You can't eat yourself thin

Seems that the Congressional Budget Office thinks that Cap-and-Trade is going to kill a bunch of jobs:

A House-passed bill that targets climate change through a cap-and-trade system of pollution credits would slow the nation's economic growth slightly over the next few decades and would create "significant" job losses from fossil fuel industries as the country shifts to renewable energy, the head of the Congressional Budget Office told a Senate energy panel Wednesday.

Some folks don't like them saying this:

Daniel J. Weiss, a senior fellow at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, pointed to a University of Massachusetts at Amherst study that concluded that the House bill would add jobs to the overall U.S. economy.

I'll keep this simple, so I don't confuse the Democrats and their allies in the media (redundancy alert): you really only have two choices. You can not enforce carbon limits, in which case you will not have any added cost. Or you can have enforcement, with its associated cost. Pick one.

And to Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, let me suggest that while it would be very nice indeed, you can't eat yourself thin. Just sayin'.

In other news of the obvious, we hear from across The Pond of the humanitarian results of their Socialized Medicine "Third Way":

AN 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened.

Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.

Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.

To all the bien pensant Usual Suspects who got their bowels in an uproar over Sarah Palin's comment about "Death Panels", I'm waiting for an explanation on how that won't happen here. Since the Obamacare plan is based on (a) ten years of taxes to fund seven years of benefits and (b) a 21% cut in Medicare costs, the shortfall is going to have to be made up somewhere. I mean, you can't eat yourself thin, nice though that might be. (hat tip: TJIC)

And in what should come as a shock to nobody, but will no doubt take the mouth breathers in both the Contemptable Democratic Party ("But these are our guys!") and Stupid Republican Party ("Gee, let's outlaw Gay Marriage!") leadership, it seems that New Jersey Unionworkers don't much like something. The Democratic Party platform:

LINDEN -- Rowdy union workers today upstaged a campaign kick-off by New Jersey environmental groups opposing a unique, coal-fueled electric plant proposed for the City of Linden that will capture its own carbon dioxide output and pipe it under the Atlantic Ocean.

"We need jobs," chanted two dozen union workers who support the "PurGen" project, as leaders of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, the New Jersey Environmental Federation, the New Jersey Environmental Lobby, Environment New Jersey and the Edison Wetlands Association held a press conference near Linden’s city hall to lambaste the $5 billion plant as a "dangerous experiment."

Hey, fight the power, man! Up the system! Please explain to the environmentalists that, however much it is to be wished, you simply can't eat yourself thin.

Sheesh, do I have to explain everything?