A Little Fact-Checking for Mr. Piers Morgan

Mr. Morgan likes to throw round the "fact" that there are 11,000 guns murders in America every year. Guess what, he's wrong. According to the F.B.I., there were 12,664 homicides in the U.S. in 2011 (down 15.1% from 2007)  but only 8,583 (down 15.3% from 2007 - and, yes, that's still a troubling number) of those were caused by firearms. And even of those there were 400 justifiable homicides by citizens and 260 justifiable homicides by police officers. This makes the total 7,923, still an extremely high number but certainly not the 39% inflationary number that was put forth by the Brit.......................................................................................The dude was also a little off on the numbers from his home country. The real number of gun murders there isn't the 35 that Morgan touts but 59, a 41% exaggeration in the other direction. That, and he totally glosses over the overall rate of violent crime in the respective countries. According to the E.U., Britain is the most violent country in Europe with a violent crime rate of 2,034 violent crimes per 100,000 people. The violent crime rate per 100,000 people in America? Try 466. Oops.

On Piers Morgan

Is that dude really just 47?

Miscellaneous 166

1) According to the International Energy Agency, there exists on the planet 30,000 trillion cubic feet of RECOVERABLE (and, please, keep in mind here that the technology to recover these resources is growing exponentially) natural gas, and that this will be more than enough to sustain us for another 280 years at current consumption rates....Now, granted, consumption in places like China, India, and Indonesia is undoubtedly likely to rise but, so, too, is efficiency. I think that we just have to face it here. This whole notion that we are going to get off of these carbon-based fuels in the not too distant future is a pipe-dream.............2) According to environmentnewjersey.org, in 2008 the United States' consumption of wind and solar energy translated into approximately 88,000 barrels of oil a day. That sounds like a lot and it is, but when you compare it to the 815,000 barrels of oil equivalent that the natural gas industry of Oklahoma alone puts out (data from Alliance Resource Partners), it isn't really....Of course, the fact that these politicians and activists are so seemingly unaware of this humongous distinction in scale is troubling, too, I think.............3) According to the Detroit News, ethanol subsidies have cost the American taxpayers a whopping $45 billion. To say that this has been a boondoggle is soft-peddling it, folks. And even though the subsidies have technically ceased, the fact that the 10% mandate still exists is prima facie evidence that the scam is more than likely going to continue. There are a hell of a lot of close calls in politics, folks. Ethanol is NOT one of them. a) It has a pitifully low power density, b) it's just as bad for the environment as oil, c) it drives up the price of food, and d) it's terrible for engines. How this blankety blank ever got any traction is beyond me.............4) Am I in favor of universal background checks for gun purchases? Yes. Do I think that these universal background checks will in any way reduce violent criminality? No, not really.

What I Learned from Hillary's Testimony on Benghazi

a) That the Republicans love to grandstand and b) that the Democrats love to lavish praise. THAT'S IT!

Some Awesome Stuff from Alistair McCallum

I really like this guy; one of the best landscape photographers in the country, IMO.

Question for Mayor Bloomberg/Channeling Eric Cartman

Might I have TWO sixteen ouncers?

Out of the Mouths of Babes/Mean-Spirited SOBs/Cheaters

"Leave it to you to delete as appropriate."......"We will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"......"Don't any of you tell anybody that the U.K. has a freedom of information act."......"I've just completed Mike's nature trick of adding in the real temps to end series for the past 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith to hide the decline."......"About two months ago, I deleted loads of emails, so have very little, if anything at all."......Phil Jones, University of East Anglia..................."I'll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that's trending down as a result of the end-effects and the recent coldish years."......Mick Kelly, University of East Anglia..................."So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 15 degrees Celsius, then this would be significant for the global mean - but we'd still have to explain the blip."......"It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with 'why the blip'? Let me go further."......"If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official A.G.U. channels to get him ousted."......"Perhaps the University of Wisconsin ought to open up a public comment period to decide whether Pat Michaels' PhD needs reassessing."......"Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important."......Thomas Wigley, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research..................."We are nowhere close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget."......"The fact that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."......Kevin Trenberth, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research..................."We should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal ('Climate Research' - ostensibly for publishing articles by skeptics)."......"Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through. We can hold up comments in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened or not."......Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University..................."I will continue to refuse such data requests in the future. Nor will I provide McIntyre with computer programs, email correspondence, etc.."......Thomas Karl, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...................Nah, there's nothing going on with this Climategate thing. Nothing, nothing at all....It's a blip, as one of the above fellows stated.

On the Idiotic Notion that the Global Warming Skeptics are Anti-Science

It's absurd. They're not the ones who've a) ignored the geological record, b) constantly mistaken cause with effect, c) ignored the satellite data, d) ignored the radiosonde balloon data, e) failed to understand the basic law of inverse solubility, f) played with and hid the data, g) utilized climate models which violated the basic principles of forecasting AND WHICH PROVED WRONG, g) failed to even entertain the notion of alternative causes (plate tectonics, underwater volcanoes, cosmic rays, sunspot cycles, the Pacific Decodal Oscillation, lunar cycles, increases in the solar field, cloud cover, etc.), h) conspired and thoroughly corrupted the entire peer-review process, i) failed to understand the logarithmic nature of the CO2/warming relationship, j) failed to understand that the earth's climate is a nonlinear, dynamic, and chaotic system which cannot be readily reduced to the workings of A theory......................................................................And the fact that skepticism is itself such an integral part of science, that alone should have set off firecrackers. "The science is settled/the debate is over." LMFAO                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

On the NRA's Use of Obama's Kids in an Ad

I didn't care for it myself. a) It's never a good idea to bring the kids in and b) of course the frigging President's kids are going to need more in terms of security. They're the frigging President's kids (and, hence, far more vulnerable), for Christ.....I mean, yeah, I understand the hypocrisy thing and all, but bring it up in a general sense about these rich people being able to afford protection. Don't frigging do an entire commercial in which you bring up his damned kids to make and gain some cheap political advantage. Don't!........................................................................................It was also evidently bad PR in that the suckers immediately had to pull the thing. Gotta think it through first, no?

On NBC Weatherman Al Roker's Behavior During the Inauguration

Not fawning enough.

Note to Alex Jones/Shooting the Messenger, Indeed

Dude, a little advice here. The next time that you go on a national broadcast and try to argue in favor of gun rights, maybe it would work a trifle better if you didn't act like such an absolute, stark raving mad, and foaming at the mouth lunatic. I mean, I was watching it and thinking that maybe you shouldn't have A gun, never mind frigging 50. Decaf, perhaps?

Note to Bill O'Reilly

So, what's your next big project, Bill, "Killing Garfield" (and, no, I'm not talking about the cat)?

A Public Service Announcement from Me, Will "Take No Prisoners" Hart

This is me holding an "assault-weapon".......This is me taking the pistol-grip off of that "assault-weapon".......This is me holding a weapon that is no longer considered an "assault-weapon".......Atta way to go there, Mr. Obama, Dianne Feinstien. I feel soooooooooooooo much safer right now.

On Obama's Budget Being Voted Down 414-0 in the House and 97-0 in the Senate

Wow, that must have been a hell of a budget, either the greatest of all time, or the worst. I'll have to get back to you.

On Global Warming and Biodiversity

No evidence exists that the former has ever been a threat to the latter. Global cooling - that's a different story.

Courtesy of Youtube's 1tonykirk

"Rockefeller, Gore, and their boy in the UN, Maurice Strong, haven't figured out a way to install meters on our faces for breathing "THEIR AIR" yet, so they figure we are stupid enough to believe that one of the four building blocks of life is a "dangerous gas" ,and that we will let them charge us an additional enslavement tax... this one financing global government...
Say hello to George Orwell, folks!"......Yeah, a little over the top but I still like it.

Open Letter to Barack Obama Part 1

Mr. President, you speak of the "overwhelming judgement of science" pertaining to climate change (I notice that you didn't use the more conventional term, global warming). Could you please be more specific here? Were you possibly referring to a) the logarithmic nature of the way that CO2 effects atmospheric temperature (that the effects are minuscule once you get past 20 ppm)?............b) the fact that the ice cover in Greenland is only melting at an approximately .4% clip per century?............c) the fact that satellites (since 1979) and weather balloons (since 1958) show a significantly lesser rate of temperature rise than do surface thermometers?............d) the fact that the temperatures of the Medieval, Roman, and Minoan warming periods were all somewhat higher than those we're presently experiencing and that Florida was never 50% under water during any of them?............e) the fact that from the late Miocene to the early Pliocene, there was actually a three MILLION year period in which temperatures were a good 2-3 degrees warmer than they are today and that life fully flourished back then?............f) the fact that there is a much more convincing and reliable correlation between sun-spot cycle length and global warming (according to environmentalist, Peter Taylor, the solar field has increased by over 200% since 1900) than there is between global arming and CO2?............g) the fact that the urban heat island effect was quite possibly a major factor in the temperature gains of the 20th century and that the temperatures of rural areas increased at a lesser rate?............h) that we were actually coming out of a little ice age in the 19th Century and that of course the temperature rates were bound to go up (HELLO!)?............i) the fact that the IPCC computer models have all been severely incorrect in their projections?............j) the fact that there has been a zero increase in temperatures over the past 15 years despite the fact that the CO2 levels have gone up 4%?............k) the fact that over 125 scientists (the overwhelming majority of them having PhDs in meteorology, astrophysics, geology, astronomy, oceanography, etc.) recently wrote an open letter to the U.N. voicing strong opposition to the theory of anthropogenic global warming?............l) the fact that in virtually every period of global warming correlating with rises in CO2, it is the warming which plainly precedes the CO2 (sometimes by as much as a millennium)?............m) the fact that we KNOW how naturally occurring warming (inverse solubility - google it) can quite readily and consistently increase CO2 AND NOT VICE VERSA?............n) the fact that CO2 is but a trace greenhouse gas (it comprises approximately .04% of the earth's atmosphere) and that human activity is responsible but for a tiny portion of it (underwater volcanoes, animals, bacteria, dying vegetation, and the oceans all contribute more)?............o) the fact that there have been periods in the earth's history (some of which were actually periods of glaciation) in which the CO2 levels were actually 15-25 times greater than they are today and that there was NO greenhouse effect?............p) the fact that there was a 4% reduction in cloud cover from 1983 to 2000 and that that would have been more than a sufficient enough reason for the temperature rise?............q) the fact that the largest percentage of the recent increase in temperature actually took place prior to 1940 (a period of relatively low CO2 emissions) and that from 1940 to 1975 (a period of rapid growth of man-made CO2) the temperatures consistently DECREASED?............r) the fact that the Antarctic ice cover is actually gaining ice?............s) the fact that nearly half of those supposed 2,500 scientists who signed the IPCC report weren't actual scientists but reviewers and/or bureaucrats, and that, even of the scientists, a fair number of them actually disagreed with the "findings" and requested (mostly to no avail) that their names be removed (Paul Reiter actually sued the United Nations and won)?............Please, feel free to stop me at any time Mr. President. Surely, you must have a semblance of specificity to share with the citizens here.

Miscellaneous 165 (The Climate Change Edition)

1) Late last year, well over 100 (129, to be exact) scientists (the vast majority of whom have PhDs in meteorology, astrophysics, geology, oceanography, astronomy, climatology, etc.)  wrote an open letter to the U.N. in which they strenuously challenged the conventional thinking on climate change; i.e., that the earth is warming at an alarming rate and the human activity is the primary mover of it. This whole notion of there being some sort of consensus and that the science is settled is something that should really be put to rest.............2) The most dangerous type of climate change isn't global warming, it's global cooling. I mean, just look back at the previous instances of both. During the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval warming periods (times in which Florida was NEVER 50% under water), human societies prospered. Contrast that with the little ice age in which there was great human suffering and it isn't even a close call here. Enough already with the warming hysteria.............3) The temperature of the earth apparently has warmed over the past 160 or so years. But there are clearly some issues here. a) Most of these temperature readings have been arrived at via surface readings and those have been confounded by urbanization and population growth (people, buildings and industry de facto give off heat). Yes, there has been a somewhat marked rise in temperature over the past century and a half. But when you balance that by also looking at the temperature readings in rural areas and from the upper atmosphere the increase in temperature is decidedly less. And b) when you also look at the satellite and balloon temperature readings of the past 34 (in the case of satellite) and 55 (in the case of radiosonde weather balloons) years, respectively, that, too, will show you a much more modest rise in temperature. To try and pull an Al Gore and insinuate some sort of doomsday scenario here is just plain silly, IMMHO.............4) According to data from Oregon State University, there was actually a three million year time frame (from six million years ago to three million years ago) in which the earth's temperatures were a good 2-3 degrees warmer than they are today. No, there weren't any human beings around back then but it thoroughly stands to reason that they would have probably been OK. The 2.5 million years of colder conditions that followed it - that might have been a different story.

Churchill on Economy

1) "For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."............2) "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."............3) "If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law."............4) "Socialists think profits are a vice, I consider losses the real vice."............5) Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon."............6) "There is no such thing as a good tax."

On Romney

He didn't deserve a first term.

On Obama

He didn't deserve a second term.

On Susan Hayward

I'll take "Flaming Haired Beauties Who Occasionally Overacted and Who Could Fill Out a Form-Fitting Dress Better than Anybody Who's Ever Existed" for thousand, Alex.

On Carbon Dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a trace gas which comprises approximately .04% of the atmosphere. Contrast that to nitrogen which comprises 78% (a 1,950:1 ratio) or even to argon which comprises .93% (a 24:1 ratio)....And it isn't as if Carbon dioxide was a poison or even a pollutant a la sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, particulate matter, etc.. It's plant food..........................................................................................As for the relationship between CO2 and global-warming, it's dubious. Peter Taylor (himself a strong environmentalist) claims that he spent three months going through the literature and he couldn't find one peer-reviewed journal article which was adequately able to explain just how CO2 causes atmospheric temperature rise (and, yet, this is the model that's currently being used - CO2 and zero attribution to natural causes).....................................................................................Compare that to the fact that a) we already know just how readily naturally occurring warming increases atmospheric CO2, b) while CO2 can cause a temperature increase, the relationship is a logarithmic one in which after a certain amount (20 ppm) the effect is clearly negligible, and c) in almost every instance of global-warming correlating with increases in CO2, it's the warming which plainly precedes the CO2 (in some instances by as much as a millennium).....................................................................................I don't know about this, folks. As much as I hate to throw around such loaded terms as hoax, myth, and swindle, at the very least there appears to be some group-think, turf protection, crony capitalism, and a mainstream media that has totally lost its inquisitiveness.

On Mars Also Undergoing Global-Warming

Carbon credits, any Martian?

A Seven Point Plan to Jump-Start the Ailing American Economy

1) A national commitment toward safely being able to access the country's vast energy resources; natural gas, oil, coal, wind, etc.(we're the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and we need to find a safe way take advantage of that).............2) Massive regulatory reform. We just have way too much red-tape that disproportionately hampers small and mid-sized businesses and start-ups. Yes, some regulations are good/necessary, but currently we just have way too much in terms of duplication and frivolousness. Gotta clean it up.............3) Streamlining the VISA requirements for people who want to come to this country as tourists. We used to secure 17% of the world-wide tourism dollars (it's currently tickling 11%) and there has to be a way that we can return to that level that doesn't compromise national security.............4) Tax reform, especially corporate. Lower the rates but accompany that with an elimination of a major chunk of the loopholes. Done properly, we could potentially execute this in a manner that a) actually raises revenues and b) facilitates competitiveness.............5) Improve our infrastructure. We have way too many crumbling roads and bridges that make investment in America much less attractive. A commitment to infrastructure that incorporates private investment and lessens the possibility of future "bridges to nowhere" could really help us in terms of competitiveness.............6) Education reform. The public school monopoly just isn't working and a commitment to competition and innovation is an absolute must for the future.............7) Continue to open up trade (we currently have a 149 billion dollar trade SURPLUS in services and it's growing!).

On "Assault Weapns"

I think that there's a lot of confusion on this one. a) Real assault weapons are NOT available to the public (they're only available to the military). b) Semi-automatic weapons sometimes ARE used for hunting. No, you don't need them for a deer but you might for a wild boar, a bear, a moose, or a wolf (cocking a rifle takes time and it causes you to have to re-aim - 2 very dangerous requirements). c) Weapons such as the Bushmaster aren't all that appreciably different from your average hunting rifle (in fact, there actually less powerful in that they're of a lower caliber). They just look different on the outside because some people like having a weapon that looks like a military weapon (the magazine, "Outdoor Life", recently ran a comparative review of 14 hunting rifles that could be considered assault weapons and noted that “virtually every manufacturer is producing these guns"). d) 100 round magazines are rarely loaded to capacity because they jam and the military itself actually uses 30 round magazines. e) Semi-automatic rifles are used in less than 2% of all American gun crimes and are responsible for less than 3% of all gun murders (323 out of 12,664).......People like Ema say that they want some facts. Here are some facts.......And I'm also going to say what I said over at Les's site. I am NOT a Second Amendment guy. I'm an animal-loving vegetarian who doesn't have a gun and who doesn't plan on buying one. But I'm also a person who tries to be empirical and the facts aren't necessarily with the gun-control people 24/7 on this, not by a long shot (sorry).

On Obama's Appointment of Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary

Look, I admit it. Erskine Bowles was a pipe-dream (though, yes, it clearly would have been a grand slam, too). But was it too much to ask for Mr. Obama to at least take a look at somebody like Mark Zandi? I mean, really, is the President THAT opposed to deficit reduction that he has to dredge up yet another stooge like Lew? Seemingly, huh?......I give this appointment a D.

Anna Falconnet Hunter, Circa 1892 (From Private Collections)

Nice. Trained under Twachtman but infinitely surpassed him, in my opinion.

A Newtered Explanation

Has anybody ever taken the time to try and ascertain just exactly what it was that New Gingrich did for Freddie Mac to earn that $1.8 billion? I mean, I know that he says that he was some sort company historian and all, and that it was totally above-board but, come on, a seven figure "salary" for what couldn't have been more than a handful of hours a week - does that even remotely pass the smell-test? I say audit the sucker completely and, while they're at it, they should probably take a good long look at the FED, Fannie Mae, the Pentagon, and the Department of Homeland Security, too....Company historian LOL!.......................................................................................P.S. Just for the record here, officials at Freddie Mac continue to say that Gingrich never did any lobbying for them. Hm, I'm not entirely certain if that statement passes the smell-test, either. New Gingrich, the Al Gore of the right.

On Former Virginia Governor, Douglas Wilder

HE should have been the first black President, not frigging Obama.......Obama.

Probably When She Started Picking Off those Wolves from the Relative Comfort of a Helicopter

What would be my answer to the question, "So, when did you officially stop giving Sarah Palin the benefit of the doubt?"

On the Octomom Being Back on Welfare

I actually have an idea on this one. How 'bout instead of the tax-payers having to pick up the tab here, we have that idiotic fertility doctor who thought that it was AOK to have a single woman of below average means and who had already pumped out a half-dozen kids receive such a massive intervention pick it up instead? Huh, does that work for you?

The Plimer Plan for Stopping Climate Change/Global Warming

1) Stop ocean and lake-floor bacteria from emitting CO2.......2) Prevent the earth's plate tectonics and continents from moving.......3) Stop the ocean's currents from changing.......4) Stop the earth's orbital changes.......5) Stop variations in energy released by the sun.......6) Stop the orbit of our solar system in the galaxy.......7) Stop supernova eruptions.......8) Stop the moon's orbital changes.......9) Stop the earth's volcanoes from erupting.......10) Stop variations in the earth's cloud cover.

Greenpeace's Peter Taylor on Global Warming

"Behind the scenes there is major disagreement among scientists. Parallel to CO2 rising, the solar field has increased by 200% since 1900 and this is not factored into the computer models. Many of the apparently random fluctuations of past temperature - like when the Vikings grew crops in Greenland - correlate to variations in the solar electric field.......Between 1983 and 2000, cloud-cover, according the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, fell by 4%, more than enough to heat oceans and account for global warming.......A spate of recent science shows that temperature oscillations are timed by solar cycles, that the jet-stream is affected by the solar wind and that past high and low points in the solar cycle correlate (and, no, there isn't a 600-800 year lag, either) with past temperature swings."..........................................................................................And as for 1993 to 2003 being hottest decade on record, a) they've only been recording temperatures since 1860, b) the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval (think Eric the Red in a tank-top) warming periods were all infinitely hotter (strong geological evidence), and c) by the mid-19th Century we were actually coming out of a mini ice-age and so OF COURSE WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF A WARMING PERIOD!!! Ay yay yay.

Dean Wormer to Hamid Karzai

"Crazy, corrupt, and thoroughly lacking in legitimacy is now way to go through life, son."

On Greenhouse Gases

a) 99% of greenhouse gases are non-man-made.............b) Water vapor comprises 95% of all greenhouse gases.............c) Man creates only .001% of all water vapor.............d) The other 5% of greenhouse gases is comprised of carbon dioxide (which man contributes only .117%), methane (which man contributes only .066%), and nitrogen (which man contributes only .047%).............e) Only the first 200 or so parts per million of CO2 actually has a warming effect. There is only a warming effect after that if there isn't sufficient vegetation.............f) Global warming creates CO2 (more so than the opposite). As temperatures increase naturally, CO2 from the water evaporates and infiltrates the air.............g) Underwater volcanoes (as many as several million of them) are responsible for a much larger percentage of greenhouse gases than man.............h) There have been time-frames when the CO2 levels were 25 times higher than today and there was no greenhouse effect. There have even been times of glaciation when it was higher.............i) There is a much more reliable correlation between sunspot cycle length and temperature than there is between temperature and CO2 levels.............Sources; Ian Plimer (University of Melbourne, winner of the Clarke Medal), Richard Lindzen (M.I.T., winner of the American Meteorology Society's Meisenger and Charney awards), and  David Evans (former consultant for the Australian Greenhouse Office, PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford).

On Congress

More bankrupt of good ideas (as opposed to the crass repackaging of old ideas), they could not possibly be.

On Sean Hannity's Substantial Ratings

He DOESN'T deserve them.

On Rachel Maddow's Insignificant Ratings

She deserves them.

And in a Similar Vein

"Create a concept and reality leaves the room." Jose Ortega y Gasset

Eisenhower on the "Scientific Technological Elite"

"Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity....The prospect of domination by the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."

On Manny Pacquiao

He apparently decided to take MSNBC's slogan, "Lean Forward", literally.

Miscellaneous 164

1) According to climate modeller, David Evans (six university degrees including a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford), the scientific community has known since 2004 that, in almost all of the prior episodes of global warming, not only did the temperature increases generally precede the rises in atmospheric carbon, they preceded them by a good 800 YEARS!!!!! The fact that these politicians, bureaucrats, and scientists (whose livelihood apparently hinges upon a CO2 model of global warming being accurate) have so consistently failed to address this issue is troubling - very troubling.............2) Ditto the fact that they also seem to ignore the entirety of data from 1940 to 1975, a period in which global COOLING and an increase in atmospheric carbon plainly coexisted.............3) And, no, I'm not a global warming "denier". I have just as much of a hard time with people like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck who say that global warming doesn't exist. It does exist (or at least it did up to a decade or so ago) and it may even be a problem. My only points are that a) the effects have clearly been hyped, b) CO2 emissions quite probably AREN'T the cause and c) the remedies being proposed are at least somewhat questionable (not to mention, exorbitantly costly)....And wouldn't it be nice (especially after WMD and the housing collapse) if the politicians occasionally thought first PRIOR to acting?

A Newtonian Physic?

Is it my imagination or is Al Gore rapidly becoming the Newt Gingrich of the left? a) He powers his humongous Tennessee mansion with nothing but fossil fuels. b) He builds a second mansion right next to the Pacific Ocean (thereby disregarding his very own warnings relative to sea levels rising). And now, best of all, c) he sells his television network, Current TV, to an entity, Al Jazeera, that is currently bankrolled almost exclusively by Middle Eastern oil....AND he tries to finalize the deal prior to the fiscal cliff negotiations so he wouldn't have to pay as much in taxes. To say that this fellow is a Gingrichesque hypocrite is pretty damned accurate, in my opinion.

Miscellaneous 163

1) According to a recent study by the International Energy Agency, if the current trends continue, China will emit more man-made greenhouse gasses by 2025 than the United States, Europe, Japan, and all of the rest of the O.E.C.D. nations COMBINED.......X2! This whole notion that the U.S. and a handful of European countries are going to appreciably reduce world-wide CO2 emissions (destroying their economies by doing so) is a pipe-dream, in my opinion (in the Senate's, too, evidently - a 95-0 vote to not even bring Kyoto up in 2002).............2) According to the I.P.C.C., Greenland is presently losing approximately 25 cubic miles of ice cover per year. That sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? Yeah, well you consider that Greenland has over 630,000 cubic miles of total ice, and that a 25 cubic mile loss per year means that Greenland is losing only .4% of its ice cover PER CENTURY (not per year or per decade, per century), it actually doesn't.............3) According to the U.N., approximately two million people every year die in this world due to indoor air pollution. They die because they don't have electricity and are forced to burn biomass and dung in an effort to see at night and stay warm. In the words of Obama economist, Larry Summers, "Don't kid yourself that you're doing Bangladesh any favors by worrying about global-warming. Poverty is a far bigger killer than global-warming ever will be." Affordable energy - that's what these poor countries need!............4) We actually had a "green economy" once. It was called the 15th century!............5) People who support O.S.H.A. are quick to tote out this graph which shows how work-place injuries have precipitously come down since that agency was created. What they DON'T show you is that if you extended the graph backward to the time prior to O.S.H.A., you would see the exact same level of downward trajectory. The workplace was getting safer without O.S.H.A. and isn't this just so typical of government to jump to the front and take credit like this?

More Genius From Mr. Mark Shaw, Circa 1959

Which one, Marcus?............P.S. Sorry for the Andrew Wilder Gallery promotion.

On My Pessimism Regarding the Upcoming Budget Battle

It basically revolves around a) the right's (save for Mr.s Paul and Paul) affinity for military industrial Keynesianism, b) the left's affinity for entitlement society Keynesianism, and c) the fact that both sides are so utterly entrenched on the subject of taxes. I personally feel that as long as these three variables exist, a grander bargain will not be had.

On Notre Dame Being Humiliated AS WE SPEAK

I haven't been this excited since freebee lesbian porn.

Miscellaneous 162

1) "The electric car has long been recognized as the ideal solution. It is cleaner, quieter, and much more economical than gas-fueled cars." The New York Times, November, 1911.............2) According to the National Mining Association, 57 coal-firing plants have been shut down by President Obama's E.P.A.. In the mean-time, the rest of the world's usage of this plentiful source of energy has increased by 47% over the past four years (led of course by China, India, and various parts of Africa). This whole notion of the U.S. cutting back on fossil fuels having an effect on global CO2 emissions is borderline laughable, people.............3) The U.S. is currently burning nearly 40% of it's corn crop (15% of the world's global corn) in an effort to make ethanol. The effect of all this? Try it produces the equivalent of .6% of the world's total oil requirements and the number progressively gets smaller every year. Ethanol, a scam? What do you folks think?............4) The United States has a proved oil reserve of 21 billion barrels. It also has a prospective supply of 86 billion barrels from the Outer Continental Shelf, 11 billion from ANWAR, 11 billion from the rest of Alaska, and 4 billion from the Bakken Formation in Montana. Add to that the possible 4 TRILLION barrels that the Bureau of Land Management says are currently available in America's shale oil reserves and it sure as hell doesn't look like we're going to be running out of it any time soon.............5) Oh, and coal, we have a 235 year supply of that, too.

Highly Within Reach

Ali Velshi (CNN's business reported) seems like a pretty decent fellow and his reporting is generally solid. But when he articulated the other night that there isn't any more "low hanging fruit" that we can readily cut from the federal budget, I really wanted to throw something at the TV. There is A LOT of low hanging fruit still left. Foreign aid to corrosive and hostile governments, agricultural welfare, waste and duplication in the Department of Homeland Security, unnecessary foreign military bases, insane retirement packages for federal employees (a former co-worker of mine's husband recently retied at age 47!!!!!), etc., etc. - these are ALL things that at least need to be looked at, for Christ...............................................................................................And even on the tax expenditure side. The fact that multimillionaires can apparently STILL deduct the mortgage interest on their frigging vacation homes is abominable. The way that I see it here, there is a lot that we can still do to lower the deficit and an intelligent fellow like Velshi clearly should have known that.

On Marco Rubio's Threat to Block Chuck Hagel's Nomination for Defense Secretary

Rubio couldn't carry Hagel's lapel (never mind his two Purple Hearts).

On Sean Hannity's Upcoming Fishing Venture With Dick Cheney

Yeah, I'll be rooting for the fish.

P.S.

Mr. Bryce is a well respected journalist whose works have appeared in such diverse publications as the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, Counterpunch, Slate.com, and the Austin Chronicle. Yes, he did work for several months at the Institute for Energy Research and, yes, he's currently employed as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, but to say that this guy is some sort of a conservative automaton is as abject a display of ignorance as I have heard of late (notice how his critics never question his work, only his "associations"). All that you have to do is read his book and/or listen to him to realize that the man isn't a hard-core conservative but an independent moderate who has criticized Bush on numerous occasions and who has actually credited Obama for his not having stood in the way of fracking. Maybe these leftists (who were so up in arms over the right's having tarred Obama via his associations - in many cases justifiably so) need to think outside the box once in a while (and, yes, listen to somebody who understands the law of thermodynamics for change) and not be so hell-bent on destroying the entire world economy 24/7.

On the Implausibility of Wind Power

In his 2010 book, "Power Hungry", Robert Bryce talks about this nuclear power plant in Texas called the South Texas Project. It's an enormous plant that's roughly the same size as Manhattan. But, as large as it is, Bryce goes on to say that for a wind facility to be able generate as much power as the South Texas Project, it would have to be approximately the same size as Rhode Island (wind has a much lower power density than coal, oil, nuclear, and natural gas). Couple that with the intermittent nature of wind, the fact that we still don't have an adequate energy storage capacity, and the burgeoning backlash against wind by the public (the noise that it emits, the killing of migratory birds, the costly nature of it, etc.) and you really have to wonder on the wisdom of our elected officials continuing to subsidize it so lavishly.

On Johnny Manziel/Johnny Football

Joe Montana and Gale Sayers must have had a love-child.

Miscellaneous 161

1) "Prices on electric cars will continue to drop until they are within reach of the average family." The Washington Post, October 31, 1915.............2) "Electric cars are the next big thing and they always will be." Robert Bryce, "Power Hungry", 2010.............3) In that same volume, Mr. Bryce (a frequent critic of both Bush AND Obama) points out that gasoline has 80 times the energy density of the best lithium ion battery and that if we had to solely rely on the latter for transportation, world transportation as we know it would totally end.............4) “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken, date unknown. Hm, can you say, Bush on Iraq, Gore on global warming (and, no, I'm not saying that global warming is a hoax, just that there's been an element of alarmism to it), and pretty much everybody on the bailouts?............5) The price of natural gas in 2007 was $6 1/2 per MMbtu. Today it is $3 1/2 per MMbtu. That fact, more than anything, is what's keeping this economy afloat, in my opinion. And on this one I DO give Obama credit....At the very least he hasn't screwed it up.............6) The final fiscal cliff deal was one of $620 billion in revenues and $15 billion in spending cuts. Attaway to come up with a balanced approach there, fellas'.............7) Having said that, though, I do think that the tax compromise was a fair one. Yes, I would have probably negotiated the top rate down a tad to 37-38% but the threshold of $400,000 for an individual and $450,000 for a family is a decent one, I think. a) It hurts fewer people, b) it still raises a fair chunk of change, and c) it probably excludes 99.5% of all small businesses....There, now if we could only get to some spending cuts and entitlement reform.............8) Question. Why did those idiots at that newspaper (The Journal News out of White Plains) print the names and addresses of every single gun owner? I mean, really, do we want to be giving that type of information out; basically telling every crook in the county who does and DOESN'T have a firearm to defend themselves. That's insane.

On these Two Fellows

I'll take "Internationalist Profligate Spenders Who Over-Reach and Demagogue" for a thousand, Alex.

The Literally All-American Boy

Nobody will ever mistake Duke for a college football power. But senior wide-receiver, Conner Vernon, is a GREAT football player. The dude just completed his fourth stellar season in which he ultimately became the ACC's all-time leading receiver in catches (283) and yardage (3,749). And if you think that he's some sort of talentless overachiever here, forget it. The dude runs a 4-4 forty and, at 6'1'', 200, he's as tough as nails going over the middle. The man WILL be playing on Sundays and soon.

A Rare Display of Class in College Athletics

University of Wisconsin athletic director (and former football coach), Barry Alvarez, was forced to have to look for a new coach last month. The popular choice of the Wisconsin faithful was current Pitt coach, Paul Chryst, the former Badger offensive coordinator. But because Chryst has only been at Pitt for one year, Alvarez thought that it would be very unfair to try and seduce him away (the fact that Pitt had already gone through three coaches in the previous three years would have made it even more devastating), and so he didn't. Coach Chryst appears to like it at Pitt and may not have been interested in leaving anyway but this was a very magnanimous gesture on Alvarez's part and it showed me that there are still a few decent fellows left out there.

Something Strange in the Water Down There?

Apparently.

Somebody's Smoking Something

One of the main reasons given for the cigarette tax (in addition to raising revenue) is that it acts as a disincentive for people to smoke. And it appears to be working quite well, this tax (the smoking rate has in fact dropped)....Which makes me kind of wonder out loud. If politicians are able to see how taxing cigarettes makes the smoking rate go down, why aren't they then able to see how the taxing of savings and investment can have a similarly deleterious effect on those two things? Stubbornness? Stupidity? Envy? I mean, I don't know.

On Jeanne Crain

I say one of THE most beautiful women ever in Hollywood and an actress of graceful substance as well. Her performances in such classic films as "A Letter to Three Women", "Leave Her to Heaven", and "Pinky" (for which she received and Oscar nomination) are among the '40s finest and it's a darn shame that she isn't being more celebrated today. Jeanne Crain, folks.