The political battle to control the flavor of scientific discourse claims another victim. This time it was Dr. David Stooksbury, the 12-year veteran State Climatologist of Georgia whose middle-of-the-road opinions about climate change apparently ran afoul of Georgia Governor Nathan Deal’s more conservative views.
In an executive order issued last week, Governor Deal stripped Dr. Stooksbury of his title and conferred it to a current employee of the state’s Environmental Protection Division—a position under direct government control, unlike Stooksbury’s rather independent office at the University of Georgia.
Certainly, the Governor can do as he chooses. And the newly tapped Georgia State Climatologist, Bill Murphey is seemingly qualified for the job. But, the move has all the signs of haste, and none of an orderly, well-thought out and coordinated transition. Which hints of something fishy going on.…
Hadrian, the third of the “five good emperors” of Rome, ruled from 117 to 138 in a time of consolidation of the Roman Empire. Best known for building Hadrian’s Wall, which marked the northern most reach of the Roman Empire, his policy focus was securing the Empire by leveraging its strengths rather than overextending its reach. Hadrian had a disciplined attention to detail and focused on the infrastructure needed not only to defend the Empire’s territory but leverage its resource potential and revenue growth.
Today’s economy is marked by uncertainty and volatility at home and abroad. This uncertainty is causing businesses to hoard cash—at last estimate about $1.4 trillion worth.
We have a huge federal deficit, a broken housing situation, and looming costs for unsustainable entitlement programs promised for generations by spend-now, pay-later politicians. …
[Editor note: Mr. Mooney’s Collateral Damage: Lost Rigs from Obama Obstructionism appeared last month at MasterResource. His reports originally appear at the Pelican Post, Louisiana news and commentary from the Pelican Institute for Public Policy.]
Up to 20 oil rigs could leave the Gulf of Mexico, in addition to the 11 that have already left, since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010, a new report from FBR Capital Markets has concluded.
Unless the permitting process is accelerated, FBR analysts anticipate that anywhere from eight to 20 rigs could depart the deep waters within the Gulf. The moratorium was imposed in response to the explosion of British Petroleum’s (BP) Macondo oil well on April 20 of last year. The accident resulted in the death of 11 workers and caused an estimated five million barrels of crude oil to spill into the Gulf.…