Day: July 19, 2011

Pa. Wind Turbines Destroying Environment

Bats, as scary as they are to some, are one of the more useful mammals in creation. The diets of those species common in Pennsylvania consist of mosquitoes and other insect pests including the ones that damage crops.

A colony of 100 brown bats can consume of a quarter-million insects in a single night. Science magazine has estimated the pest control service provided by bats can save farmers about $74 per acre.

Well, the unattractive wind turbines built at the hectoring of  the nature worshipers who’ve managed to convince most that they are the arbiters of all dogma scientific are turning out to be a bit of an environmental disaster.

The 420 wind turbines in use in Pennsylvania  killed 10,000 bats last year.

The plans call for 2,900 turbines to be placed in the state by 2030 so figure on 72,000 less bats per year by then and 180 million more bugs.

And a lot more expensive tomatoes.

Meanwhile, nuclear power, which is probably the most environmentally friendly energy source, is constantly vilified by the nature worshiping pseudo-scientists and fear mongers with the talent to make you forget about a 9 magnitude earthquake and a 30-foot tsunami if a nuclear power plant can be blamed for something.

If the citizens of this nation don’t learn to turn a deaf ear to them we are going to find ourselves walking five-miles to work as their gardeners and bean pickers while living in thatched roofed huts.

Penn State Tuition Hike Lowest In Decade

Those evil Republicans running Harrisburg cut funding for the wealthy state-affiliated colleges and, lo and behold, Penn State just announced an in-state tuition hike of 4.9 percent.

Just proves how much Republicans hate education, right?

Not right.

Charles Mitchell of Commonwealth Foundation points out that this year’s increase is the smallest — by far — in a decade being just a tad over half of the school’s average 8.4 percent annual gouge of young persons and their families since 2001.

Penn State Tuition Hike Lowest In Decade

Toomey Explains Why We Won’t Default

Six days ago, July 13, Pennsylvania’s competent senator, Pat Toomey, explained the debt ceiling debate to Neil Cavuto of FoxNews.

“If we get to August 2 without having raised debt ceiling that will be disruptive,” he said. “That will be a partial government shutdown.  But we will not default on our debt. There is enough ongoing revenue in
the form of tax revenue to prevent that. And, frankly, if we just raised
the debt limit without the structural reform, without the real spending
cuts we need, then we’re inviting a catastrophe down the road.”

He also said the Republican are more than willing to raise the debt ceiling if the President offers a path to a balanced budget, which he has been strangely and extraordinarily adverse to doing.

“I think there is overwhelming, if not unanimous, support among Republicans
to raise the debt ceiling, which is what the president has insisted he
vitally needs,” Toomey said. “So, we’d be willing to do that. I won’t speak for all of my colleague,
but I think a big majority would be willing to raise the debt limit if
we were on a path to a sustainable balanced budget. I don’t see why the
president can’t accept that.”

Hat tip to Bob Guzzardi