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Morning Roundup

Monday, March 14th, 2011

Let’s review:

It didn’t take long for the left’s anti-science bias use the natural disasters in Japan to push their agenda:

Let’s review the facts of the matter, the nuclear power plant safety systems *survived the 8.9 magnitude earthquake*.

That is worth repeating. The nuclear power plant safety systems still functioned after a 8.9 magnitude earthquake.

It took an 8.9 magnitude earthquake, closely followed by a major tsunami to take them out.

Meanwhile, in California, dozens of people are killed by a natural gas explosion because the gas company can’t keep track of the type of pipe they have buried.

If you want to donate to a relief group that will help the Japanese people, check out Americares or the American Red Cross.

Don’t worry, our Dear Leader isn’t missing his regular 18 holes of golf because of the crisis in Japan.

Former democrat President Bill Clinton is channeling Sarah Palin now, and not how you would think.  Mr. Clinton is speaking out against our Dear Leader‘s ban on off shore drilling.

James O’Keefe exposed racism at NPR, which most of the MSM is strangely (or not so strangely) quiet about.

Liberals and socialists are mean-spirited, but we knew that…

 

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Good advice from Dr. Pournelle

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Dr Pournelle writes the following words of wisdom.

we must expand domestic energy production, and we ought not a priori rule out any of the methods: coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and yes, wind, solar, and biofuels. However, we need to have some priorities here. The urgent need is massive amounts of energy now, both for static installations — factories, homes, street lights, and so forth — and transportation. For static installations the primary fuel now is coal, followed by oil (for heating homes). For transportation we burn oil, much of which must be imported. We don’t import coal.

The first order of business, then, is to increase domestic oil production and refining, but that’s a temporary measure, and has environmental consequences. We can tolerate some smog better than we can tolerate bankruptcy, but we’d prefer to avoid both. Over time we can phase in natural gas, which is also a good source for electric generation. Note that it takes energy to develop and produce sustainable energy sources: with cheap enough energy, the price of solar cells will fall. Solar cells produce low voltage energy, good for supplementing central power grids. Solar electric is very useful for home lighting and air conditioning and other on-site uses, and leaving out the conversion systems for putting that trickle into the grid makes the initial installation cheaper as well. If the overall cost of solar cells is low enough, there will be more such uses.

And of course when we mention electric power, the gorilla in the parlor is nuclear: we have the technology, and we ran the most expensive destructive test in history at Three Mile Island, where we learned that even when everything goes wrong the costs are economic, not a public health disaster. France and Japan have demonstrated nuclear’s long term cost effectiveness.

Our first order of business ought to be to reverse Jimmy Carter’s disastrous stoppage of spent fuel recycling, and start building nuclear power plants. Cheap electricity won’t free us from the billion a day we export to buy oil, but it will go a long way toward letting us develop the means to use natural gas and domestic oil to make us North America energy independent. Once we’re on that path we can have a good look at how biofuels fit into the pattern of sustainable energy; but that, I would say, is nowhere near the top of the priority list. In A Step Farther Out I showed that biofuels can be useful. I fear I didn’t make it clear enough that it wasn’t the top priority. Of course when I wrote that I didn’t know just how much energy trouble we would be in, although I should have: After all, those were the times when I wrote my major series “Our Looming Energy Crisis.”

Cheap energy is good for the economy. The 90’s economy was floated on cheap oil (around $20-$25 a barrel), and a new economic boom could be floated on cheap electricity. The trick is that you need much more than solar & wind can produce. For that you have to go nuclear.

If anyone is concerned about the environmental impact of increasing the number of Nuclear Power plants, get thee to a library and read Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy by Gwyneth Cravens.  This book is by an environmentalist opposed to Nuclear Energy, but  did actual, honest research on the subject and came to the conclusion that only Nuclear Power can provide the base load of clean electricity needed. Actual science trumps rhetoric.  This was my Monday Book Pick for May 11, 2009 BTW…

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Overcoming Liberalism: Step 8

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

Step 8 of 12: The earth is not your “mother”, and she’s not dying

The time has now come to stop your donations to Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, and every other EnviroNazi organization to which you belong. Face the reality that the earth, society and our environment are better off today than ever in recorded history and that they are continuing to improve. I realize that many of you tree huggers will have a very difficult time letting go of the Douglas Fir on this one. I would suggest reading The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. Mr. Lomborg is a former member of Greenpeace and is currently a statistics professor at a university in Denmark. He set out to prove the world was in bad shape and ended up surprising himself by proving the exact opposite.

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Biofuel from Coffee grounds

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Amazing stuff coffee. In addtion to it’s other amazing properties, including being good for the roses, the grounds can be used to produce biofuel.

The estimates are the coffee ground biodiesel industry could generate as much as $8,000,000 in profits annually using waste from Starbucks stores here in the United States  alone.  Ok, probably less given falling crude oil prices, but I’m still a big fan of any domestic fuel souces.

To add to the overall awesomeness of coffee, at the end of the biodiesel extraction and conversion process, the leftover grounds can be turned into fuel pellets for wood stoves and boilers.

Not only does coffee keep you moving, it can keep your car moving and heats your home!

Originally posted at Urbin Technology

Update: Crude prices have reversed the downward trend that was in place when this article was first posted (December 2008).  They are now pushing $100 a barrel and don’t show any signs of slowing down.  Starbucks brand biofuel made right here in the USA is starting to look like a good business opportunity.

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Monday Book Pick: Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist

Monday, January 24th, 2011

Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist by Patrick Albert Moore

Speaking of Evniromentalists and watermelons, this week’s pick is by a founder of Greenpeace. This book is by someone who actually cares about the planet, who quit the organization he helped found after it was taken over by socialists using the environmental movement to push their political agenda. Here is the money quote from a recent article by Moore:

The collapse of world communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall during the 1980s added to the trend toward extremism. The Cold War was over and the peace movement was largely disbanded. The peace movement had been mainly Western-based and anti-American in its leanings. Many of its members moved into the environmental movement, bringing with them their neo-Marxist, far-left agendas. To a considerable extent the environmental movement was hijacked by political and social activists who learned to use green language to cloak agendas that had more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization than with science or ecology. I remember visiting our Toronto office in 1985 and being surprised at how many of the new recruits were sporting army fatigues and red berets in support of the Sandinistas.

Oh ya, a watermelon is a politie term to describe those folks in the red berets, a thin skin of green, but red to the core.

HT to AoSH, who also has this bonus video by Michael Crichton

Monday Book Pick Archive

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Monday Book Pick: Paradise Regained: The Regreening of Earth

Monday, January 17th, 2011

Paradise Regained: The Regreening of Earth by Les Johnson, Gregory L. Matloff and C. Bangs.

A bit of hard science for you geeks and Greenies (real greenies, not watermelons), describing on how to use resources of the solar system for terrestrial benefit. Yup, going to space is good for Mother Gaia. Move your hard industry and power production to Earth orbit and mine the resources of the Solar System.

Monday Book Pick Archive

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Political Humor

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

A young woman from Los Angeles, CA who was a tree hugger, a liberal Democrat, an anti-hunter, and possibly a cousin of Julia Butterfly’s, purchased a piece of timberland near Colville, WA. There were many large, old trees on one of the highest points in the tract. She wanted a good view of the natural splendor of her land so she started to climb the biggest tree. As she neared the top she encountered a spotted owl that attacked her. In her haste to escape, the woman slid down the tree to the ground and got many splinters in her crotch.

In considerable pain, she hurried to Mt. Carmel ER to see a doctor. She told him she was an environmentalist, a democrat, and an anti-hunter and how she came to get all the splinters. The doctor listened to her story with great patience and then told her to go wait in the examining room and he would see if he could help her.

She sat and waited three hours before the doctor reappeared. The angry woman demanded, “What took you so long?” He smiled and then told her, “Well, I had to get permits from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management before I could remove old-growth timber from a recreational area. I’m sorry, but due to Obama Care, they turned me down.”

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A damn good question

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

Far Left Extremist Bill Maher asks:

‘Why Isn’t Barack Obama Getting More S–t For This’ Oil Spill?

Maher used to be a stand up comic, i.e. someone who made their living by observing humanity and asking the questions other people missed. That is exactly what he is doing here. He is pointing out the obscene level of hypocrisy being shown by the MSM.

MAHER: I’ll tell you who I’m really mad at which is Barack Obama. Couple of weeks ago, the President, our President said, “It turns out the oil rigs today generally don’t cause oil spills. They are technologically very advanced.” Now if, if I was quoting George Bush, this crowd would be laughing in hysterics.

LAURA TYSON, ECONOMIST AND FORMER CLINTON ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes they would.

MAHER: So, why isn’t Barack Obama getting more shit for this? I think he should.

This oil spill is Obama’s Katrina, and if the MSM was mildly honest, that is how they would be reporting this story.

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Happy Lenin’s Birthday!

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Yup, “Earth Day” is on Lenin’s Birthday.  Not a coincidence, given that the “founder” of Earth Day was much more a “Watermelon” than an actual environmentalist.

Watermelon: Thin layer of green of the outside, red to the core.

So, we are going to look back at some Lenin’s Birthday classics, including this clip from the late George Carlin.

Let us not forget this list of Earth Day Predictions from 1970

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….” — Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

Ok, Ehrlich was sorta right on this, if you restrict his predictions to modern Communist China, where they are showing the typical communist/socialist contempt for the environment.

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Now we get to my personal favorite, although probably not Al Gore’s…
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Remember kids, there is way to get  Clean Energy and plenty of it

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Is Obama going Nuclear?

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

It seems that our Dear Leader may actually keep one of his promises. According to Townhall.com:

The Obama administration’s planned loan guarantee to build the first nuclear power plant in the U.S in almost three decades is part of a broad shift in energy strategy to lessen dependence on foreign oil and reduce the use of other fossil fuels blamed for global warming.

President Barack Obama called for “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” in his Jan. 27 State of the Union speech and followed that by proposing to triple loan guarantees for new nuclear plants. He wants to use nuclear power and other alternative sources of energy in his effort to shift energy policy.

Obama in the coming week will announce the loan guarantee to build the nuclear power plant, an administration official said Friday. The two new Southern Co. reactors to be built in Burke, Ga., are part of a White House energy plan that administration officials hope will draw Republican support.

Yup, safe, clean nuclear energy. Plentiful electrical energy completely free of greenhouse gases.
Also good for the economy, as Dr. Pournelle stated:

I have to say it again: cheap energy will cause a boom. The only cheap energy I know of is nuclear. Three Hundred Billion bucks in nuclear power will do wonders for the economy. We build 100 1000 MegaWatt nuclear power plants — they will cost no more than 2 billion each and my guess is that the average cost will be closer to 1 billion each (that is the first one costs about 20 billion and the 100th costs about 800 million). The rest of the money goes to prizes and X projects to convert electricity into mobility.

Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore also thinks it is the ecologically sound thing to do.

I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists in changing my mind on this subject. British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear energy is the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change. Stewart Brand, founder of the “Whole Earth Catalog,” says the environmental movement must embrace nuclear energy to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. On occasion, such opinions have been met with excommunication from the anti-nuclear priesthood: The late British Bishop Hugh Montefiore, founder and director of Friends of the Earth, was forced to resign from the group’s board after he wrote a pro-nuclear article in a church newsletter.

Over the past 20 years, one of the simplest tools — the machete — has been used to kill more than a million people in Africa, far more than were killed in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings combined. What are car bombs made of? Diesel oil, fertilizer and cars. If we banned everything that can be used to kill people, we would never have harnessed fire.

the 103 nuclear plants operating in the United States effectively avoid the release of 700 million tons of CO2emissions annually — the equivalent of the exhaust from more than 100 million automobiles. Imagine if the ratio of coal to nuclear were reversed so that only 20 percent of our electricity was generated from coal and 60 percent from nuclear. This would go a long way toward cleaning the air and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Every responsible environmentalist should support a move in that direction.

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