Free Republic

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Business leaders on Thursday warned that the government's plans to ration electricity because of recurring power outages could curb production and thereby slow Venezuela's economic recovery. Venezuela's largest business chamber, Fedecamaras, said government measures aimed at reducing demand, including rolling blackouts, hefty fines on consumers that use excessive electricity and a resolution requiring businesses to install fuel-powered generators will curb industrial production and retails sales

It's not just income taxes that might trash the dreams of Joe the Plumber. Ready or not, Joe and the rest of us are also about to get mugged by the commissars of climate change. On this, I've got a bipartisan beef, since both John McCain and Barack Obama have bought into the panicked Al Gore storyline that the earth has a man-made "fever." Both candidates are promising to meet it with dramatic and costly new forms of government control. This comes even as Europe, after its fling with the Kyoto treaty, is backing off from grand pledges to cut...