White House announces new lighting standards

The clowns seem to have replaced the cowboys in this rodeo. Bring on the light bulb czar………

Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put a plug in for administration efforts to make lamps and lighting equipment use less energy.

“I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and businesses,” the president said, standing alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.

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by Jeff Nyquist

“Imagine you are on the Titanic, and the ship is sinking after sideswiping an iceberg. Does it matter if you need a haircut? Should you be worrying about your investments? Under life-and-death circumstances, only life seems to matter. The trivia that clogs our existence is swept away by the sudden realization of what is actually at stake. In this sense, true philosophy is found on the deck of the Titanic. It leads us to discover what really matters; that is to say, why most things actually do not matter.”

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by J. R. Nyquist
Weekly Column Published: 05.29.2009

We all have hopes and dreams. And then there is reality, which demands our attention and our respect. America has been living in a dream world for almost twenty years, somehow managing to evade reality – social, economic and international. The process of economic unraveling is our pecuniary punishment for evading reality. Destructive war has been, and will be again, our national punishment.

On May 25th North Korea detonated a nuclear device. “I don’t believe that anybody in the administration thinks that there is a crisis,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. While the entire world sees a crisis, while North Korea threatens to re-ignite the Korean War, President Obama and Secretary Gates fall back on hopes and dreams. The President hopes that China will discipline its errant North Korean child. The situation will be contained. No need to worry. The Secretary of Defense talks of quarantine measures against North Korea. Everything will be handled quietly, through diplomacy – as before.

In response to this non-crisis on the Korean peninsula, South Korea has joined with the U.S. in something called the “Proliferation Security Initiative.” It involves an effort to intercept ships carrying weapons of mass destruction from North Korea to points unlisted. The North Korean government, in response, warned that any effort to search North Korean ships would lead directly to war. In fact, the North Koreans have placed a question-mark upon the 1953 armistices that ended the Korean War. “I don’t believe that anybody in the administration thinks that there is a crisis,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. This is the same Robert Gates who publicly warned that unless the United States repairs its nuclear weapons infrastructure the U.S. nuclear deterrent could become “unreliable” by the end of this year.

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