Video clip of the day

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Starting Jan. 1 and because of a law signed by President Bush back in 2007, the trusty incandescent light bulb will be effectively banned and replaced by the expensive, mercury-filled, takes-forever-to-fully-illuminate compact fluorescent light bulb or CFL.


Reason.tv casts a mournful eye back on our 100+ year relationship with the incandescent bulb.

How can government tell me what to put in my Lite Brite?

While doing a search of what we had written previously regarding the CFLs, we noted that General Electric was very active in the lobbying effort to get incandescents banned in favor of the CFLs.

However, the dirty little secret is that G.E. lobbied for these regulatory changes contained within the 2007 Energy bill. The opportunity to mandate that consumers buy the more expensive fluorescents with the additional benefit of having them manufactured on the cheap in China was one that G.E. was not going to pass up.

So to recap: More expensive bulbs? Check. Bulbs that cost American jobs? Check. Bulbs that contain an element, Mercury, that is on every banned-list that we are aware of, including the construction program we are currently working on? Check. Bulbs that allow G.E. some back-slapping smuggery that they are doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’t, yea, for the environment? Double-check.

And don’t be at all surprised if at this very moment, G.E. is working on a patent for curbside pick-up of those mercury-containing light bulbs to be disposed of in a proper fashion. For a small fee, of course.

Corporate rent-seeking that costs U.S. jobs, decreases the purchasing power of the American consumer and is bad for the environment? Yep. Pretty much sums up the American economy, currently.

Big Media narrative fail

The L.A. Times would like you to know that things are so quiet along the Mexican border that, doggone it, our border patrol agents are having a tough time staying awake on the job.

The border fence ran right in front of Jeff Byerly's post, a straight line of steel that stretched beyond town and deep into the desert. As a U.S. Border Patrol agent on America's front line, Byerly's job was to stop anyone from scaling the barrier. Hours into his midnight shift, his stare was still fixed, but all was quiet.

He pounded energy drinks. He walked around his government vehicle. On the other side of the fence, the bars in the Mexican town of San Luis Rio Colorado closed, and only the sound of a passing car broke the silence. Byerly, 31, switched on his DVD player. Minutes later, a supervisor knocked on the window: The slapstick comedy "Johnny English" was on; Byerly was fast asleep.

Wild foot chases and dust-swirling car pursuits may be the adrenaline-pumping stuff of recruitment efforts, but agents on the U.S.-Mexico border these days have to deal with a more mundane occupational reality: the boredom of guarding a frontier where illegal crossings have dipped to record low levels.

Porous corridors along the 2,000-mile border do remain, mostly in the Tucson area, requiring constant vigilance. But beefed-up enforcement and the job-killing effects of the great recession have combined to reduce the flood of immigrants in many former hot spots to a trickle.

Let's now take a break from the narrative and check back in with reality.

The federal government’s failure to protect Americans from foreign drug cartels, human smugglers, and potential terrorists was echoed by Richard M. Stana, the Government Accountability Office’s director of homeland security and justice issues, who told the Senate Homeland Security Committee last month that the federal government has operational control of only 129 miles of the southern border, which presumably includes the extra five miles that took federal bureaucrats the last two years to negotiate.


“The difficulties encountered by the Border Patrol to gain operational control are not the result of poor management or lack of resources,” Gene Wood, former deputy chief patrol agent in the Tucson Sector, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Natural Resources Committee last week. “It is simply an issue of denied access” by the Interior Department - which is clearly more interested in antelope than in national security.

“Environmental policies cannot take precedent over the safety and security of all Americans and that is exactly what is occurring today,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.

Rep. Bishop has introduced a bill that would prohibit Interior from using environmental regulations to prevent the Border Patrol from doing its job.

As our border with Mexico runs 1,954 miles that would be approximately 7 percent of that border of which we have control.




And as far as the environment goes...

...perhaps allowing the Border Patrol to do their job might be of some actual value to the Department of the Interior. Just a thought.

Greening us back to the dark ages

The newly-mandated CFL bulbs are difficult enough to dispose of let alone clean up should you break one (more on that later), it turns out the Curly Fry Lights may not even be safe to turn on.

(via Doo Doo Economics):

Energy saving light bulbs 'contain cancer causing chemicals'


Fears have been reignited about the safety of energy saving light bulbs after a group of scientists warned that they contain cancer causing chemicals.

Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on.

Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin's Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”

The bulbs are already widely used in the UK following EU direction to phase out traditional incandescent lighting by the end of this year.

But the German scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene.

Andreas Kirchner, of the Federation of German Engineers, said: “Electrical smog develops around these lamps.

“I, therefore, use them only very economically. They should not be used in unventilated areas and definitely not in the proximity of the head.”

British experts insisted that more research was needed and urged consumers not to panic.

Don't panic? That's funny because we have a different way of doing things over here, especially in California where we promptly enact carbon emissions legislation based upon a highly-dubious study authored by a hack who received his "doctorate" from a diploma mill back in New York.

So, just to be on the safe side, it appears that it is simpler to just keep the damn things turned off.



Now, while you are busy not turning on your CFL and waiting hopefully in the dark for an incandescent bulb black market to emerge and you happen to break one of your CFLs, what to do?

As a public service, BwD has provided not just the link but the full text of clean-up procedures as outlined by the federal Environmental Protection Agency:

Before Cleanup

•Have people and pets leave the room, and avoid the breakage area on the way out.
•Open a window or door to the outdoors and leave the room for 5-10 minutes.
•Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning (H&AC) system, if you have one.
•Collect materials you will need to clean up the broken bulb:
◦Stiff paper or cardboard
◦Sticky tape (e.g., duct tape)
◦Damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces)
◦Glass jar with a metal lid (such as a canning jar) or a sealable plastic bag(s)

Cleanup Steps for Hard Surfaces

•Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place debris and paper/cardboard in a glass jar with a metal lid. If a glass jar is not available, use a sealable plastic bag. (NOTE: Since a plastic bag will not prevent the mercury vapor from escaping, remove the plastic bag(s) from the home after cleanup.)
•Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. Place the used tape in the glass jar or plastic bag.
•Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place the towels in the glass jar or plastic bag.
•Vacuuming of hard surfaces during cleanup is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken. [NOTE: It is possible that vacuuming could spread mercury-containing powder or mercury vapor, although available information on this problem is limited.] If vacuuming is needed to ensure removal of all broken glass, keep the following tips in mind:
◦Keep a window or door to the outdoors open;
◦Vacuum the area where the bulb was broken using the vacuum hose, if available; and
◦Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister) and seal the bag/vacuum debris, and any materials used to clean the vacuum, in a plastic bag.
•Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials, including vacuum cleaner bags, outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly.
◦Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your area. Some states and communities require fluorescent bulbs (broken or unbroken) be taken to a local recycling center.
•Wash your hands with soap and water after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing bulb debris and cleanup materials.
•Continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the H&AC system shut off, as practical, for several hours.

Cleanup Steps for Carpeting or Rugs

•Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place debris and paper/cardboard in a glass jar with a metal lid. If a glass jar is not available, use a sealable plastic bag. (NOTE: Since a plastic bag will not prevent the mercury vapor from escaping, remove the plastic bag(s) from the home after cleanup.)
•Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. Place the used tape in the glass jar or plastic bag.
•Vacuuming of carpeting or rugs during cleanup is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken. [NOTE: It is possible that vacuuming could spread mercury-containing powder or mercury vapor, although available information on this problem is limited.] If vacuuming is needed to ensure removal of all broken glass, keep the following tips in mind:

◦Keep a window or door to the outdoors open;
◦Vacuum the area where the bulb was broken using the vacuum hose, if available, and
◦Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister) and seal the bag/vacuum debris, and any materials used to clean the vacuum, in a plastic bag.
•Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials, including vacuum cleaner bags, outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly.
◦Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your area. Some states and communities require fluorescent bulbs (broken or unbroken) be taken to a local recycling center.
•Wash your hands with soap and water after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing bulb debris and cleanup materials.
•Continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the H&AC system shut off, as practical, for several hours.

Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rugs: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming

•The next several times you vacuum the rug or carpet, shut off the H&AC system if you have one, close the doors to other rooms, and open a window or door to the outside before vacuuming. Change the vacuum bag after each use in this area.
•After vacuuming is completed, keep the H&AC system shut off and the window or door to the outside open, as practical, for several hours.

Wham-Bam, thank you, Ma'am!



Exit question: Is is just us or is the reality of compact fluorescent lightbulbs approaching that of ethanol in its completely economical, environmental and effectiveness counter-intuitivity?

Ethanol: just in time for a global food crisis

It's been a while but there's been some exciting new developments on the ethanol front. Or as we like to refer to it: the absolute worst energy idea ever.

Who's up for some food riots and sky-rocketing food prices?

World wheat and maize prices have risen 57%, rice 45% and sugar 55% over the last six months and soybeans are at their highest price for 16 months.

UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, says a combination of environmental degradation, urbanisation and large-scale land acquisitions by foreign investors for biofuels is squeezing land suitable for agriculture.

"Worldwide, 5m to 10m hectares of agricultural land are being lost annually due to severe degradation and another 19.5m are lost for industrial uses and urbanisation," he says in a new report.

"But the pressure on land resulting from these factors has been boosted in recent years by policies favouring large-scale industrial plantations.

"According to the World Bank, more than one-third of large-scale land acquisitions are intended to produce agrofuels."

(italics, ours)

Sure, there are many factors that go into what determines the price of food but explain to us how taking arable land out of food production helps increase the world food supply?

And on the environmental front, ethanol has proven itself to be so green and wonderful for the environment, this is what the EPA has to say about some key pollutants:

At the same time, other vehicle emissions may increase as a result of greater renewable fuel use. Nationwide, EPA estimates an increase in total emissions of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides (VOC + NOx) between 41,000 and 83,000 tons. However, the effects will vary significantly by region. Areas that already are using ethanol will experience little or no change in emissions or air quality. However, those areas that experience a substantial increase in ethanol may see an increase in VOC emissions between 4 and 5 percent and an increase in NOx emissions between 6 and 7 percent from gasoline powered vehicles and equipment.

This comes precisely at the time that the government is cracking down on both Volatile Organic Compounds and Nitrogen-Oxides.

So, armed with this knowledge, what do you think the feds do as Big Ethanol is sitting on a glut of its snake oil? Of course...

For months, administration officials have been hinting that the EPA would approve the ethanol industry’s request for an increase in blend volumes. The industry desperately needs a bailout, because it has built far too many distilleries over the past few years. As Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, explained, “We have lots of gallons of ethanol chasing too few gallons of gasoline.”

And sure enough, back on October 13th, the EPA granted Big Ethanol its wish when it approved an increase in the amount of ethanol that can be blended into gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent. 2/3rds more of a corrosive, hydrophilic, low-heat content element will now be allowed to be blended into our fuel.

This move comes on top of the reality of an already highly-fractured market where refineries in this country produce 45 different blends of gasoline and multiple blends of diesel. The cost of managing this hydra (different fuel pumps, different underground storage tanks) will simply be passed along to the consumer.

There's actually more breaking news that we will share later but we're running long here. When the tingle wears off, go on over to our blog buddy Harrison's place, who, like us, is very excited for the prospects of ethanol.

More expensive, drives up the cost of food, not good for the environment, heavily subsidized and thus highly politicized... what's not to love about ethanol?

Go with what you know

The Chi-comms take a page out of The Great Leap Forward playbook for their comprehensive macro-economic industrial base strategy:

Chinese steel mills and mobile phone factories are being idled and thousands of homes in one area are doing without electricity as local governments order power cuts to meet energy-saving targets set by Beijing.

Rolling blackouts and enforced power cuts are affecting key industrial areas. The prosperous eastern city of Taizhou turned off street lights and ordered hotels and shopping malls to cut power use. In Anping County southwest of Beijing, an area known as China's wire-manufacturing capital, thousands of factories and homes have endured daylong blackouts over the past two weeks.

"We can't meet deadlines for some orders and will have to pay penalties," said Han Hongmai, general manager of Anping's Jintai Metal Wire Co. "At home we can't use the toilet" on blackout days due to lack of power for water pumps, he said.

The reason for these shut-downs is mandatory energy efficiency goals dictated by the central government that are not being met.

Some industrious plants/factories still wishing to fulfill production goals while their power is cut, resort to firing up older on-site diesel generators which, of course, is not what you would consider environmentally friendly.

And dig this:

"You could say local governments are trying to blackmail the central government: If you order me to do something I can't deliver, I will pass on the pressure to ordinary people," said Yang Ailun, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace China.

An autocratic central government dictating terms of business to semi-nationalized industries who simply promise to pass along the pain to their costumers...? Over here we call that ObamaCare.

Reading the article, one gets the impression that the Chinese economy is one where an action or series of top-down decrees causes a spastic reaction that is responded to in turn by yet more top-down decrees by the Chi-comms. From our vantage point the Chinese economy is one massive back and forth flail.

Thomas Friedman likes this.

Link of the day

Plot: Lone figure works to uncover a nefarious government-sponsored conspiracy that involves the environmental and economical fate of millions of Californians.

For those of you waiting for the Hollywood blockbuster on order of Erin Brockovich/Silkwood/China Syndrome, we would suggest not holding your breath.

Temple of Mut has the details, here.

Leaking away

Peggy Noonan writing in today's Wall St. Journal:

The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the president and his administration, and that is no cause for joy. It's not good to have a president in this position—weakened, polarizing and lacking broad public support—less than halfway through his term. That it is his fault is no comfort. It is not good for the stability of the world, or its safety, that the leader of "the indispensable nation" be so weakened. I never until the past 10 years understood the almost moral imperative that an American president maintain a high standing in the eyes of his countrymen.
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But Republicans should beware, and even mute their mischief. We're in the middle of an actual disaster. When they win back the presidency, they'll probably get the big California earthquake. And they'll probably blow it. Because, ironically enough, of a hard core of truth within their own philosophy: when you ask a government far away in Washington to handle everything, it will handle nothing well.

Yep.

Believe it. We take no pleasure in a weakened American Presidency. It's bad for us, not good for our allies and only incentivizes the ill behavior of the globe's bad actors.

Here's what we are trying to wrap our brain around, however: The hyper-power he has exerted here domestically is in stark contrast to the apologetic and submissive weakness he has exhibited abroad. But when we really did need it here domestically - when we needed the laser-like focus his administration displayed in the Chrysler and General Motors bankruptcy cramdowns and the brute "by any means necessary" force employed by his people with respect to healthcare legislation no one wanted, the President in most respects voted "present".

The one cause everyone could get behind, the one thing everyone knew we had to do something about and where sins of commission would certainly be forgiven over those of omission, our federal government, headed by the Commander-in-Chief, phoned it in.

After just yesterday, where we weren't willing to go "Katrina" on the President are we changing our minds? We certainly did not want to jump on the bandwagon initially and were willing to give the President and the administration the benefit of the doubt. More facts are coming out, however, and they are leaving many, as yet, unanswered questions and none of them seem to be favoring the President.


The problem with a "recovery" of the Obama presidency, as Noonan alludes, is his standing legislative legacy. Should the top kill prove to be 100% effective, we will wake up tomorrow and we will still be stuck with ObamaCare which has actually been growing in unpopularity since its passage. And should a biblical miracle occur tomorrow where the spill simply evaporates into thin air sparing the Gulf Coast from an ecological disaster, we will still be facing a 10% unemployment rate and a still-struggling economy because his administration chose to expend political capital and precious time on unpopular legislation rather than figuring out how best to just stay the hell out of the way to allow the economy to unwind and then rev back up as quickly as possible.

These are issues that have counted most heavily against his polling numbers and they aren't going away.

The reality of the situation now is, we will wake up tomorrow with a 10% unemployment rate, a crappy economy, pending nanny-state legislation with higher taxes and anti-growth consequences and still the very real possibility of an evolving, years-long ecological and economic meltdown in the Gulf.

Quote of the day

Just sayin'...

“I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration.”

She continued: “If there’s any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico — now, if this was President Bush or if this were a Republican in office who hadn’t received as much support even as President Obama has from BP and other oil companies, you know the mainstream media would be all over his case in terms of asking questions why the administration didn’t get in there, didn’t get in there and make sure that the regulatory agencies were doing what they were doing with the oversight to make sure that things like this don’t happen.”

More here from Left Coast Rebel and the slow-motion disaster that is ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico and the media's reaction to it.



Addendum #1: Uh-oh. The narrative turns.

SB 1070: A bounty of goodness!

Much like ObamaCare has resulted in unintended consequences before the law has even been implemented, so to has Arizona's SB 1070 resulted in unintended consequences before it has been implemented, though with much more favorable outcomes than the slow-motion disaster that is ObamaCare.

The law has already been a boon to family values, better neighborhoods, public safety, and, yes, a boon even to the environment. The L.A. Times reports:

The day Arizona's governor signed the strictest immigration law in the country — tasking police with checking the immigration status of those they stop and suspect to be in the country illegally — Maria thought it might be the last straw for her family.

For six years Maria, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, Salvador, who is in the country illegally, have tried to make sure he isn't caught up in a raid or sweep or traffic enforcement operation. To avoid his deportation, the couple takes precautions that, when synthesized, go something like this:

Avoid driving at night. Avoid unnecessary trips — grocery shopping once a week is best.

Stay home. Stay and care for the garden. Enjoy the blueberry bushes and the apricot trees, and mow the lawn. Keep it nice. Try to deflect, as much as possible, their 4-year-old daughter's questions about going to Disneyland.

As you can see, Maria's fears are completely unfounded as the alterations to her family's lifestyle has been an overwhelming net positive.

We've all been told that this recession has actually forced many families to forego lavish expenditures and get back to the basics of spending quality time at home with the family and that is what we're seeing because of SB 1070, as well.

Because of SB 1070, families with illegal immigrants are not only strengthening those family bonds at home but are also doing their part for the environment by reducing their carbon footprint: fewer trips to the store, keeping up with the yardwork and planting self-styled Jardins de Victoria are just a few ways SB 1070 is making life better for illegal immigrants, their families and shoot, for all of us for a better America!

Surely, once the benefits of SB 1070 become more widely known, we can get some of our lefty friends onboard as we know them to be big fans of social engineering and we don't think anyone can deny from reading the paragraphs above how much better citizens, woops... immigrants they all can become because of wisdom and correctness inherent to SB 1070.

A nice thought, but...

Republican politicians and conservative activists are launching a ballot campaign to suspend California's landmark global-warming law, in what they hope will serve as a showcase for a national backlash against climate regulations.

Supporters say they have "solid commitments" of nearly $600,000 to pay signature gatherers for a November initiative aimed at delaying curbs on the greenhouse gas emissions of power plants and factories until the state's unemployment rate drops.

Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the state's Air Resources Board, which is implementing the law, known as AB 32, called the initiative "a campaign that has to be taken seriously."

"It would put all our efforts at energy efficiency and renewable energy in the deep freezer for a long time," she said.

The measure would halt proposed regulations until the state's jobless rate dips to 5.5% or below for a year. That's a level that California has not seen since 2007. California has one of the nation's highest unemployment rates: 12.4%.

Uhhhh… we don’t get it. Why not just kill the thing altogether? Why set some arbitrary unemployment trigger at which it would just kick back in only to force unemployment upwards again?

We understand the concept of incrementalism but this is not that, it’s ping-pong.

If uncertainty is a jobs-killer, doesn’t predicting next month’s unemployment figures have the same effect?

The rush to shove Californians into hobbit holes is on!

California, long a trendsetter for eco-friendly living, is breaking ground again this week. It's set, as early as today, to adopt the nation's first statewide green building code, which environmentalists say is not tough enough, and is also considering paying residents to cut their energy use.

On Monday, a state panel proposed that most of the new fees California plans to impose on greenhouse-gas emissions be returned to energy-saving consumers in the form of annual dividend checks that eventually could exceed $1,000 for a family of four, the Wall Street Journal reports.

California is expected today to adopt a green building code that would reduce water use, mandate the recycling of construction waste and step up enforcement of energy efficiency in new homes, schools, hospitals and commercial buildings, the Los Angeles Times reports.

(italics, ours)

And when industry continues to leave California, from whom are they going to get carbon-emissions revenue to dole out to everybody? Thinking that the state is going to let that emissions revenue go anywhere but the state coffers is laughable to begin with.

So, we have a situation where California will be paying people to, in essence, save money – paying people to save money from a pot that is already $20 billion in the red and counting.

Ladies and Gentlemen, California! She’ll be here all week but we can’t promise anything much beyond that.


P.S. Commenter to article, "rayda" suggests: "I think we should finish the border fence and then build another one between CA and the rest of us."

P.P.S. Our snark aside, we're big fans of building green - the concept that one uses materials (cheap and local, if possible), architectural techniques, renewing technology (rainwater/graywater cisterns) and the immediate natural surroundings to cut back on the structure's energy consumption. If done properly, it will save money.

So, if there is great tangible promise in building green and it is such an apparent money-saver, why do we need mandates? Why not let developers figure out the best technology on their own rather than be forced into unfeasible green dead-ends by fiat?

As it is, there is already a 501(c) non-profit organization USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) that is dedicated to developing technologies and standards to make green building available to everyone within a generation. The data-driven savings realized plus a green certification from the USGBC will sell building green beyond any mandates.

It's mostly like, boring chemistry stuff...

...so we'll keep it short.

With all the resources, technology and efforts going into the practice of mining rare earths, elements critical to components in green technology (think: batteries), but which remains a practice that is ruinous to the environment and all but locked up by the Chi-comms, one might think those same arduous efforts might better be applied to something that clearly has more tangible benefit to society… like brewing beer.

KT has been doing some yeoman’s work on the subject of rare earths, here.

And we had some thoughts, ourselves, on rare earths and the current market viability of green technology, here.

Big Media and Climategate

Article here in L.A. Times recounts how President Obama plans to attend the Copenhagen climate conference next month in hope of securing some meaningful commitments regarding reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Here’s how they describe the challenges the President faces:

Obama's attendance carries political risks at home, where his energy and climate bill has bogged down in the Senate behind health care. Republicans in particular are mindful of Obama's trip to Copenhagen earlier this year, when he lobbied unsuccessfully for Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Whaaa…? How it is that an article that addresses the hurdles facing the President to push through a climate change bill while not mentioning Climategate, which is certainly shaping up as the greatest scandal in the science field’s history, is unbelievable.

The New York Times reporting the same day on the same trip also fails to make any mention of Climategate. The New York Times’ enviro-blogger, Andrew Revkin, perhaps helps explain the Old Gray Lady’s refusal to engage in such inconveniences by stating that the emails were illegally obtained:

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.

Were the Times so fair-minded and judicious when it comes to matters of national security. But perhaps we are comparing apples to oranges as the Times extends exceptions for leakage on their pages to personal emails.

Unfortunately, the Times cannot even make that rationalization as they were only to willing to post screen shots of Sarah Palin’s hacked email Inbox last September during the presidential campaign.

If the political reality (read: coal dependent states) wasn’t enough to put the lid on the coffin of cap and trade legislation then Climategate probably nailed it shut – not that you would know any of that from Big Media who simply refuse to change in the face of their continuing death spiral.

H/T: NRO's Media Blog

P.S. KT has been all over the implications of, as he calls it, ClimaQuiddick and the faith-based AGW crowd. Click and scroll, baby, click and scroll.

Quote of the Day

With apologies to Instaglen…

Hey, do you remember when they told us that if we voted for McCain it would just be a continuation of the values of religion over the facts of sound science that was the M.O. of the Bush administration, particularly with respect to global warming?

Well, it looks like they were right.

"[The Emails] confirm suspicions that I have had in 30 years of working in climate science that I saw the hijacking of climate science particularly by computer modelers and then by a small group of people associated with the intergovernmental panel on climate change. The difficulty was that even though I sensed there was these thing going on, proving it is extremely difficult. But now with the exposure of these public files it is not only a smoking gun, it's a battery of machine guns. ...

On A global scale it's frightening. This group of people not only controlled the Hadley Center which controls the global data on temperatures, so that the global temperature record is in their hands, they also control the IPCC. ... The IPCC is the basis in all governments for the Kyoto Protocol, the Copenhagen Accord, and so on. ..... The problem they had is they kept saying the 20th century and the latter part of it is the warmest ever. And of course skeptics like myself [and several other names] were saying it was warmer 1000 years ago when the Vikings were in Iceland and Greenland and that's why they decided they had to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period and they achieved that with the hockey stick. In other words they completely rewrote the history."

The rest here at Mish's place who also asks a very important question with respect to the global warming email bombshell: Do you select The Cause or does the The Cause select you?

via KT

Hubris Pt. IV

Pigs still can't fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor's office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won't need to constantly clear the streets, and traffic - and quality of life - will undoubtedly improve.


The idea came from Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is no stranger to playing God. In 2002, he spearheaded a project to reverse the flow of the vast River Ob through Siberia to help irrigate the country's parched Central Asian neighbors. Although that idea hasn't exactly turned out as planned - scientists have said it's not feasible - this time, Luzhkov says, there's no way he can fail.

Problem is, this tin foil hat brigade stuff gets some play over here and in particular within the administration.

Not a real bright idea

“Government did us in,” says Dwayne Madigan, whose job will terminate when General Electric closes its factory next July.

Madigan makes a product that will soon be illegal to sell in the U.S. - a regular incandescent bulb. Two years ago, his employer, GE, lobbied in favor of the law that will outlaw the bulbs.

Madigan’s colleagues, waiting for their evening shift to begin, all know that GE is replacing the incandescents for now with compact fluorescents bulbs, which GE manufactures in China.

That would be mercury-containing fluorescents for those of you scoring at home. Publicly, G.E. states the reason they are shutting down the Winchester Bulb Plant (200 jobs lost) which is 80 miles west of D.C. is that their hand was forced by environmental regulations that phase-out the use of incandescent bulbs in favor of the fluorescents.

However, the dirty little secret is that G.E. lobbied for these regulatory changes contained within the 2007 Energy bill. The opportunity to mandate that consumers buy the more expensive fluorescents with the additional benefit of having them manufactured on the cheap in China was one that G.E. was not going to pass up.

So to recap: More expensive bulbs? Check. Bulbs that cost American jobs? Check. Bulbs that contain an element, Mercury, that is on every banned-list that we are aware of, including the construction program we are currently working on? Check. Bulbs that allow G.E. some back-slapping smuggery that they are doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’t, yea, for the environment? Double-check.

And don’t be at all surprised if at this very moment, G.E. is working on a patent for curbside pick-up of those mercury-containing light bulbs to be disposed of in a proper fashion. For a small fee, of course.

Exposed: the horribleness of Cash for Clunkers

(Warning: graphic and disturbing imagery contained, herein)

We’re not sure there are enough ways to describe just how excrable the C4C program is but we hope these two short videos give you a visceral sense of the awfulness of C4C.

The first is a visual how-to on killing a perfectly good automobile. We checked out some other videos on YouTube and the disgust displayed by the people (auto dealer mechanics) who are forced to do this because of this program was palpable.



The clip below talks about how the C4C program is hurting charities and the used car market. And the best part? The clip was made while the program was burning through its first billion dollars…. before Congress signed up the program for another $2 billion more.



So, let’s see: Distort the new car market by displacing potential buyers over the next several years? Check. Environmental dubiousness because of the considerable carbon footprint to make a new car and the fact that new cars get driven more often and for longer than older ones? Check. Hurting charities? Check. Damaging the used car and used engine part markets by killing perfectly serviceable automobiles? Check. Spending $3 billion we don't have? Check.

Enticing Americans to take on more debt load? Check. Creating a bureaucratic nightmare where dealers have only been re-imbursed for approx. 7% (as of last Thursday)of rebate applications? Check. Creating a bureaucratic nightmare to where the Treasury Department is having to siphon off employees from the FAA to handle these rebate applications from the dealers? Check.

Honest to pete – what’s not to love about Cash for Clunkers?

Face it. You love that new car smell.

Before we get into yet another reason why the Cash for Clunkers program is counter-productive, we heard a commercial on the way home from work just now from Father Joe urging people to forego the government program and give him their clunker in exchange for the tax write-off. Get a tax break, give to charity and don’t take on a new car payment that you may not be able to afford even with the rebate. Sounds reasonable to us. The mere fact, though, that this San Diego-based charity felt compelled to pay drive-time bucks on a national talk radio show is circumstantial evidence that Cash for Clunkers is adversely affecting the charity sector, as well.

And right on cue, as we were searching for Father Joe’s Auto Donation site.

Cash for Clunkers launched right before his peak donation season, Father Joe said. He wishes Congress and the White House had considered charities when devising the program.

"To me, the idea would have been donate your car to a charity, get a $4,000 write-off, then go spend it," Father Joe said.

Father Joe obviously has his priorities skewed. To hell with the poor, it is Gaia that must be served.

But how is Gaia being served when:

The article noted that "Newer cars are driven more than older cars. On average people drive their new cars and trucks about 25 percent more than they do their 10-year-old vehicles." So, even if the new car's fuel economy is much better than the older car's fuel economy, that will not matter much if the owner of the new car drives that car much more and according to this article, he or she likely will be driving the new vehicle a lot more than the older one.

Aside from the gathering of empirical evidence, the notion of driving your new car more often and for longer than your clunker stands up to intuition and natural human behavior… especially for men out there whom we feel confident we can speak on behalf.

Part of the reason you bought that new car was, well…. it was to drive it. Outside of city traffic and freeway gridlock, driving is fun. And this CfC program could not have come along at a better time than summer as it flows into fall with its great driving weather throughout most of the country to re-enforce this point. Your self-fulfillment through odometer rollovers: 1. Environment: 0

That road trip up the coast or out to the Grand Canyon that you were putting off because you did not have full faith and confidence in your clunker is back on again. Your wanderlust: 1. Environment: 0

And lord knows, chicks dig new cars so the thought of your game being stepped up by ownership of a new car will not be accompanied by the notion that your hot new ride will be grounded in the driveway very much. It’s all about exposure. Your libido: 1. Environment: 0.

As you can see, a program that gives the shaft to the poor with the added benefit of raping the environment is normally the exclusive domain of the Republicans so it’s comforting to know that bipartisanship is alive and well on Capitol Hill.

The Washington Post does not believe you are sufficiently nuanced to understand the President's energy policies

Hey, do you remember when we were told that a vote for McCain would be a vote for the continuation of energy policies that were destructive to the environment? Well, they were right.

During the campaign and after his election, President Obama left environmentalists in coal country with the distinct impression that he was going to do away with mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachians. That's where coal companies expose coal seams by stripping the dirt and rock covering them or blasting the tops of mountains to bits with dynamite and then, under legally defined conditions, dump the debris into valleys. It's a particularly destructive practice, but it's legal. And it will remain so under a memorandum of understanding the Obama administration will announce today.

The linked WaPo article provides lame cover by stating that the President never "flat-out" said he would ban strip mining (like how we never "flat-out" said we wouldn’t vote for Obama) while even acknowledging the cynical politics of allowing strip mining to buy votes for the climate-change bill… you know – destroying the environment in order to save it.

We’re curious as to what the Post’s official position is on off-shore drilling, a practice that would seem far less harmful to the environment than strip mining.

Now, we're talkin'

If you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity, you know we are not down with much of the Green Revolution. Contrary to what its proponents would have you believe, its green technologies are subject more to politics than hard science and the green movement as a whole has taken on a fundamentalist religious aspect to it that kind of weirds us out a bit.

Now having said that, if there is one aspect of the green movement that we are onboard with, precisely because it has, thus far, escaped the pratfalls described above, it is the “building green” movement. Building green as in, building structures that require a minimum of resources and are sustained on a minimum of consumption of resources.

Maybe because most of us live in houses and have to pay bills and wonder how it is that we can cut expenses… you know… real-life stuff is the reason that the building green movement has maintained its pragmatism and commitment to actual results.

And because building green has resulted in quantifiable results, it has managed to avoid governmental mandatory-ism.

The best example that we have actually experienced is the headquarters structure at Zion National Park in Utah. They make liberal use of cooling towers and low hanging eaves/awnings over the big picture windows that block the high sun in the summer but allow in the rays of the low sun in the winter all in order to regulate temperature with zero moving parts.

Linked here is an hour-long PBS doc on just what is “building green” and how building green isn’t about tacking-on green stuff to your structure but about a holistic below-ground-up philosophy to building and sustaining structures.

What we liked most about this doc is the people featured aren’t a bunch of wackos, zealots or dopes looking for a government grant. They’re pragmatic, problem-solving Americans that we can take seriously.