"Slouching Towards Fantasyland": My new article at American Thinker

American Thinker, a site I often go to for insight and commentary, this morning published my latest piece for them.  This essay addresses the leftist fantasies about so-called "green energy" and eliminating emissions.

From the article:

And then there are other considerations about the fallout from the failed fantasy.  Which would you rather have in an emergency, say, evacuating from a hurricane: a reliable car running on gasoline, or an electric vehicle without a ready charge available?  The potential loss of life from people unable to drive to safer ground would be enormous.  Or consider an electric-powered ambulance, that runs out of juice en route to the hospital with a stroke victim.

These are the realities that leftists are not acknowledging.  They refuse to accept that energy comes from something other than unicorn flatulence.  They are instead proverbially sticking their fingers in their ears while singing “La-La-La-Dee-Dah” when anyone broaches the impracticality of their intent.

Click here for the rest of the article.  And thank you to everyone who has written me e-mail about it!

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Man arrested for releasing red helium balloons for girlfriend

Found a rather strange story about Anthony Brasfield, who was arrested by the Florida Highway Patrol on a felony charge.

His crime: releasing a dozen or so red and silver heart-shaped balloons into the sky for his girlfriend.

From the article at Sun-Sentinel.com...

Also watching the romantic gesture: an FHP trooper, who instead noted probable cause for an environmental crime.

Brasfield was charged with polluting to harm humans, animals, plants, etc. under the Florida Air and Water Pollution Control Act.

Endangered marine turtle species and birds, such as wood storks and brown pelicans, seek refuge in John U. Lloyd State Park, about 1.5 miles east of the motel.

Between 2008 and 2012, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said there were 21 arrests statewide under the rarely used environmental crime statute. The third-degree felony is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Five years in prison for setting loose some cheap helium balloons? He should feel lucky. Back in the old days, releasing red balloons into the air could possibly trigger World War III.


I'll 'fess up: in addition to this being a screwy story about environmentalism gone amok, I just wanted a reason to post Nena's "99 Red Balloons" video.

(And yes, I know the original German title is "99 Luftballons"...)

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We'll be starving to death... but at least we'll be driving cleaner cars!

The drought in the Midwest is causing the price of food to soar worldwide. Especially for corn and corn-based products.

It could be less though in spite of the recent weather. That is, if more corn were available as feed for livestock farmers. But the Obama Administration refuses to let those farmers and ranchers have the needed corn. Instead, the corn is being used to fulfill government "mandates" for ethanol in gasoline. And it's making corn drastically scarce to those who depend on farming livestock (and who the rest of us depend upon in turn).

We don't need ethanol to survive. We do need food, however.

Can't help but be reminded of the government-enforced devastation that Ma Chalmers and her soybean worshipers wracked in Atlas Shrugged...

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Over-the-counter asthma inhalers banned after December 31st

Did Armstrong Pharmaceutical not pay enough kickback to President Obama's campaign?

Well, I had to wonder that, given that the federal government is BANNING Primatene Mist from being sold after this coming December 31st! If you're an asthma sufferer, you're gonna have to get a doctor's prescription in order to purchase an inhaler that doesn't use a CFC agent as its propellant.

Yeah you're inferring correctly, Dear Reader: the Environmental Protection Agency, in collusion with the Food and Drug Administration, have decreed that those little asthma inhalers are dangerous to the ozone layer. I suppose that while you're gasping for breath on the way to your physician, that you can take heart knowing that the Obama Administration is sacrificing your good health for sake of a polar bear or spotted owl.

But seriously: What. The. F-CK?!?

It was twenty years ago this summer that Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted. That one volcanic event spewed more toxic chemicals into the atmosphere than all of human activity in the past century (to say nothing of other eruptions, like Mount St. Helens and similar incidents). The Earth's atmosphere has suffered far greater detriment because of geological activity than anything we could possibly do on our own... and yet the ozone layer has not only survived but it has also repaired itself.

And now Obama's government expects us to believe that those tiny asthma inhalers... which are needed by millions of people... are a dire environmental threat?!

What the hell has happened to my country? More to the point: what has happened to us? The citizens of America didn't use to put up with bullshit like this.

(Yeah I said "bullshit". A word that I use extremely rarely. I honestly can't find a better word to express my incredulity at this situation.)

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Oh crap, I missed Earth Hour!

While every other conscientious person on the planet was turning their lights out between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. local time, I was burning through Lord only knows how many BTUs of propane in a gas-powered forge turned up full blast, and then employing some industrial-strength metalworking equipment that uses up lots of electricity in Dad's knifemaking shop.

Because of me, Earth is teetering that much closer to doom! What ever shall I do for penance?

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Climate data was DUMPED, East Anglia scientists admit

"Climategate" is a little over a week old but already is gaining steam faster than most scandals. Curiously most of the "mainstream press" has yet to pick up on it. Out of embarrassment, perhaps?

Well, this next item of news related to last week's leaking of confidential material from the Climate Research Unit outta raise ire even more: scientists at University East Anglia are now confessing to disposing of ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS worth of climate data! There is now no raw data to analyze and determine if there has been any real global warming... or global cooling for that matter.

What the hell kind of researchers throws away a century and a half of raw data upon which their studies are based? That's like a courtroom prosecutor chucking out all the evidence in the hopes that a jury will simply take him at his word that the defendant on trial is a serial murderer.

(Methinks that while we're using legal metaphor, that there is becoming a growing body of proof that "scientists" worldwide have been engaging in a gross act of scheming to defraud in the first degree.)

Seriously: how much storage is required to contain all that data? A regular 500 gigabyte hard drive like the kind probably in your computer? Likely not even that much. So they can't excuse this away by claiming that there "wasn't enough room" to keep the raw data. The CRU eggheads have a lotta 'splainin' to do...

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Ahead of his time: Michael Crichton on the global warming fraud

"F---ing pissed!" And that was one of the more polite e-mails that have come in since Friday afternoon when this blog and many others spread the news about the Climate Research Unit at University of East Anglia getting hacked. That 61-megabyte .zip archive has gone viral across the Intertubes and bunches of blood-boiling stuff is still being gleaned from the correspondence between climate "scientists" that points to a decades-long conspiracy to promote paranoia about global warming at cost of rigorous and honest study.

Well, many people have been saying for a long time that global warming is fake. And few argued against global warming as articulately and passionately as did Michael Crichton. The acclaimed bestselling author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain addressed global warming in his novel State of Fear. It was one year ago this month that Crichton passed away, but I've no doubt that he would have been very pleased with this weekend's news... and would probably smile from knowing he was so far ahead of the curve. If you're interested in some serious discussion about the Earth and its climate, I greatly recommend reading Crichton's 2005 lecture "Complexity Theory and Environmental Management". It's a rather long read, but one rife with all sorts of solid information (the thing about Chernobyl severely made my jaw drop).

And I'm gonna do something that I've never done before: if you maintain a blog, SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE HACKING OF THE CRU! I'm seeing the traditional press start to finally disseminate this news, but they're (perhaps understandably but that's still no excuse) being awfully slow-pokish about it. This very well might be the biggest scam in modern history, when you consider all the money that's been wasted and legislation that's been enforced in the name of "global warming". Should that make everyone "f---ing pissed"?!? Yer #&@%ed right it should!!

If sincere investigation bears out that this has been a fraud, then careers must be forever destroyed and I'll even suggest that a lot of climate con-artists need to be strung up from the nearest telephone poles by their circular reproductive units. With piano wire.

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About the "climate" bill that just passed the U.S. House...

I don't mind saying this aloud at all:

Any so-called "legislator" who votes on a bill WITHOUT READING THE FRICKIN' THING needs to be dragged out into the street and shot.

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Funniest DILBERT cartoon ever

Yesterday's Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams brought whole new meaning to the term "comic strip" (while also skewering the entire "green" movement). Click to enlarge...

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Today was EARTH Day?!

I thought it was NERF Day!

No wonder people kept staring at me when I was bouncing that ball everywhere I went...

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Potential breakthrough in creation of renewable oil receiving too little attention?

WorldNetDaily has published a story about a new process that, if it's economically viable, would use bacteria to break down organic matter like grass clippings and wood chips and convert it into cheap hydrocarbons: the basis of gasoline and diesel fuel. Which would mean a renewable supply of oil for the first time in human history. The guy who came up with the process has calculated that from 2 billion tons of biomass, 5 billion barrels of oil could be made each year.

Based on what I've read about it, it makes plenty of sense. Consider that this organic material received its energy from the Sun to begin with. Why just let it rot and waste when it could be recycled... and without any deleterious impact on the environment that comes from drilling, as alleged by some. Ecologically and economically, it's a bank shot if it works.

But the proponents of the plan are now claiming that there is a veritable conspiracy at work to prevent news of their discovery from getting out. The national "mainstream" news media is refusing to touch the story... which in the minds of too many Americans means that the story isn't happening at all, even if it were to wind up being amazingly true.

So we might have a way to produce our own oil, and kiss OPEC goodbye... but there may be some who don't want word of this to get out? Not even to the people who may soon be paying $4 a gallon for gas by the end of summer?

Here's that link again. Feel free to read it and judge for yourself.

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Google fumbling around in the dark with silly "awareness" campaign

If you go to Google today this is what you'll see ...

Google, which for various reasons is a company I otherwise have lots of respect for, has blackened its page for "Earth Hour" today. According to the material at the link ...

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.

So by asking everyone to turn out the lights for an hour, this event's organizers believe that this will accomplish something meaningful?

Ha!

This whole thing is a stunt. As is everything motivated by "awareness" pretty much. A year from now it will barely be remembered at all. I do believe in being responsible with the environment, as wise stewards and custodians over it. And I certainly believe that mankind's activity over the past two hundred years has had an effect on the Earth: how could it not?

That said, Earth Hour is still just another one of those "flashes in the pan" intended to let people feel good about themselves and delude them into thinking that they just did something that "really matters" when in fact they haven't done anything at all. And I hate that kind of thing. Along with so much else it distracts us from taking hold of our own lives, and belittles us into thinking we have to "join the group" in order to make the most of our time on Earth. And we get so pressed to "help the cause" that we don't stop to look at who is leading this movement or to where, exactly.

I've watched this sort of nonsense ever since Earth Day in 1990. Enough to say with utter conviction that darn nearly all of the "environmental movement" is driven by politics and not about sincere concern for the Earth at all. And that's why I refuse to have anything to do with radical environmentalism: it is an inherently corrupt movement that creates more problems than it solves.

Besides, as I wrote on this blog more than 3 years ago, humanity can not destroy the Earth. It is absolutely beyond our technology.

In the meantime, I wish Google would go back to their white scheme: some people are complaining already about the pitch-black look.

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Women who won't have babies "for the good of the planet"

This may be one of the most screwball things that I've ever read. And I've read plenty of screwball in my short time in this world...

There's a story at the Daily Mail website about women who refuse to get pregnant. Who have gone so far as to choose to be sterilized. Because to them, babies are "not eco friendly". They have rendered themselves incapable of having babies to "protect the planet".

So in order to preserve the beauty of the Earth, it now becomes morally righteous to wipe out people who can enjoy and appreciate that beauty. Ooh-kaaaaaay...

I long ago came to distrust Radical Environmentalism (which I capitalize because it really has become a religion as much as Christianity or Buddhism or what have you). Radical Environmentalism is the "observer effect" taken to an ecclesiastical extreme and turned into a weird cult of neo-flagellants. I have never understood why some people believe that the possession of conscious thought is grounds for ecological segregation. Man is not a thing apart from the environment: man is an active component of the environment.

And the idea that man must be diminished or even banished entirely from that environment in order to "preserve" it is absolutely insane. Even on a strictly "environmentalist" level it makes no sense, because for radical environmentalism of this sort to be valid, it must be true that Earth's environment exists in a pristine, static state without flux or change. We know that this is not true at all: Earth's environment is constantly changing, caused by factors well beyond our control and influence. Those include solar radiation, magma displacement far underground, genetic mutation (such as the periodic shifting of the flu virus), many other things. So the rabid environmentalist mindset is already something wildly illogical.

Here is where Radical Environmentalism differs from conservation, which is a good thing. Conservation does embrace the fact that man is part of the environment, and maintains that we are to be stewards of the land as best we can. Conservation has us as participants in the world, while extreme Environmentalism makes us a disease to be cut out.

But let's cut to the real problem with Radical Environmentalism: as happens all too often with religion, it's purpose has become that of power and control over other people. And apparently, it is a religion much like that of Molech in the time of the Old Testament, where the highest sign of devotion was to sacrifice your own child. Now we have women sacrificing their own wombs to demonstrate fealty to their idol. Would these women have done such a thing, had they not wanted a sense of empowerment and decided that it was worth sacrificing their identities and their flesh for that measure of power? Probably not. But such is the allure of the collective mind.

Sad. Just very, very sad...

Kinda makes you wonder if watching Children of Men should be required in high school biology classrooms. Hey if An Inconvenient Truth can be mandatory viewing , why not a movie about what happens when there are no more babies being born?

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