Dec 23 2008

Time to get RADICAL?

Category: economy,energy,environment,global warming,Obama — harmonicminer @ 10:49 am

The last time I looked, Thomas Friedman is neither a climate scientist, meterologist, physicist, or economist.  His academic training is in “Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Studies”. He’s a journalist. That’s it. So I hope Obama is not taking seriously this advice from Friedman to him, which presupposes Friedman’s ability to make scientific and economic judgments:

[Friedman] insisted that the challenge facing Obama required a revolutionary attitude to environmental policy, if the new administration wanted to avoid the devastating effects of global warming.

“We can do it if our next president, who I have great hopes for, is ready to be as radical as the moment we are in,” Friedman, whose previous bestseller was “The World is Flat”, told a lunch hosted by The Asia Society.

“Our next president is going to be called on to be more radical — I am talking crazy, wild-hair, paint-on-your-face, ring-in-your-nose radical — in what he does, than any president since FDR,” he said, referring to Franklin D Roosevelt, US president during the 1930s depression and the Second World War.

Continue reading “Time to get RADICAL?”

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Nov 24 2008

We send milk; Russia sends guns

Category: energy,national security,Russia,venezuela — harmonicminer @ 8:56 pm

Russian Navy Increases Activity in Foreign Waters

Russian Navy spokesman Dygalo also issued a statement saying ships from the Northern fleet will arrive Tuesday in Venezuela and will conduct joint maneuvers with that country on December 1. The statement says the exercise would involve operational planning, helping distressed vessels, and supplying ships underway.

In Moscow, independent Russian military analyst Alexander Konovalov told VOA that Russia’s increased naval presence in the Gulf of Aden is a practical response to intolerable piracy. But he characterized the naval maneuvers with Venezuela as an empty political gesture aimed at the United States in response to NATO ships that delivered humanitarian supplies to Georgia during that country’s conflict with Russia in August.

Konovalov says, “you Americans send a ship to the Georgian port of Batumi with powdered milk and hygiene supplies, we send you the Peter the Great, a heavy nuclear-powered cruiser, to the Caribbean Sea.”

It’s OK Congressman Frank, we really don’t have to worry about those nice Russians and Venezuelan President Chavez. They just want to be friends. With each other, that is.  Not us.

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Nov 23 2008

Ten politically incorrect thoughts

Category: economy,education,energy,environment,politics,society — harmonicminer @ 7:39 pm

Victor Davis Hanson is in fine fettle indeed, in Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts. Herewith, two of them, but all are worth the reading.

5. California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries—and squandered that gift within a generation. Compare the vast gulf from old Governor Pat Brown to Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. We did not invest in many dams, canals, rails, and airports (though we use them all to excess); we sued each other rather than planned; wrote impact statements rather than left behind infrastructure; we redistributed, indulged, blamed, and so managed all at once to create a state with about the highest income and sales taxes and the worst schools, roads, hospitals, and airports. A walk through downtown San Francisco, a stroll up the Fresno downtown mall, a drive along highway 101 (yes, in many places it is still a four-lane, pot-holed highway), an afternoon at LAX, a glance at the catalogue of Cal State Monterey, a visit to the park in Parlier—all that would make our forefathers weep. We can’t build a new nuclear plant; can’t drill a new offshore oil well; can’t build an all-weather road across the Sierra; can’t build a few tracts of new affordable houses in the Bay Area; can’t build a dam for a water-short state; and can’t create even a mediocre passenger rail system. Everything else—well, we do that well.

…

10. The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.

Nov 06 2008

Economic reality, government programs, food and energy

Category: Congress,economy,energy,politics — harmonicminer @ 10:02 am

John Stossel has some good thoughts on what is, and is not, in the power of governments. He begins by quoting African-American economist Walter Williams:

“Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good,” Williams says.

The failure to understand this is at the root of many of our problems.

“Most of life is outside the government sector,” says David Boaz of the Cato Institute. “Most change in America doesn’t come from politicians. It comes from people inventing things and creating. The telephone, the telegraph, the computer, all those things didn’t come from government. Our world is going to get better and better, as long as we keep the politicians from screwing it up.”

Continue reading “Economic reality, government programs, food and energy”

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Oct 21 2008

Dying from too much care

Category: capitalism,Congress,corruption,economy,energy,housing,liberty,oil prices,socialism,taxes — harmonicminer @ 8:42 am

The patient takes vitamins and minerals in doses recommended by most physicians, and gets plenty of exercise.

The patient eats a reasonably healthy diet.  However, the patient depends to a large degree on imported food, which has become very expensive, and while the patient could grow plenty of home grown food, the patient hasn’t been planting enough lately to sustain present and future dietary needs.  So the patient is hungry, and losing weight

The patient is mysteriously ill.  Upon examination, it appears that the patient has been slowly poisoned.  The patient’s immune system and general state of health might have been sufficient to cover the symptoms of the poisoning longer, except for the strain imposed by the recent hunger and weight loss.  The symptoms have been coming on for sometime, but only recently have they become indisputable.

Continue reading “Dying from too much care”

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Sep 28 2008

Private Space Flight gets closer

Category: economy,energy,science,space,technology — harmonicminer @ 6:09 pm

Unless I am mistaken, this is the first time a non-governmental organization or business has managed to put anything in orbit.

An Internet entrepreneur’s latest effort to make space launch more affordable paid off Sunday when his commercial rocket carrying a dummy payload was lofted into orbit.

It was the fourth attempt by Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to launch its two-stage Falcon 1 rocket into orbit.

The Hawthorne, California-based rocket maker was started by multimillionaire Elon Musk, who made his fortune as co-founder of the PayPal Inc. electronic payment system.

The rocket carried a 364-pound (165-kilogram) dummy payload designed and built by SpaceX for the launch.

Wow. Harbinger of things to come, I hope.

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Sep 27 2008

The threats our new President will face for us

Category: arab,China,economy,energy,Hamas,Hizbullah,Iran,Iraq,Islam,middle east,military,oil prices,Russia — harmonicminer @ 8:48 am

Thnk the ability to debate is seriously important?  Think it matters more than good judgment, clear understanding of the world, and commitment to the welfare of America above party?

The threats, and some unfortunate connections, are made clear here.  These are serious people, with seriously bad intentions, who aren’t impressed by debate tactics, smooth talk or stage presence.  They will not be “negotiated with” in the normal sense of the term, because we have nothing they want that they aren’t going to get from us anyway.  We cannot give them enough to remove their bad intentions, and they have the capabilities, by and large, to act on those intentions, if we give them time and opportunity.  All of them have proved that.

Who is the very serious person you want as President of the USA to deal with these people?  Who, among the candidates we have, has sufficient wisdom, experience, clarity and toughness to represent us, and make decisions critical to our security?  Who has proved that he will put us first, regardless of his own self-interest, regardless of political fallout?   Who, among the candidates we have, will these people take seriously?   I think you know.

The old standbys, also hip deep in bad plans for the USA, and freedom around the world.

And then, there are our “friends”.

Whose vested interest is keeping us waiting in line for their largess.

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Sep 11 2008

Time to DRILL. Here. Now.

Category: energy,global warming,McCain,Obama — harmonicminer @ 10:34 pm

Venezuela’s Chavez says US ambassador must leave – Yahoo! News

President Hugo Chavez ordered the U.S. ambassador to leave Venezuela within 72 hours on Thursday, accusing the diplomat of conspiring against his government and saying he would also withdraw his own envoy from Washington immediately.

Chavez made the move in solidarity with Bolivia after his Andean ally expelled the U.S. diplomat there, accusing him of aiding violent protests. He said a new American ambassador will not be welcome in Caracas “until there’s a U.S. government that respects the people of Latin America,” suggesting that diplomatic relations will be scaled back until President Bush leaves the White House.

“They’re trying to do here what they were doing in Bolivia,” Chavez said, accusing Washington of trying to oust him.

“That’s enough … from you, Yankees,” Chavez said, using an expletive. Waving his fists in the air, he added: “I hold the government of the United States responsible for being behind all the conspiracies against our nations!”

Holding up a watch to check the time, Chavez declared: “From this moment, the Yankee ambassador in Caracas has 72 hours to leave Venezuela!” He told his foreign minister to recall Venezuela’s ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, “before they kick him out of there.”

The U.S. Embassy said it was aware of Chavez’s speech but had not received official notification. Embassy spokeswoman Robin Holzhauer said Ambassador Patrick Duddy is traveling in the United States this week.

The diplomatic spat brings relations between the two countries to a new low and raises questions about whether it could hurt trade. Venezuela is the fourth-largest oil supplier to the United States, and Chavez also threatened to cut off crude shipments “if there’s any aggression against Venezuela.”

How clear can it be? If you’re against drilling in the USA, everywhere we have oil, then you are consumed with some kind of sick self-hatred, and you hate the rest of us, too.  It’s time for the America hating eco-panic “gotta keep the wilderness no one ever sees pristine” Left to be replaced with someone who has our better interests in mind.

In the meantime, does anyone with a desire to survive and to live in a free nation really want Obama in charge when the Russians start putting bomber bases in Venezuela?

Maybe he’ll negotiate nicely with Putin….  hold him down to just a couple dozen bombers, and maybe only 100 or so nukes. 

In return we’ll promise not to admit any more former Warsaw block nations into NATO.

Fair trade, right?

We really, really need you, Senator McCain.

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Aug 24 2008

What They Say vs. What They Mean

Category: Congress,energy,legislation — amuzikman @ 8:42 am

Here in California we have something called the “Flex Your Power” program. Here is their website self-description.

Flex Your Power is California’s statewide energy efficiency marketing and outreach campaign. Initiated in 2001, Flex Your Power is a partnership of California’s utilities, residents, businesses, institutions, government agencies and nonprofit organizations working to save energy.

Part of the Flex Your Power program includes something called a “Flex Alert”. It is a public warning that we are getting dangerously close to overloading our energy grid, or as they put it, our energy reserves are getting low.

The reasons? What they say:

  • High peak demand
  • Unplanned generation outages or transmission problems
  • Adverse weather

What they mean:

Your federal, state, and local government has not been doing it’s job. In fact while we have been passing ridiculous laws about plastic grocery bags, Co2, and removing the words “mom” & “dad” from school textbooks our supply of energy has not kept up with demand. We will not admit we are abject failures in energy planning. Instead, we are blaming you and expecting you to make do with less energy though our lack of foresight and planning, along with a death-grip on us by the environmental wacko lobby, has put us all in this precarious position.

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Aug 01 2008

Democrats Squeeze the Water Balloon, expecting it not to change shape

Category: energy,environment,oil prices — harmonicminer @ 1:15 pm

When the USA outsources oil production to the rest of the world, the pumping tends to be done by nations that are far less careful about the environment than USA companies, in places more prone to damage caused by terrorists, natural disasters, and just plain sloppy work, with supervision done by corrupt regimes, and the profits going to the same place. Charles Krauthammer points out the environmental damage done BY the eco-panic Left:

Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic? Continue reading “Democrats Squeeze the Water Balloon, expecting it not to change shape”

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