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More Fake News from the Left | Power Line

More Fake News from the Left | Power Line

What if Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Had Swapped Genders?

What if Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Had Swapped Genders?

When Dogs Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Dogs - Watcher of Weasels

When Dogs Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Dogs - Watcher of Weasels

Presidential Payback For Media Hubris | Hoover Institution

Presidential Payback For Media Hubris | Hoover Institution

Martin Karo: How green was my Tesla | Power Line

Martin Karo: How green was my Tesla | Power Line

So how much energy does it take to move a Tesla, say, 1000 miles, as opposed to a similarly-sized luxury car? Calculating the latter is fairly easy: using a roughly equivalent car (in size and status) as a baseline, a BMW 740i/Li, it gets (according to the DOE) 24 mpg combined, or 21/29 city/highway. 1000 miles /24MPG = 41.7 gallons.
Now for the Tesla. A Tesla Model S uses about 38 KwH of power to go 100 miles, so to go 1000 miles, easy math, the car needs 380 KwH of electricity. The figures vary very little between city, highway and combined, because electric motors use no power when idling and are more linear in application. The main difference is air drag at speed.
Well, it’s not exactly “no power when idle.” There’s a parasitic power loss. A Tesla uses power just sitting there, running its internal computers and whatnot. Teslas used to consume 4.5 KwH per day standing still, but Tesla claims to have improved that to 1 KwH per day. There’s also the need to heat the battery, and heat the cabin; a gasoline motor uses waste heat for the latter and nothing for the former. Given that the average car is driven 15,000 miles per year, it would take 24 days to drive that far, so add another 24 KwH to the Tesla’s consumption for parasitic loss, and add another 5 KwH per day for battery heating and climate control over that period. (The EPA tests are measured with the car at operating temperature and the climate controls off.) So the Tesla uses 380 + 24 + 120 = 524 KwH over that time and distance.
That figure is not bad at electric power rates, but the issue is planetary efficiency – how green is it? How much fuel does a powerplant use to create that much electricity? The petroleum equivalent of that at the powerplant is 13.76 KwH per gallon of petroleum equivalent (figures from the EIA), so generating the power to move the Tesla that far takes 524/13.76 = 38.08 gallons.
But there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip, and with electric cars there are several. First, transmission power loss consumes between 8% and 15% of the power just moving it from point of generation to point of use.
In California, the average figure is 9%. Add another 1% for the resistive power loss from where the power enters the home to when it gets to the Tesla’s charger. Let’s total it at 10%. So it takes 38.08 x 1.1 = 41.9 gallons to generate the amount of power the Tesla will use and then get it to the Tesla. But it takes even more than that, because the charging process itself is only about 85% efficient. (Tesla claims 91% efficiency, but real world experience seems to be more like 70 – 80%.) So 41.9 /0.85 = 49.28 gallons (678 KwH, if you were still counting those).
Liberals frequently care more about feelings than facts, and your smug Tesla-owning frenemy will never admit it, but in day to day usage, the big BMW is actually 18% more efficient, and 18% kinder to the planet. (Don’t get too cocky, Mr. 7 Series: at a US average 12 cents per KwH, the electricity cost to the Tesla owner for 1000 miles works out in total to about $81, as opposed to $98 for the gasoline. The reason the Tesla is less efficient, but still cheaper to run, is that the power company pays a lot less for fuel than the automobile driver does. But when the issue is green impact, not greenbacks, the BMW wins handily.)
Ah, but your frenemy retorts after mulling it over, “MY Tesla can run on solar power! And I can put solar panels on my roof! It’s free, I tell you! My S runs FREE!”
Not really. The average solar panel produces about 10 watts per square foot. So some quick and dirty math: taking out of the equation the long-distance power transmission losses, and spreading out the power generation evenly over the time period, how much square footage would our Green Californian need to power his Tesla? 524 KwH for 24 days, as established above, plus 2% for transmission power loss at the solar panel and house level, and accounting for the 85% charger efficiency, you need 628,800 watt-hours. Dividing that by 24, you need 26,200 watt-hours per day.
You get about five hours of useful sun power production per day, so you need to get 5,240 watts per hour. You lose about 20% of your electricity in large systems; and accounting for the fact that the sun also doesn’t shine every day, add another 15% for reserve capacity, so you need 7,532.5 watts per hour capacity to account for efficiency losses and those rainy days. At top efficiency, that means you need 753 square feet of solar panels. At an installation price of$7 – $9 per watt (average of $8), the Green Man needs to spend over $60k for that much power. If he’s off the grid (i.e., stores the power instead of using net metering via his local utility), the storage system cost is on top of that. 753 square feet is a lot of ugly acreage, but it’s doable.
Of course, no self-respecting Green Weenie would settle for powering his car by the sun, but his house by Con Edison. And with the average efficient house using 1 KwH per hour, i.e., 24 KwH per day, the house needs 4.8 KwH capacity, and considering efficiency losses and reserve requirements, that means 6.9 KwH for the house. So to power both the Tesla and the house, Green Man needs at least 1,443 square feet of power production, at a cost of $115,000. But even using a Tesla-only setup, $60k would buy 25,641 gallons of gasoline (at the current US average price of $2.34 per gallon). The Big BMW could travel, on that much fuel, 24,000 x 24 MPG = 615,384 miles. Game, set and match – Munich and Detroit. Sad!

Rebecca Friedrichs: Teachers stand against tyranny - The Orange County Register

Rebecca Friedrichs: Teachers stand against tyranny - The Orange County Register

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, in part, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Yet, because of laws that favor powerful unions and “labor peace” over the rights of individuals, millions of public school teachers have lost their rights to free speech and free association. We are required, as a condition of employment, to financially support teachers unions and their political agendas.
Americans of all political preferences would rise up against such tyranny if their rights were squelched by corporations, yet teachers unions have been legally trampling the free-speech rights of teachers throughout our nation for decades through forced dues used to fund their one-sided political agendas. This practice is unconscionable; especially considering that unions are tax-free “corporations” who long ago abandoned the individual rights and desires of their members.
For years, many brave teachers have attempted to make our voices heard within our union leadership, but unfortunately, the union we're compelled to hire as our “representatives” doesn't value our personal liberties. Ten teachers in California have had enough. We're suing the California Teachers Association and its affiliate, the National Education Association, to obtain freedom from compelled support for unionism.
Ironically, the union is using our involuntary dues monies to fund the court battle against us.
When unions started, at the turn of the last century, their united support for individual rights was needed and welcomed. Sadly, unions have become what they used to fight – powerful, entrenched organizations more focused on self-preservation and pushing their political agenda than on protecting the rights of individual members.
In education, the behavior of unions is even more horrifying because, in addition to the obliteration of teachers' constitutional rights, our students suffer even greater injustices as the unions use their ill-gotten billions to promote political policies that often create negative consequences inside and outside of the classroom.
The union is currently taking a stand that puts the rights of sex offenders and kidnappers over the rights and safety of school children. NEA, the largest, most powerful teachers' union in America, came out against a bipartisan bill that would prohibit convicted sex offenders, murderers and kidnappers from working in schools. I don't believe in allowing these people in our classrooms and neither do the teachers I know; however, we're all forced to financially support this dangerous and shocking position.
Unions continue to tell the public that teachers who disagree with their politics have no real complaints because they can “opt out.” Tragically, what they neglect to mention is that we can only opt out of the portion of the dues the union decides are political. We are not permitted to opt out of the collective bargaining portion of the dues, yet much of collective bargaining is political.
Every penny on the bargaining table is provided by hardworking taxpayers, yet, shockingly, unions force teachers to fund policies that are often harmful to taxpayers and the children they're working so hard to support.
Teachers who exercise their right to opt out of the unions' acknowledged political dues are still required to pay approximately $650 annually for highly political collective bargaining. In return, fee payers are bullied, treated as outsiders, labeled “nonmembers” and lose all “rights of membership” including liability insurance (although they're still paying for the liability insurance of the union hierarchy). Fee payers lose their voting privileges within collective bargaining, and the right to serve within union leadership. So, although they pay full collective bargaining fees, they're completely voiceless.
Because of powerful collective-bargaining agreements with school districts, the union has control over teachers' email and staff mailboxes. Unions censor and decide what communications teachers are able to send and receive, so it's easy to control members by withholding vital information.
Teachers are often in the dark about how their money is being spent in the political process both inside and outside of collective bargaining. When dissenting teachers try to share liberating information with their colleagues through district communication channels, those teachers are subject to discipline by district administration.
The unions also use fear to influence teachers into supporting union causes. Teachers are subjected to constant political manipulation during mandatory staff meetings at which they're strong-armed on issues such as opposing school choice for children. Then the unions spend tens of millions of teacher-funded dollars, and use the pressured assistance of teachers as political “boots on the ground” to help block the passage of student-friendly ideas like vouchers. Any teachers who find the courage to share opposing views on union political issues are subject to intimidation and shamed into silence.
When teachers ask how they can avoid supporting the union's political agenda, they're told to check a box on their union membership form. This “check the box” system was dreamed up by the unions many years ago when they added an additional $20 “contribution” to teachers' union dues, which already average $1,000 a year. Checking this box gives teachers a mere $20 annual refund from the union's “voluntary” PAC funds.
This sleight of hand is confusing many teachers who honestly believe they're opting out of union politics by checking a box when, in fact, they're still giving approximately $350 of their annual dues toward the union's admitted nonrepresentational political agenda, and another $650 a year in mostly political collective bargaining fees. Since many of these teachers have moral beliefs and fiscal standards that place them on the exact opposite side union politics, this practice is unethical and shady at best.
The Supreme Court held in a 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, that states like California (and public employers in those states) can require employees to financially subsidize public-sector unions through “agency shop” agreements. Only the Supreme Court has the power to overrule this deeply flawed decision, and we will ask the court to do exactly that. Only then can teachers' rights to free speech and free association be vindicated.
We believe our case will prevail. In 2012, Justice Samuel A. Alito wrote the following for the majority ruling in favor of the employees in Knox vs. Service Employees International Union:
“When a State establishes an ‘agency shop' that exacts compulsory union fees as a condition of public employment, ‘[t]he dissenting employee is forced to support financially an organization with whose principles and demands he may disagree.' This form of compelled speech and association imposes a ‘significant impingement on First Amendment rights.' The justification for permitting a union to collect fees from nonmembers – to prevent them from free-riding on the union's efforts – is an anomaly.
What we're asking for is simple. We want teachers to be able to decide for themselves – without fear or coercion – whether to join a union and support its activities.
We live in a country that is supposed to be, as Abraham Lincoln said, “of the people, by the people and for the people.” However, because of forced unionism, our country has become a nation that is “of the unions, by the unions and for the unions.”
The time has come to put individual rights over the rights of powerful unions. Fighting compulsory unionism is simply the right thing to do.

Trump Foes Egged Me On to Support Him - WSJ

Trump Foes Egged Me On to Support Him - WSJ

If Trump's opponents keep this up, he'll be unbeatable next term.

Maxine Waters’s ridiculous claim that Betsy DeVos ‘has never seen the inside of a classroom’ - The Washington Post

Maxine Waters’s ridiculous claim that Betsy DeVos ‘has never seen the inside of a classroom’ - The Washington Post