Do not tell me everything is fine and dandy when it's a giant mess. If you think there is nothing we can do and you want to continue supporting incompetant leaders, then I question your agendas. We can do much better. I want to raise the bar its been on the ground far too long. We need to follow the Constitution and support the capitalistic system. Americans should expect more.

Steve, I believe that Global Warming is a giant scam. Some things we keep an eye on and don't start throwing money until CLIMATE scientist reach a consensous. Dixie Lee Rey a member of the Carter administration wrote a great book back in the 70's called "Trashing the planet". She convinced me that most environmental issues that we were fighting then were simply trash. I have followed all of them since and she was pretty much on target. She was able to accomplish this without dumbing down the numbers or falsifying the data. Since then most of the issues have emptied my wallet but failed to provide any evidence that one could believe. As you know it was recently reported that the numbers were doctored and the data falsified. This Global Warming attack was led by people like Michael Moore and Al Gore. Hardly men of character. Vice President Hubert Humphey a few years later warned thar we were about to run out of beef. He continued to say if we each ate one less hamburg a week, we would avoid the crisis. Thank God I laughed and took another bite. My cholesteral went to Hell, but what kind of life would we have without the Hamburger?

As Albert Einstein said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." To state that global warming is not real, despite the countless data that has proven otherwise, is simply foolhardy and naive.

Running Green, I don't think that we should shoot at everything that moves. If it sticks its head out and it has antlers I will shoot it. You sound like a reasonable person and I repsect that. We have serious problems today and I can't start shooting at everything that moves. I am a man of faith that believes the planet was designed to care for problems such as this. This does not mean that I will go cold in the winter because my guilt will be overwhelming if I don't, but I go to great lengths to protect this beautiful planet. I am not the polluter that you need to worry about. Go to Russia, Brazil, China and many third world countries that drop raw sewerage in the bays, and pollute the skies. Go after the polluters that are creating this panic for their own greedy desires. Go after governments that sell ethenol a proven polluter. Think positive and build low pollutting Nuclear Power stations. When people are producing clean energy we ignore them. When the environmentalist get serious about alternatives then I will get serious with them, until then I don't worry about every scare tatic released. I watch what they do. Forget what they say they have admitted they falsified data, go by what they do to improve the situation. Ethenol is a farm subsidy, everyone knows it is a polluter, but the environmentalist protect it because it buys their party votes. There are people that wonder if the environmentalist are working for OPEC. I don't know and neither do you.

Billville, Thanks for the reminder. There worth saving. For thirty years my friend in Huntsville has reminded me that I really need an escape plan. I responded; "NUTS".

http://www.greatglobalwarming.com/

Who Me, yes, you. Thank you for the great article. It was a great presentation and anyone interested in Global Warming should at least scan it. I scanned it and remain concerned that we are so easilly manipulated. I think we want something to feel guilty about, or are too lazy to study the issues. The money spent on Global warming might have been better used by treating and curing cancer, MS, ALS and so many other diseases. We need to do better and not be ruled by our emotions.

The earth is a dynamic sphere, has warmed and cooled and warmed again from it's birth over 4 billion years ago. Room temperature was not always 70 degrees.

We are polluting and that's a fact. However, whatever climate change is caused by, a Carbon Tax is NOT the solution and only serves to grow government and fill the coffers of a selected few.

Thank you for responding Bob, your inputs are always interesting.

It appears that the readers were able to reduce the decades old mass hysteria we suffered from over global warming, satisfying the other readers that our death was not imminent. In fact the 1 degree temperature increase may be a good thing. I do give proponents credit for using the global warming issue distract the readers from real problems, such as a tax and spend government, that will soon have nothing left to spend. The increase in the crime rate. The failures of the Dept. of Education. The government health care plan and its disasterous effect that it will have on health care. Taxes, taxes, taxes. Lack of transparency in this administration. They were able to avoid discussions on these issues and so many more that will continue to drag this country down to the point of no return. The acts of the Commander in Chief and his lack of understanding of his number one responsibility; protecting this great nation. The President says he deserves another term. What do you think?

With regard to climate,has it occurred to anyone that state and federal governments have a horse in the race? Clearly any new regulation affords them more power by way of more money from taxpayer's. Global Warming laws are a Statists Paradise.

There are plenty of legitimate climate skeptics out there. Just last year Ivar Giaever a Nobel Prize winning physicist resigned from American Physical Society for its hard and fast stance on the topic:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8786565/War-of-words-over-global-warming-as-Nobel-laureate-resigns-in-protest.html

He wrote in part in his resignation letter:
"In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”

Giaever is not alone. Lest we remind people that back in the 1970's we were told that it was, in fact, Global Cooling which would freeze us all. What was done? Nothing. What happened? Nothing.

How many times have Global Warming folks stated that by this or that date if we don't act XYZ happens and of course nothing happens.

Hi Christian, it's clear that American's have had life so good that the only thing that will wake them up is pain. We are reduced to status quo until the money runs out. This controversy has made many people like Michael Moore and Al Gore and so many others very rich with our money. Third world countries like China, Russia and Brazil are exempt from polluting regulations. As I said earlier watch what they do and what they want to control, not what they say. The liberal agenda is destroying the country. Soon we will take our anger out on all government officials because they promote it or fear taking a stand protecting our future. Both parties are cashing in. I would rather they throw the money away along with the windmills and solar calls. Instead they create a catastrophe to keep their earlier catastrophe alive. If we bought everything we wanted in time we would also be broke. I say give one of them a Noble Prize and let's move on. It's a great American tragedy. If they were serious they would have polled climate scientist not weathermen. They knew from the beginning this was a fabrication of the truth. Scientist with opposing views limit their carreer. They do open up a bit after they retire. The pain is on the way and the important needs in life will go unanswered because of the lack of funds in the near future. The country once again needs a visionary with the courage to tell the truth. They're hard to find when their first amendment rights are in question.

Running Green, thank you for caring. Yes, we do have energy choices. To begin with we need to verify that their is a problem. Sometimes we feel a lump and wonder if it could be cancer. Before radiating the lump we have a biopsie, if it comes back positive we declare nuclear war on it. If it comes back negative or uncertain we go through a monitoring process. It becomes serious if we spend $300K radiating a cist. The same is true with Global warming. It could require a 200 year study. Nuclear power is far safer than the anti nuke people want you to believe. It's cleaner, safer and cheaper at least until this mindless crowd jumped into the arena increasing regulations beyond anyones wildest nightmare. There is a growing need for electricity. The world is already heading in this direction. Our leaders say we want clean air like France, then do what France does go Nuke. Windmills and solar cells are a major step in the wrong direction. We need to move forward not backward. Our own growing needs will force us to turn toward nuclear power. Earlier I discussed watch what the Energy Dept. does not what they say. If they were serious about G. W. they would have gone to nuclear power years ago. Remember cleaner, safer cheaper, well it will be. The special interest groups increased regulations to the extreme, hoping to satisfy an inner guilt. We have so much while others have so little. So who do we follow, them. We need to lead them. The inner guilt wants more candles.

If the people don't want to talk about the real issues; I will. It is time to get over the problem of how to make the rich pay more. This is just another distraction by the Obama administration. It is stealing from one group and giving to another group. Government wants to blame someone else for their spending addiction. So it's popular to kick the nations achievers. The pot runneth over. Greed rules the day. WE HAVE A SPENDING PROBLEM and if we don't put an end to it the money will disappear like a sping thaw. If the rich gave everything they have we would be broke again in a few days. Without any money from them what do we do? The polititians will retire comfortably and we're left to deal with their mess. I do not want the government supporting me because that leads to ownership. When you have a spending problem the solution is simple STOP SPENDING. With this in mind the government will not have money to waste and buy votes with. It will force integrity back on to Beacon and Capitol Hills. They will have more time to think of real solutions to the problems that they are creating. Being frugal is not all bad, it can be a great motivator. Washington throws money at every problem with no intention of solving it. Every problem solved takes power away from them. Vote for thinkers not people relying on money to solve every problem. We are the problem, we don't hold feet to the fire.

RunningGreen, I wish every American was as reasonable as you. I can feel myself melting as I write on my monitor and the radiation that may or may not be radiating from it. I'm kidding, maybe I will put in for overtime since I'm working through lunch. I am happy to respond to you because I think that you really want to do the right thing. It is hard to compare what happens in other countries with us. They lack the money and knowledge to do the right thing with nuclear. Althouh the nuclear track record around the world has been very impressive. The numbers once again are dependent on the source. The anti nuke crowd lacks total reliability in my mind. The loss of life is in part because of the lack of respect for life. Most in Japan were the result of bad management and poor decision making. That is why the U.S. needs to become more involved. Our track record has been exceptional. We need to lead others not buy their products a few years from now. The tsunami did far more daamge than the nuclear power station did. The casuallties would be far fewer here than any where else. The rescue would have been handled quite differently. All of our Sub-marines and Aircraft Carriers have been nuclear for years. Hybrid cars are highly subsidized a quality product does not require subsidies. Be careful with hybrids we know little about them, question the numbers once again. Do you really want to ride in the smaller one's. We need to be enegy independent and watch the creativity come alive.