The Oil Rig Disaster

Many of you have probably heard about it by now. Well, I have come out from hiding now that the semester is over, and I have something to say about it. What people don’t seem to realize as they are playing around deciding who to blame, that they are missing the main reason why an incident like this occurred. The rig in question was in deep water, that is, far off shore. The federal government effectively prohibits, and has for quite some time now, near shore drilling. Apparently the safety mechanisms that did not work in this case have been known to be less reliable in deep, high pressure water since 2004. The Wall Street Journal actually reported that this was known, and blamed lax regulation by the Bush administration! Don’t be ridiculous. There would be no need to do the drilling that far off shore if it weren’t for government regulations!

Sorry For The Absence

So, some things first. In the Weekend Journal today, Dawkins and a theologian have side by side articles on religion etc. Richard demonstrates his inability to grasp the term “Non-sequitor” again. See, his thesis is “God doesn’t exist because he isn’t needed”. What a dumb ass.

So how is FAU? Fattening. I can’t stop pigging out at the Cafeteria. I’m gonna end up being sent to fat camp.

Putin forever!

Now, folks, you know I’m a free trader. So I’m pissed that Obama is smacking a tariff on Chinese Tires. But not surprised. But this is disgusting.

Oh, by the way, more on FAU: the Swine Flu plague is going around. I’m pretty sure that was a nasty cold I had that made really gross goo flow out my nose, so anyway, I’m okay and totally not a carrier. Really.

Fundamentals of Engineering is pretty cool. Except for all the civil majors. The rest of my courses are pretty dull. But, again, the food is good.

Don’t miss this…

Bret Stephens on AGW and poverty:

A funny thing happened on the way to saving the world’s poor from the ravages of global warming. The poor told the warming alarmists to get lost.

READ IT!

Senator Boxer-Racist Energy Policy

Reminds me of the Clarence Thomas Confirmation hearings, specifically the quote:

“This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It is a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity-blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that, unless you kow-tow to an old order this is what will happen to you, you will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.”

And yet they say they aren’t the racists.

Generalissimo Electric…

I’m gonna juxtapose a couple of quotes, which I found via the website Political Capitalism:

“Capitalism’s biggest political enemies are not the firebrand trade unionists spewing vitriol against the system but the executives in pin-striped suits extolling the virtues of competitive markets with every breath while attempting to extinguish them with every action.”
Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales, Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists. New York: Crown Business, 2003, p. 276.

“The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.”General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, Letter to Shareholders, GE 2008 Annual Report

Now some notes. General Electric owns NBC, and MSNBC, the infamously liberal “news” network. NBC does “green week” where they celebrate going “green”. NBC-Universal owns the SciFi and Nickelodeon networks, whereby nerds and children are similarly indoctrinated with environmental mumbo jumbo. None of this would be particularlly sinister, except that GE is highly involved in the politics surrounding energy policy and Klimacht, and of course are heavily invested in renewables. In fact, GE Wind was once Enron Wind, and we know how well that worked out (fortunately, in a way). Jeff Immelt is, arguably, the Administration’s largest ally in the energy industry. They lobbied for incandescents to be banned…naturally they produce and sell compact flourescents and stand to benefit massively from such chicanery. GE is the epitome of the political capitalist company, and a great friend to liberal fascists such as the Administration, which similarly believes in Immelt’s corporatist ideology (corporatism, was, in fact, invented (at least the term, which he used to describe his view of the role of government in business) by Mussolini, although the Progressives pioneered it-now we are full circle, America is perfecting this system under Obama…They will “bury the putrid corpse of liberty” in Benito’s words.

Memo to Congress-Chuck this crap

The Democrat controlled House of Reps is getting set to do Capn’ Trade. This is a bad idea.

There are several reasons why. First of all-projections of Catastrophic Global Warming that are the basis for the “danger” of not acting on Climate are failing miserably. There has been no warming of the lower atmosphere for over twelve years now:

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt

Even supposing the model scenarios do by some miracle turn out to be correct, the bill in question would avert only a tiny fraction of future warming-on the order of .1 degrees Celsius. Making a dent would require much more effort-especially on the part of other countries and in particular those who seem keen to refuse such restrictions. What’s more, because of the possibility of “leakage” the authors of the bill seem prepared to risk (trade) war.

Waxman-Markey is just a really bad policy move. For all the lack of benefits, it will have enormous costs. What is the point of diverting such enormous resources from other things to make a tiny impact on a non existant problem? If AGW really is a problem, then the only sensible course should be obvious-get rich now, adapt, and maybe do this crap later. It certainly doesn’t make any sense to due it now, when the economy is flirting with stabilization but still really hurting. We sure as hell shouldn’t take away people’s freedom to use whatever energy source they wish anyway.

UPDATE: It’s even worse than I thought.

Dumbing Down “Smart Grid”

Read this great post. If you are confused about all this “smart grid” stuff, you soon won’t be.

An Ironic Wind?

Get this everyone-wind power is doomed because Global Warming (hey, it must be summer at last!) is slowing the wind. Wow. That AGW is pretty powerful stuff. Pass that hit man. My god. That is one great high (temperature).

EDIT: See also a great piece on WCR about sulfate aerosol impacts-recent papers suggest their dissipation was attenuating AGW during the nineties, but has since stopped. Therefore, in the period where their influence has not been affecting temperatures, we should see the true effect of GHG’s-unfortunately that effect would appear to be so small it is lost in the natural noise.

The law of diminishing returns knows no master…

More proof that you can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t get out of the game. Thems the breaks.

Sniff Test on “Environmentalists” and Alternative Energy Advocates

Ask them if the support Nuclear Power. If they say no, the are beneath contempt. Period.