Could Walking on Water be Far Behind?

I started to read the attached article on President Obama's plan to implement new fuel and emission standards for automobiles - which I don't necessarily think is a bad idea, having lived in Los Angeles and been party to the smog that accumulates in the inland valleys. The thing that made my jaw drop were the words "Carol Browner, the White House energy and climate director"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090519/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_autos

Holy Smokes - we have a climate director???? Guys, I hate to break this to you, but you can't control an economy and you sure as heck can't control the climate. The crazy thing about the current administration - and it could be that they are actually believing all of their press clippings - is that they honestly think that they can. Just as we are flushing a good trillion down the toilet to "save" the economy, I fear that we are going start flushing billions into the hole in the name of preventing global warming. Global warming? Obviously those knuckleheads didn't spend the last winter in New York. Hell, it was 45 degrees yesterday morning when I left for work and its almost Memorial Day! I WANT warmer temperatures!!!!

But Dear Citizen Zane, what about the polar ice caps that are melting? Our green house gasses are ruining the planet! Yeah, and we used to have an ice age when the polar ice cap extended down half of North America. Was that because prehistoric man all turned their air conditioners up too high? Then drove their Flintsone-mobiles around too much and melted the damn thing back down? Come on people, climate changes because climate changes. Any one who thinks that they can control the climate is even more delusional than someone who thinks that they can control an economy the size and scope of ours.

So when I hear the words "cap and trade", I think of a bunch of well-meaning folks who are going to put the clamps down on what's left of our manufacturing base and squeeze the life out that too. Not only is this going to be horrible policy from a pure waste of time and money, but its going to be a real job killer. You can invent a bunch of government jobs that push paper to move Federal money from one pocket to the next, but when you lose your manufacturing base completely, then you are really not producing anything. Those are real job losses! And here is the problem with having a bunch of well-intentioned liberals running amok with our money and setting policy. They crowd out the real producers and innovators who would bring the economy back and choke them with red tape and regulation so that the government, those brilliant elite among us who know much better than we do how to spend our money and live our lives, can really be in charge! I suppose as soon as they gum the economy up, they can always throw out another stimulus package to prolong the agony through the second term of the Great One. Holy S***! I just proved myself wrong - you can control the economy!

Citizen Zane's solution: We should skip cap and trade - in fact, we should lower our emission standards, cut the red tape, and kiss the collective a** of anyone who manufactures in our great land. Think about it liberals...for every factory that produces here, that's one or more less factories in the third world where there are NO EMISSION STANDARDS really polluting and inefficiently using the world's resources. Want to cut green house gasses? Build it in the US and not in China. Wow, that may actually lead to some real weath-creating jobs too! Some of them may even be union and people will pay more taxes for you to waste - a liberal dream come true. Set your Fantasy-Land policies to make it easier to make it here than import it. Which country do you think will waste less energy and spew the least amount of crap into the environment in the manufacturing process?

Oh, I kind of flew off topic there. I like the idea with the cars though - Citizen Zane