Tyranny Squared

WMD was to conservatives what global warming currently is to liberals; a) an article of faith, b) a submission to "experts"/authority, and c) an opiate....Here's to hoping that the moderates and small-l libertarians refuse to follow such a path themselves.

The Jimmy Carter Paradox

The vast majority of people forget. President Carter was NOT a liberal Democrat. He was a moderate who actually had a better working relationship with the Republican leadership in Congress; Howard Baker in the Senate and Bob Michael in the House (he essentially admitted as such on the Larry King Show) than he did with the Democrats. Yeah, he did go a little nutty after he left the Presidency but this whole notion that he was a leftist President is historically inaccurate (incompetent maybe but an Obama or a Roosevelt definitely not), in my opinion.....................................................................................And this brings us here to the second part of the paradox. Most of the Presidents who worked effectively (substantively, I'm saying) across the divide tended to have successful Presidencies; Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton. The fact that Carter didn't leads me to think that maybe at least some of the bad things that happened weren't necessarily his fault (and, yes, this is coming from a person who's been critical of him in the past) and that maybe we should cut the dude some slack after all. It's just a suggestion.

Two Quick Points on Global Cooling

a) It is far more deleterious to life on earth than global warming in that it frequently results in droughts, extinctions, diseases, starvation, etc. and b) it is generally characterized by significantly more climate and temperature variability than global warming (the Younger Dryas of 11,000 to 13,000 years ago is frequently cited).......These two factors and yet it is warming that we continuously fear.

Alakazam, Circa 1995 and Courtesy of the IPCC, Continued

Here, folks, is more the original text that was eviscerated by politics - "None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed changes to the specific cause of greenhouse gasses (and) No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change observed to man-made causes (and) Any claims of positive detection and attribution of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced (and) When will an anthropogenic effect on climate be identified? It is not surprising that the best answer to this question is, 'We do not know'."............Yep, folks, that's what the scientists initially said and it wasn't until a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats got a hold of it that the drumbeats of global warming alarmism started. So, you still want to throw your hat in there with 'em?

Some Context and Perspective on Global Warming 1

According to the Journal of Geophysical Research, the temperature of Greenland has increased by more than 20 degrees Celsius over the past 20,000 years (20,000 years marking the peak of what was the most recent ice age). At most, AT MOST, human activity can account for only about 5% of that amount. WHAT SAY YOU, MR. GORE??

On Cyd Charisse

I'll just let the pictures do the talking on this one, folks.

P.S. The third one blows up nicely....That, and I used to work with a girl who looked just like her; Felicia!

One Ballsy Biotch

This Bachmann chick is a total douche-bag. She goes in front of a thoroughly uncritical C-Pac audience and ONCE AGAIN levels a series of bogus and trivial accusations against the President and his domestic/travel arrangements. None of it was true but by far the most precious part of all was when she was questioned about it and actually chided the reporter (CNN's Dana Bash practically had to chase the woman down the hallway simply to approach her) for asking such "unimportant questions" OF HER! I mean, it was like, "Lady, you're the frigging idiot who brought this bullshit up and YOU'RE CHIDING ME???" I'm telling you here, people, it was purely comic theater.

Virginia Mayo

What would be my answer to the question, "So, who, in your opinion, was the most under-appreciated sex-kitten of the 1950s?"

On "The Jerry Springer Show"

Not enough lunging.

More Observations on Global Warming

1) According NASA scientist/University of Alabama meteorology professor, Roy Spencer, the two major temperature thrusts of the 20th Century (from 1900 to 1920 and from 1980 to 2000) correlated almost perfectly with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Contrast this to the correlation between CO2 and temperature change in which there have been some major disruptions in the relationship (from 1940 to 1975 and from 1998 to the present, for example) and it is at the very least interesting (the correlation between solar activity and climate change is stronger as well).............2) The amount of federal research money that's been allocated to study the relationship between climate change and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation? Let's just say that it's a little bit less than what they've been spending on that other relationship.............3) Virtually every IPCC climate model from the 1990s predicted a strong positive feedback loop between CO2 and water vapor. Guess what. It didn't happen (nor has it ever been shown in the geological records). Spencer and M.I.T.'s Richard Lindzen have both examined the satellite data every which way possible and the feedbacks have NOT been positive or even neutral. THEY'VE BEEN NEGATIVE. Yep, that's right, folks, the increased CO2 has interacted with the clouds and water vapor in a manner that has actually modulated the temperatures.Well, I'll be damned.............4) Some researchers have even gone as far as to say that the relationship between CO2 and warming is negligible (at least in terms of the former determining the latter) For instance, University of Ottawa geology professors Ian Clark and Jan Veizer have repeated pointed out that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere throughout the Medieval warm period was but a consistent 280 parts per million, not exactly of a frightening nature here.............5) I also think that it's important to point out here that 97% of greenhouse gasses is water vapor and that CO2 only constitutes approximately 2% (not all of which is human induced, obviously).

Channelling Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Thomas Wigley, Etc.

"The Medieval who?"

On Jim Carrey's Assertion (Via His Video Spoof) that Charlton Heston's Movies are "No Longer in Demand"

Wow, that's rich, huh, the guy who gave the world "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective" and "Bruce Almighty" shitting on the guy who gave us "Ben Hur", "El Cid", "The Big Country", "The Greatest Show on Earth", "The Agony and the Ecstasy", "Major Dundee", "The Ten Commandments", and "Touch of Evil"?...And all over frigging politics, too (yes, Mr. Heston supported gun rights but he also marched with Martin Luther King and served his country during World War 2). Excuse me, but I gotta go take a shower now. 

On Hurrican Katrina Being Proof for Anthropogenic Global Warming

Hurricane Katrina was a category 3 hurricane. The only reason that it did such huge damage was because those idiots down there a) didn't properly maintain the levies and b) totally eviscerated the wetlands to the point of total uselessness (the wetlands potentially being a buffer-zone against such hurricanes). Had those two factors NOT been the case....Of course, you also really have to wonder about the wisdom of building such a huge city a) under sea level and b) smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, and Lake Pontchartrain. The idiots who came up with that cockamamie idea (the French Mississippi Company, 1718) are probably culpable, too.

On Chernobyl

The amount of misinformation on this astounding (E. Nymton, anyone?). All of these hysterical assertions that hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of the accident at Chernobyl are all demonstrably false. The fact of the matter is that U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, and the International Commission on Radiological Protection have all exhaustively analyzed the data and have all concluded thusly: 6,000 young children did develop thyroid cancer (from drinking contaminated milk) but only 15 of them died. 134 emergency workers did get acute radiation sickness but only 28 of these people died in the first month or so. Yes, 19-20 more have died in the subsequent years but it is entirely unclear how many of them died because of Chernobyl. So, there it is, only 43-63 people died because of Chernobyl and a lot of that had to due with drinking contaminated milk and the wholly inadequate equipment of the time that those rescue worker had to work with..............................................................................................Now, this isn't to submit that what happened at Chernobyl and Fukushima (where the casualties will no doubt be significantly less than Chernobyl) were good things. They weren't and we obviously need to tighten things up considerably. But the possibility also exists that the hysteria involved in these two episodes was probably a lot more harmful than the actual accident itself...........................................................................................P.S. We also have to look at the power scale of what each of these respective energy sources can provide. Nuclear, for instance, can provide a shit-load of power and do it from a relatively small piece of real estate. Compare that to wind and ethanol, which both take up massive swaths of land and which neither are really all that green. This is a total no-brainer, I'm thinking.

Nuclear Power Versus Wind Power

a) In terms of power density - Nuclear - 56 watts per square meter, wind turbines - 1.2 watts per square meter, a nearly 47:1 advantage for nuclear.............b) In terms of resource intensity (per megawatt) - Nuclear - 90 cubic meters of concrete, 40 tons of steel, wind turbines - 870 cubic meters of concrete, 460 tons of steel, a 9.6 and 11.5 to 1 DISadvantage for wind turbines.............c) In terms of start-up cost - Nuclear - $4,800 per kilowatt, wind turbines - $5,000 per kilowatt, about a wash on this one.............d) In terms of capacity and efficiency - Nuclear - 90%, wind turbines - 30%, a 3:1 advantage for nuclear.............e) In terms of carbon emissions - Nuclear - zero, wind turbines - potentially a vast amount of carbon emissions in that these wind facilities always require a fossil fuel back-up, a significant advantage for nuclear.............f) In terms of projected costs for commercial electricity generation (per the International Energy Agency, 2015-2020) - Nuclear - $72 per megawatt hour, wind turbines - $94 per megawatt hour, a more than 20% cost advantage for nuclear.............f) In terms or waste material - alright, this is where it gets tricky. Yes, nuclear reactors do produce a fair amount of radioactive material, but there are in fact some options here. One option would be to do what France and some of the other countries have been doing; namely, re-using and reprocessing a great deal of the uranium and other by-products (a process that apparently cuts down on the amount of radioactive waste by approximately three-fold). Other possibilities would be to 1) utilize a process called transmutation in which a lot of the radiological waste is burned or 2) substitute thorium for the uranium and actually create less waste to begin with....But even with the process as it currently is, nuclear power is significantly better for the environment than coal is and it's obviously more practical than windmills (you would literally have to cover entire states with windmills in order to get the power that a nuclear facility gives you and you would still need a fossil fuel back-up due to the wind being intermittent - duh!). I think that we just need to face it here, folks, nuclear power is probably the future and windmills not.

More Prestidigitation

 Circa 1995 (and generally accepted as fact by the scientific community; the fact that the Vikings settled in Greenland in 870 AD, planted crops there, created cemeteries, etc., the fact that the Thames in London repeated froze over in the 16th and 17th centuries).

Circa 2001 (courtesy of the loathsome professor Mann) - no more Medieval warm period and no more little ice age.............And they thought that they could get away with this?

Alakazam, Circa 1995 and Courtesy of the IPCC

Before the bureaucrats got their hands on it - "When will an anthropogenic effect on climate change be identified? It is not surprising that the best answer to this question is, 'we don't know.'"............After the bureaucrats got their hands on it - "The body of evidence now points to a discernible human influence on global climate."............Nah, there's no necessity to be skeptical here.

Cornered

I wish that somebody would do an investigation on Senators Grassley and Harkin and maybe try and figure out if either of these two dudes has any Archer Daniels Midland stock in their portfolios (I know that they've both gotten campaign contributions from them). ADM was probably the biggest beneficiary of the federal government's ethanol policy (this, in that they were one of the major processors of corn ethanol) and, while I'm sure that pimping for votes (both of these Senators shamelessly and moronically pandered to the ethanol lobby FOR DECADES) was itself a huge motivator, I really think that the tax-payers need to get the facts here...especially as it pertains to the damned money trail. Anybody out there want to tackle this one?

On Global Hurrican Activity, 1978 to the Present

This graph is courtesy of Florida State University Meteorology Professor, Ryan Maue. Yes, it appears to show a minor uptick in the number of major hurricanes over the past 34 years, but it also shows an actual DECREASE when it comes to overall hurricane activity....Interesting, no?

On Global Sea Ice Trends, 1979 to the Present

The top graph is from the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center and the second one is courtesy of Ole Humlum from the University of Oslo. Please, remind me once again why we need to go ballistic here.

On "Climategate"

All I ask is that the folks read the actual Emails (http://paranoiacstoogetalk.blogspot.com/2013/01/out-of-mouths-of-babesmean-spirited.html). Read those and not the synopses of them that were obviously written by environmental apologists. Read those and then we can talk about them.

The Clintonian Paradox

Dan Mitchell (he of the Cato Institute) and Art Laffer (he of the legendary Laffer Curve) are both on the record as saying that Bill Clinton was a "great President". These fellows cite specifically his signings of NAFTA, welfare reform, a capital gains tax cut, and especially of his rock-solid ability to keep federal spending under control (Mitchell actually goes as far as to say that Clinton wasn't even a big spender prior to the Republican takeover of the House in 1994)............................................................................................Yes, they acknowledge that he did raise taxes in 1993 and that that may indeed have been a slight drag on a recovery that was already poised to take off, but they also clearly give the dude credit for his righting (no pun intended) of the ship and governing responsibly for the next seven years....Wow, huh, I guess that that old adage about Bill Clinton being one of the better Republican Presidents may in fact have some merit after all.................................................................................................P.S. I also think that we need to give Mr. Clinton kudos for his tireless work pertaining to the Middle-East peace process. I mean, the dude got way closer than virtually any other President in terms of reaching a final agreement and I see no reason in penalizing him for having to deal with an absolutely virulent piece of crap in Arafat. None, period.

On Bruce Dern's Performance in "Coming Come"

Excruciatingly raw and damned near impossible to watch at the end. I did, though.

The Pretty and Pretty Stupid Face of Neoconservatism

Kate Obernshain is yet another one of those partisan firebrands who, while you kind of enjoy ogling her, really tends to irritate you, too. Just this week, for example, she went on the O'Reilly Factor and basically did a Dick Cheney tutorial on the virtues of preemptive and protracted Middle-Eastern warfare; "the intelligence was unanimous" (wrong!), "Saddam Hussein supported al Qaeda" (wrong!), "Obama is cutting and running" (wrong! - the dude is basically following the Bush timetable and the Iraqis don't even want us there anymore) etc.. And the fact that she even went as far as to blame Obama for the fact that the Iranian hand has been strengthened when in reality it was the George Bush policy of de-Ba'athification that accomplished that. Look, I ain't gotta a lot of love for Obama, either, these days but, this chick, the sound is definitely going to be tweaked DOWN in the future, I'm thinking.

On Pink

Hate Pink.

On Me and Gore

I do not, NOT, have a deep-seeded or intrinsic dislike of the fellow (I actually kind of liked him as a Senator and STILL think that he might have been a better President than Bush). I only started going after him when the dude commenced to a) fear-mongering, b) spouting misinformation (the nine significant errors - as deemed by the British High Court - in his movie; his assertion that the sea level is going to rise by 20 feet in less than a century obviously the biggest whopper), c) lining his pockets via crony capitalism, d) being a hypocrite (his having built his second mansion on the ocean, heating it exclusively with fossil fuel, the selling of his cable network to an oil emirate, etc.), and e) proclaiming on high that the science was settled/the debate was over (pertaining to global-warming). If there are still people out there who feel the need to defend the man in spite of these things, I suppose that Will Hart cannot comment further except to say, "look at the folks on the right who still defend Gingrich, and see how silly...."

Note to Shaw

Shaw, you've fallen prey to the same lack of deep-seeded thinking that characterizes all progressives (and, yes, a great many conservatives also). You're looking strictly at static categories and not at the actual flesh and blood human beings who comprise them....For example, did you know that according to the IRS's own data, 58% of the people in the bottom quintile (according to income) in 1996 were out of it by 2005 and that the income of that quintile as a whole (again, the actual human beings and not the static category) went up 91%? Or that more than half of the people in the top 1% of wage earners were no longer in that group during the same time frame and that their income actually went down? Look, I'm not necessarily indicting you for not being aware of this (hardly anybody is) but I'm also hoping that as a open-minded individual you're going to concede that this is a hell of a lot more complicated now that you do know it.............As for Mr. Ryan's budget (which I have criticized as well - mostly for his treatment of the Pentagon as a sacred cow), it raises federal spending 40% over the next 11 years and, while, yes, it does introduce a premium support option to Medicare, you should probably also know that Democrats such as John Breaux, Ron Wyden, and Alice Rivlin have themselves made some similar overtures. Yes, wealthy seniors will probably have to pay more but this whole line of the President's that ALL seniors are going to have to pay an additional $6,400 out of pocket is bullcrap and HE knows it.............Of course we could always go with Nancy Pelosi's plan for Medicare being Medicare. That'll no doubt work, too.

On Knickerbocker Power-Forward/AARP Member, Kurt Thomas

I'm half expecting to see the fellow come out with a wheelchair and portable oxygen one of these days.......He still can shoot, though!

Note to CPAC

You want to make President Obama look bad? I would start next year by not inviting lunatics such as Gingrich, Santorum, Palin, Perry, Blackburn, and Bachman, and I certainly wouldn't give them a forum to throw out what are essentially bromides and red meat ad infinitum. I mean, I realize that this is essentially a members-only club and all, but if you really want to start attracting SOME moderates and SOME libertarian leaning independents, individuals such as these folks are NOT going to accomplish it for you - EVER. EVER.

On Republicans on Civil Liberties

They only seem to be worried about them when a Democratic President is violating them.

On Democrats on Civil Liberties

They only seem to be worried about them when a Republican President is violating them.

Thus Spake Spock

From the lens of photographer extraordinaire, Leonard Nimoy. Give it up for Spock, folks.

Miscellaneous 170

1) According to acclaimed physicist, Freeman Dyson, the climate of the planet 6,000 years ago was significantly warmer and wetter than it is today (the Sahara desert included). You'd think that that might be something worth considering prior to us going full-boar and wrecking the entire western economy.............2) Yes, Brazil and Indonesia are producing a lot of ethanol and other bio-fuels. But they're also devastating the rain forest and pushing up the cost of food while doing it....Green shmeen.............3) According to a new study from Stanford University, ethanol may actually be making the air dirtier than gasoline and diesel (they agree with the National Academy of Sciences, in other words). My solution? Hm, how 'bout we stop making Iowa the very first pimping station on the road to the White House? Yeah? Maybe?............4) According to the Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor, it basically takes as much energy to create ethanol as you derive from using the finished product; a net energy balance of at or near zero....Gee, I wonder why the west had to subsidize and mandate the shit.............5) According to a new study from the University of Minnesota, even if we set aside ALL of our corn crop for ethanol, that would only reduce our overall oil consumption by 12%. Rotsa ruck, in other words.

On Bill O'Reilly's New Segment, "Pinheads of the Week"

Not bereft of ideas ENOUGH.

On Decarbonizing

We are and have been, for decades and decades. We went from mostly burning wood which has a 10:1 carbon to hydrogen ratio to mostly burning coal which has a 2:1 carbon to hydrogen to now incorporating oil and natural gas which have 1:2 and 1:4 carbon to hydrogen ratios respectively. And, yes, if you also throw in the nuclear, hydro, and improved efficiency, the carbon footprint is even less of a problem....We (for a change), folks, aren't the major problem here. China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the rest of the world's developing nations - that's where the biggest increases in carbon dioxide are happening - and they ain't gonna sacrifice their prosperity for Al Gore or anybody period. Nor should they.

Miscellaneous 169

1) I think that the progressives really have to figure out what they truly want. Do they want to raise more revenue, or do they strictly want to redistribute assets? According to Professor Davies' analysis, the federal government raised more than twice as much revenue per person when the top marginal rate was 50% than it did when it was 91% (and even more so when it was dropped to 28%). Of course that dreaded wealth disparity ended up being greater, too, and therein seems to lie the rub.............2) According to a 2009 study by the National Academy of Sciences, ethanol and electric vehicles actually imposed more environmental and health damages on society than did gasoline, diesel fuel, and significantly more than natural gas. Again, I ask you folks, WHERE'S THE GREEN?............3) Chris Christie has gone from conservative darling to persona non grata in less than 18 months (embracing Obama, accepting Medicaid funds, being a moderate on gun-control, etc.). You know what I have to say to that? Good. And I think that Mr. Christie SHOULD run in 2016 - AS AN INDEPENDENT! I mean, think about it here. The dude has strong appeal across the political spectrum. He's strong in terms of name ID. AND he tells it like it is. If there is anyone out there who could buck the trend and somehow gather those 270 delegates, and do it OUTSIDE the system, he would definitely be the one, in my opinion.

Descartes on Knickerbocker Sixth-Man, J.R. Smith

"He shoots, therefore he is, again and again and again."

On Paying One's "Fair Share"

According to Duquesne economist, Antony Davies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC5Gkox-1QY), the effective tax rate (for all federal taxes; income, FICA, gas, etc.) for the top 5% of household's is approximately 29% (this is almost identical to number that I got from the Tax Policy Center circa 2007). This is essentially triple the effective rate for the bottom 95% (10.8%)....AGAIN, how can it be asserted here that the rich are somehow not paying their fair-share? I mean, yeah, maybe we can get a little bit more out of them but do we really need to browbeat people (a lot of whom went to school for 8 years and who also worked 60-80 hour weeks) as we do so?

On John Stossel

The fellow has the best show on cable-news, I think. It's interesting. It's outside the box. The guests are almost always top-notch (Reason TV's Nick Gillespie, Skeptic Magazine's Michael Shermer, the Mercatus Center's Veronique de Rugy, the Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor, skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, etc., etc.). AND it's civil (this, as opposed to the O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, Hardball, the Ed Show, etc.). I personally don't get Fox Business but I do watch a lot of his episodes on Youtube and, while I don't always agree with him/his guests, I'm at the very least thankful for that. What do you say that we all give it up for John Stossel, folks?

Eyes in the Sky

This is the satellite data, folks. The top graph shows the complete global trend from 1979 to 2013 (and, please, keep in mind here that this is occurring right after three and a half decades of relative cooling - the "Coming Ice Age", remember?). The second graph breaks it down between northern and southern hemispheres (up til 2006). Honestly, does this look like something that we and the rest of the west should be spending boatloads of cash on any time soon (especially if China, India, and Indonesia aren't going to be spending a penny on it)? I think not.............................................................................P.S. And the only "hockey stick" that this fellow sees in El Nino.

The Planet's Biggest Problems?

Hm, let's see, I would probably go with poverty, malnutrition, diseases (many of which are preventable), indoor air pollution, toxic waste, water shortages, deforestation (a lot of which is happening because of "green" energy), government corruption, and war/terrorism. Carbon dioxide going from 20 parts per million to 50 parts per million - I wouldn't even put that in the top 100.

Dean Wormer to Frank Gaffney

Hyper-partisan, chicken-hawkish, McCarthyesque, paranoiac of Sharia Law, delusional of grandeur, and now dabbling in birtherism is no way to go through life, son.

On Europe's Concern Over DDT Residue Showing up on Tobacco

I kind of agree with journalist, Richard Tren, on this one. They probably should have been more concerned about tobacco residue showing up on DDT.

Greenpeace Co-Founder, Patrick Moore, on the Current State of Radical Environmentalism

"There is no doubt that the environments of wealthy, developed countries are considerably healthier today than on the first Earth Day. Air and water are cleaner. Human life expectancies are longer. Forests are abundant and growing. Developed countries have wanted improved environments and they have been wealthy enough to afford them......................................................................................But the story is much different elsewhere. Indeed, for much of the rest of the world, conditions are worse than they should be. Ironically, the very movement that made its presence felt in rallies across this country in 1970 and that thrives in the developed world today must shoulder much of the blame for the developing world's sorry state. It is impeding both economic and environmental progress due to an agenda that is anti-development, anti- technology and, in the final analysis, anti-human........................................................................................For example, today's eco-activists boast that they have blocked more than 200 hydroelectric projects in the developing world over the past two decades. It is true that hydro power has a large ecological footprint, creating lakes and filling valleys. But it is a renewable energy that makes it possible to read after the sun goes down, boosting literacy in poor areas. It provides controlled irrigation for better crop yields and mitigates flooding and the loss of life and property damage..........................................................................................Moreover, green groups have zero-tolerance policies when it comes to genetically modified crops. This includes the genetically modified "golden rice" that could help prevent blindness in Asian and African children (as many as 500,000 go blind every year, according to the National Institutes of Health) plus hundreds of millions of others who suffer from vitamin A deficiency. Because of activist opposition to GM crops, it will be at least five years before golden rice can be planted in many parts of the developing world. That means another 2.5 million kids could go blind even though no human or natural risk is associated with planting this crop............................................................................................Indeed, many GM crops such as cotton and corn can make impoverished families wealthy enough to have dignified lives, educate their children and afford clean water and sanitation -- things we in the developed world take for granted. Farmers in Indonesia, China, Brazil, India and the Philippines are now benefiting from this technology with no demonstrable harm. Yet Greenpeace and other environmental groups oppose all GM crops and are succeeding in blocking them in many countries...........................................................................................The fear of GM crops, fed by environmentalist hysteria in Europe and the United States, has prompted a number of African countries, including Zambia and Angola, to ban U.S. food aid because it may contain GM corn. Desperate Africans have broken into government silos to take GM food aid donated by the United States that is being denied them. Yet you can go into any supermarket in these countries and buy Kellogg's corn flakes and hundreds of other prepared foods that contain GM ingredients. There are no restrictions on these foods. The people who can afford to buy them do so; yet the people too poor to purchase their next meal are denied the same foods. These policies border on genocide in the name of environmental concerns, yet environmental groups support them.................................................................................................Or consider that the pesticide DDT has been proven to radically reduce malaria in South Africa, while activist groups such as the World Wildlife Fund push for a total ban on its use. It only needs to be sprayed inside houses, where it poses no threat to the external environment, to make it effective. Despite the ability to stop malaria in its tracks with DDT -- as the United States had already done before its use was prohibited here -- 300 million people will become infected every year and at least 1 million will die, according to the World Health Organization."........................................................................................He doesn't mention it here but Moore has also spoken out against the movement's hard-core anti-mining and anti-chlorine positions. He obviously thinks that those are anti-human, too.

Eisenhower - Stevenson 1956

What would be my answer to the question, "So, when was the last time that this country had a Presidential election in which the country had a right to be proud about both candidates?"

On Florida Congressman, John Mica

Hair Club client, president, or both?

Gasoline Versus Lithium-Ion Batteries on the Energy Density Scale

Gasoline - 12,000 watt-hours per kilogram, lithium-ion batteries - 150 watt-hours per kilogram (one of the main reasons why the Tesla Roadster's battery pack weighs nearly a thousand pounds).

Groundhog Day - Electric Car Edition

"The electric automobile will quickly and easily take precedence over all other types of motor vehicles."......The "Los Angeles Times", May 19, 1901.............My response? Define quickly.

To All of You Who Think that the Advancement of Nuclear Energy Can Somehow Be Halted

You're losing!!!!! 6,700 new megawatts in South Korea. 5,000 new megawatts in Brazil. 17,000 new megawatts in China. Add to that the fact that countless other countries; India, Argentina, Finland, France, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Romania, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, etc., etc., are also adding reactors and the environmentalists really need to get a grip on this one..........................................................................As to the specific "whys" of nuclear power; a) high energy density, b) high power density, c) scale (you have any idea how much land that 17,000 megawatts in wind power would take up? - you're probably looking at an area the size of CT, MA, and RI COMBINED), d) affordability, and e) hydrocarbon free. Nuclear power, folks, the stuff is here to stay.

On MSNBC's Newest Low-Ratings Darling, Alex Smith

Will they ever run out of ignorant leftists over there?

On Radical Environmentalists

They're pro-crony-capitaism, pro-poverty, anti-science (they obviously haven't crunched the numbers pertaining to power density, energy density, scale, and cost), and a lot of their "solutions' aren't even very good for the environment (ethanol, biomass, and wind, in particular)....The truth? I'm really beginning to think that they should start their own country somewhere, where a) their homes and hospitals are powered strictly by windmills (with zero fossil backup) and solar panels and b) their autos can only be run on ethanol (they of course won't have any food left because the land will all be used up by growing corn and switchgrass to make the shit) and batteries that can only be charged by windmills (again, with zero fossil backup) and solar panels. You see, that way they could have their own little nirvana and when the rest of see just how "wonderful" it is (becoming enlightened, obviously), we can do it, too

Sean Hannity - Civil Libertarian?

Look, I have no problem with a fellow like Rand Paul expressing concerns over President Obama's kill list, his drone strikes, his targeting of Americans, etc.. Mr. Paul is a principled libertarian and I have zero doubt that he would be making these same criticisms even if the President in office was a Republican. But Hannity and his recent outrage pertaining - I ain't buyin' it. The fellow had eight long years in which he could have criticized Bush on a whole host of questionable policies and he never once uttered a peep. Yes, there's clearly been hypocrisy on the left here, too (the fact that Bush was pilloried for water-boarding and Obama is skating) but, being that I'm equal opportunity....

More on the Idiocy of Cellulosic Ethanol

1) According to the American Coalition for Ethanol website, Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues have mandated that U.S. fuel suppliers blend no less than 21 billion gallons (the equivalent of 1.4 million barrels of oil a day - roughly what we got from Venezuela in 2007) of this product into the gasoline pool every year, starting no later than 2022. The problem? Well, the problem is that the product doesn't even really exist yet (at least not in terms of commercial availability) and to say that something that they've been working on for 92 years (and to no avail) is suddenly going to spring up and replace the oil that we get from Venezuela is ludicrous (not to mention that we're probably going to have to subsidize it majorly). And, guess what, Obama seems to be fully on board as well. Oy vey, huh?............2) According to a 2008 study by Jan Kreider (a professor emeritus of engineering at the University of Colorado), the production of cellulosic ethanol requires more than 40 times more water and emits 50% MORE in terms of carbon dioxide per unit than does gasoline. Yeah, real, real green. LOL.............3) According Vaclav Smil's seminal work, "Energy at the Crossroads", cellulosic ethanol and other such biomass energy products continue to be plagued by ridiculously low power density levels (and even the energy density is only 2/3rds that of gas). He cites that, at even the most efficient of farms and plantations, the bang for the buck that you get is only about one watt per square meter. Compare this to an average natural gas well which gets you about 30 watts per square meter and the pitiful nature of it swells even more.............4) The amount of biomass that would be needed to produce those 21 billion gallons of ethanol per year? Try (and this is according to ethanol companies themselves) 485 million tons, an amount that would require approximately 42 million acres (roughly the size of Kansas) to be set aside strictly to grow switchgrass (as opposed to, I don't know, food!). Youza, huh?............5) Yes, ethanol can replace regular gas but it CANNOT replace the myriad of other products that crude oil plentifully provides us; jet fuel, diesel fuel, butane, propane, asphalt, antifreeze, tires, fertilizers, etc., etc., those things, in other words, that are actually growing the most rapidly (the Energy Information Administration is actually projecting that the demand for gasoline will probably be going down and, hence, ethanol will literally be providing us the wrong substance at the wrong time!!). I mean, duh, huh?............6) Another huge problem here is that there doesn't exist the infrastructure and/or equipment to harvest this shit. As Robert Bryce adroitly points out in his book, "Power Hungry", literally NONE of the equipment that John Deere and other companies currently manufacture would be sufficient to handle the ridiculous amounts of biomass that would be needed to produce cellulosic ethanol. None of it, unless of course Nancy Pelosi has something tucked away at one of those vineyards of hers.............7) Oh, and, yeah, let's not forget either here that ethanol is brutal on engines....In review; has extremely low power density, takes up massive amounts of land (land that could be used to grow food instead), wastes massive amounts of water, emits more CO2 than petro-fuel, isn't nearly as adaptable as crude oil, has only 2/3rds the energy density of gasoline, is brutal on engines, insufficient  infrastructure exists to produce it, will probably need to be subsidized heavily by the tax-payers, Nancy Pelosi likes it.

Note to Mrs. Obama 2

In the words of another influential first lady, next time, just say no.

On Wind Energy

The only time that it's a plus is if you're sentenced to the electric chair.

Miscellaneous 168

1) Some additional buttressing from the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons - http://www.scribd.com/doc/37484415/Edwards-DDT-A-Case-Study-in-Scientific-Fraud.............2) And these people aren't alone. The World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and the U.S. Agency for International Development ALL support the indoor spraying of DDT to combat malaria. No offense, but I think that I'm going to go with these folks over some extremist group like Greenpeace.

Miscellaneous 167

1) According to cdc.gov, it costs approximately $1.50 a year to spay one hut in Africa with DDT. That's it. And if we did this on a massive scale we could potentially save HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of lives a year, every year. What do you say that we all get over this idiotic aversion  to what is clearly one of safest and most inexpensive pesticides ever invented (and which helped to get rid of malaria in this country and which also saved thousands of soldiers' lives during WW2 from typhus and dysentery) and really make some headway here?............2) Let me throw out a question here. Let's say that you just had some major heart surgery and you ended up in the intensive care unit. What would you rather have your oxygen source and heart monitor powered by; a coal-powered or nuclear plant or a wind farm (a wind farm that is absent any fossil-fuel backup, I'm saying)? Me, I'm kind of going with the former one, thank you very much.............3) Radical environmentalists hate copper mines. They despise them. And so I almost hate to tell them that one of the key raw materials that they use to construct high powered windmills (the generator, especially) actually happens to be....COPPER!!!!!!! I mean, I know that they think that these things (along of course with their computers, cell-phones, etc., etc.) basically drop out of the sky and all, but to be THIS damned short-sighted about it, I don't know.............4) Yes, some mosquitoes have developed a resistance to DDT and that would in fact be a problem if DDT was only a toxin, BUT IT ISN'T. It's also a repellent and it's that property that could conceivably save countless lives in not just Africa but Asia and Latin America as well.

On Filmmaker James Cameron's Assertion that "We are Going to Have to Live With Less"

Well, I would probably have to go with "heal thyself". This is a fellow who owns a yacht, three houses in Malibu (none of which have solar panels or a windmill), a 100 acre ranch in Santa Barbara, a Jet Ranger helicopter, three Harley Davidsons, a Corvette, a Ducati, a Ford GT, a collection of dirt-bikes, a Humvee firetruck, and a fleet of submarines AND the dude continuously pumps out films in Hollywood that singularly produce more in terms of carbon dioxide than many American towns do in a decade. To think that anyone would so much as give this fellow the time of day on environmental matters is beyond me.

Note to Elizabeth Warren (And, Really, Massachusetts?)

Yes, madam Senator, there ARE impediments to small businesses. But they've mostly been manufactured by people like you. Don't believe me? Hm, well then maybe you'll believe the Small Business Administration. According to those folks, small business owners pay on the average 40% more (per employee; $10,585 to $7,755) for regulatory compliance than do larger businesses................................................................................And so, yeah, my question here is, have you ever even once considered that maybe, JUST MAYBE, by streamlining some of this mess (and, yes, this includes the exorbitantly high cost of licensing) and being a little bit more business friendly, you would actually be helping these folks (big businesses can afford to hire high priced attorneys to help them with this - small businesses can't)? I mean, I know that you think that more government is ALWAYS the answer and all, but maybe just on this one lone thing, OK?

On Nancy Pelosi's Plan for Medicare Being "Medicare"

Alright, let's see if I've gotten this straight here. The average person puts into Medicare $114,000 and takes out of it $355,000 and Nancy Pelosi's plan to save Medicare is to continue doing THAT? Oh my lonesome, what an idiot!

Note to Mrs. Obama

Look, you seem like a real nice lady, and you've been a very good first lady (classy, articulate, a solid role model, reasonably apolitical). But did you really have to show up at the Academy Awards like that? I mean, can't we have at least one or two safe zones where we don't have to deal with you folks; politicians, politicians' wives, etc.?...And the fact that it so clearly fed into that stereotype of Hollywood being in bed with the Democrats. Do you really and honestly feel that that needed any more in terms of stoking?

Groundhog Day - Cellulosic Ethanol Addition

"From our cellulose waste products on the farm such as straw, corn-stalks, corn cobs and all similar sorts of material we throw away, we can get, by present known methods, enough alcohol to run our automotive equipment in the United States."......Thomas Midgley, American inventor, 1921.......Hey, maybe we can get Bill Murray to play him in the movie, and Pelosi herself.

Green With Cruelty

According to the World Health Organization, as many as 1.6 MILLION people die every year due to indoor air pollution. The reason for this horror is that many people in the third world heat their dwellings and cook their food via low quality energy sources such as wood, sawdust, dung, charcoal, and palm oil. If these same people were given access to inexpensive and significantly cleaner oil-based products such as butane and propane, this death-toll would go down astronomically..........................................................................................And you want to know what else would go down? Black carbon emissions would go down, those very same black carbon emissions that end up in the arctic ice-cap and which have done more to melt it than all of the other sources combined (this, according to the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media)..................................................................................But, no, let's (from the comfort of a our electrified Nirvana) try and whip a bunch of unworkable situations (things that will never measure up in terms of scale and power density) on the developing world instead and listen to Darryl Hannah. YEAH, that's the ticket!