63 Comments

1. blert:

It’s the enviro-jugend!

Loyola claimed that he’d settle for the first seven years, knowing that the personality is essentially fully formed by then.

Jeffrey R. Immelt’s GE has ‘captured’ the Obama mis-Administration; or is it the other way ’round?

The media conglomerates must be broken up.

We must not permit the political-economic narrative to be racketed back and forth between the apparatchik clans.

Is it not shocking how often the talking-head ‘debates’ across the networks by the net wonks are prefigured artifice?

Is it not shocking how few fresh faces appear in the ever expanding news/views hole?

Apr 24, 2009 - 4:35 pm 2. PA Cat:

Thus we have the spectacle of a 12-year-old becoming distraught when her father orders seared tuna at a restaurant . . .

I wonder how these kids would respond to the pricey details of BHO’s wagyu beef appetizers or the amount of jet fuel he wastes and the pollution he causes flying thousands of miles for two-bit photo ops. I’d love to see a Million Kids March on the White House in the name of environmentalism. (Yeah, I can dream.)

Apr 24, 2009 - 4:41 pm 3. Fred from Canuckistan . . .:

These little munchkins are going to grow up completely mixed up, screwed up and messed up. A brain full of global warming propaganda and living in a world with longer winters, cooler summers, frozen toes and mittens.

It will cost a fortune in psychological help for this mucked up generation.

Apr 24, 2009 - 5:09 pm 4. dan:

Earth Day/Lenin’s 100th birthday.

…

Nah. Must be just a coincidence.

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:11 pm 5. tomw:

Immelts GE is not the “military Industrial Complex” that Ike warned of, it is the “Media Industrial Complex” that generates the need for “climate change” and AGW amelioration equipment, and gets rich from the meeting the demand they have created from thin air.
tom

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:14 pm 6. Chiral:

The Lorax has made kids cry and hate daddy since 1971. The Lorax “speaks for the trees”… though no person or tree ever appointed him.

Can I speak for trees too? Or is this reserved for cartoonists with a DPhil in literature?

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:15 pm 7. Paul:

American Eloi.

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:28 pm 8. Unsk:

you know its not just the indoctrination these kids get at school.

Since I have a teenager, I have come in contact with many,many kids from all sorts of backgrounds, all the way from movie star kids here in La La, to small town kids in America’s heartland. In all the environments, yes even in small towns, I find way too many kids that are so spoiled that they are functionally deranged.

Their sense of reality has been altered away from the real to the make believe because too often their every whim is catered to the nth degree. They thus develop the expectation that the world revolves around themselves and this is how it should be always. And because their every whim is so easily and so often fulfilled, they have a sense that it is easy to solve the world’s problems. After all , their problems are solved with little effort from themselves, so why shouldn’t it always be like that?

These spoiled mush brains are then easy prey to be converted by our indoctrinator/educators to the idea that It’s only because those nasty hateful right wingers that there are any problems in the world at all.

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:45 pm 9. Gaffe Prices:

I guess the boogie man is out to get us, or we’re the boogie man, (I don’t know which) whatever
paging Janet from-another-planet Napolitano, you’ve got to clarify this one.

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:50 pm 10. Gordon:

#4–yes, and Lenin famously said, “Give me the children for two years and I will plant a seed that can never be uprooted.”

Elsewhere I just read an article off Real Clear World in The Australian by a scientist at the U of Ottawa outlining the evidence connecting the solar wind, the magnetosphere, cosmic rays, and cloud formation (water vapor being the key greenhouse gas), all of which very nicely explains the variations in the earth’s temperature in geologic time.

The author points out that in the earth’s history the ice caps have gone almost to the equator and at other times the poles have been free of ice.

People who ignore this information are locked up in a belief system, a religion.

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:55 pm 11. pharmaguy:

Slightly OT, tho maybe not. My 24 year old daughter became a vegetarian at age 11 or so, saying at the time that she did not want to eat “anything that had a face.” She’s a smart and healthy young woman, knew that being a vegetarian meant some dietary adjustments, and had continued to be a vegetarian. About a year or so ago she admitted to me that the “anything with a face” was just a mask for the real reason: one of her teachers had convinced her that eating red meat, or meat of any kind, would cause her to have a heart attack. I wish some in the educational system could be sued for malpractice.

Apr 24, 2009 - 6:59 pm 12. Paul Milenkovic:

Let’s see. If Global Warming is the serious problem that it is, and if terrorism and everything that goes with it is of the most minor consequence, let’s build nuclear power plants like crazy.

What reason is there to not build nuclear plants? China Syndrome? Newer designs are supposed to have improved safeguards. Nuclear waste? That is only a problem if you don’t reprocess fuel. So why don’t we reprocess fuel?

Why, it is because of terrorism. The reason we have the Carter Syndrome of not reprocessing fuel, building breeder reactors, and so on, is that the US was supposed to set an example to the world on the You Can’t Touch That nuclear fuel cycle.

Are terrorists reprocessing fuel or diverting plutonium? No, not quite yet, but North Korea and Iran are doing something along those lines (OK, perhaps some kind of plutonium extraction and a major HEU project). And North Korea and Iran are famous for terrorism being statecraft by other means.

So again, if terrorists (and their state sponsors) are not a threat, build those nuke plants — there is no excuse not to in the face of Global Warming.

Apr 24, 2009 - 7:05 pm 13. Blindman:

Moby Dick was not the monster but us educated folks knew that didn’t we?

Apr 24, 2009 - 7:14 pm 14. steveaz:

My first thought was, Gurdon’s friend’s 12-year old needs to get out more.

From the sound of it, this child’s experiences are confined to public school campuses, public parks, urban labrynths and the living room television set. It’s obvious the messages plastered on the walls, kiosks and billboards of these encircling arenas have gotten to the kid, and that the child hasn’t gained any experiences outside of these intersecting campuses that might refute the fear-inducing media chorus.

They know they’re doing it. We know they’re doing it. But when will media (I include education bureaus here) be held to account for their deliberate and incessant antagonism – especially now that televised media is ubiquitous, and viewing it is effectively mandatory (taken a flight lately)?

A postmodern poet might call an institution’s habit of scaring people as a way to seek rents from the Commons “terrorism,” if she were so inclined. And, despite my dislike for PoMo wordplay, I think, in this case, I’m inclined to agree.

Meanwhile, in other news…the Taliban are gearing up to go nuclear, and Freddie Mac’s CFO commits suicide. Outside of the Left’s muffled campuses, there’s plenty of real stuff for kids’ parents to be concerned about. Having their fifth grader pumped to the brim with fake neuroses is only adding to America’s parents’ burdens.

Apr 24, 2009 - 7:18 pm 15. Habu:

Well it appears there is a solution for our economic problems:

Dear Mr. President:
Please find below my suggestion for fixing America ’s economy.

Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the
money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan:

You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan: There are about 40 million
people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for
early retirement with the following stipulations:
1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings – Unemployment fixed.
2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered – Auto
Industry fixed.
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage – Housing Crisis
fixed.

It can’t get any easier than that! If more money is needed, have all members
of Congress and their constituents pay their taxes…St. Pete Times

Apr 24, 2009 - 7:31 pm 16. JWT:

St. Pete Times solution:

40 E6 x 1 E6 = 40 E12 =

$40 Trillion dollars

You want fries with that?

Apr 24, 2009 - 7:51 pm 17. Habu:

The Financial Times published a number I cannot comprehend. Can someone explain to me just how deep this hole is?

The International Monetary Fund this week released its updated estimate of losses to the world’s financial sector. The new figure, $4,050bn globally , does not come as a surprise. It is nonetheless shocking.

For more than a year, the IMF’s loss estimate has swollen with each update. As late as October, it expected losses on US loans and securities of $1,400bn; it now foresees losses almost twice that size, at $2,700bn. In addition, it has now added forecast losses of $1,200bn in Europe and $150bn in Japan.

The ballooning numbers reflect two important facts. We have no certainty whatsoever as to what the real losses will eventually be – except that they get worse every time we look. Last year’s gloomiest forecasts have proved far too optimistic.

The IMF bases its numbers on methods that are not too speculative. The losses on securities – about half of the total, mostly in the US – are mark-to-market estimates. Losses on loans are based on conservative models and also extra­polate information from market valuations of related securities.

Some governments may object to the IMF forecasts. The final outcomes could be better – especially if, as the US government seems to assume – markets are currently undervaluing credit-related assets. They may also be worse. At least the IMF’s estimates leave no room for wishful thinking, and force us to realise there is more pain to come.

For another important lesson of the IMF’s report is that the recession in the real economy is compounding losses that originated in finance: conventional loans, not exotic securities, make up half of the forecast writedowns. European institutions, less exposed to the securities that brought down US banks, face the biggest losses. The IMF expects US institutions to write down $550bn in 2009-2010, on top of $510bn already written down. Institutions in the euro area and the UK, however, stand to lose some $750bn and $200bn, respectively. (Despite a confusion about IMF numbers for the fiscal cost of UK bank rescues, its forecast of total UK bank losses has not been challenged.)

For Europe, it seems, the worst is still to come. Of particular concern are the central and east European countries’ large external fin­ancing needs and west European banks’ exposure to these countries. The region’s governments must heed the IMF’s warning of possible contagious balance-of-payments crises.

Bringing banking systems back to the leverage ratios of the mid-1990s will require massive recapitalisation: $500bn in the US, $725bn in the euro area and $250bn in the UK, says the IMF. To make this possible, authorities have to lay the ground now for converting preference stock into common equity and enforcing debt-to-equity swaps if necessary.

Governments may be hoping for the best – but must prepare for the worst.

April 22 2009

http://tinyurl.com/ce7g2w

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:16 pm 18. Habu:

16. JWT: Heck yeah Supersize that sucker!

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:18 pm 19. Habu:

bedtime

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:19 pm 20. joe buzz:

Climate change is real, why sear tuna when you can eat it raw and cold? Dont waste your carbon credits heating up a piece of mercury laden fish flesh.

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:31 pm 21. Topics about New-york » Blog Archive » While other monsters roamed the earth:

[...] Cedar Creek Voice put an intriguing blog post on While other monsters roamed the earthHere’s a quick excerptMeanwhile, who cares about the security of Pakistani nukes, the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Global Warming is the greatest threat facing mankind today! [...]

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:34 pm 22. Nomenklatura:

At times I’m annoyed about having to put up with all these environmentalists and their strident proselytizing. Then I think about the fact that most of my ancestors in Britain probably had to put up with deranged religious enthusiasts of one sort or another, and even religious wars. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

I now look on phenomena such as urban tramcar systems and wind farms as today’s version of medieval cathedrals. Their lack of value from an economic point of view is beside the point. They are primarily monuments to a faith.

Apr 24, 2009 - 8:36 pm 23. Mad Fiddler:

I first saw the illustrations of Doctor Seuss when I was six years old. Horton Heard a Who, and I gagged at every page. I stared at those drawings in horror and disgust.

That was my reaction to his style INSTANTLY, and it has not diminished in fifty-odd years. I never ever ever ever ever ever EVER EVER felt anything positive about his stories, puerile rhyming, or the creepy sicko pursed lips and ears like salamander gills.

I can’t defend it, it’s just my personal reaction.

I didn’t have the vocabulary to express my repulsion then, but over the decades I’ve taken time soberly and dispassionately to reflect on my reaction to Doctor Seuss. This is at least partly because so many people have felt it is their unquestionable right to chastise me as ochin nyekulturny chilovyek for my failure to adore every stroke of the master’s pen and every dactyl of his prose.

I personally reckon the guy was a degenerate on the order of an undiagnosed United Nations bureaucrat. He just lucked into a gig that rewarded his specific form of depravity. That so many humans claim to find his works “charming” is deeply worrisome to me.

Happily, the business with the so-called Lorax came and went without my having to suffer through it. But the evil that men do…

Apr 24, 2009 - 9:00 pm 24. Lifeofthemind:

There are two universal human taboos in every functional society, variations in definition do not change this. They are 1) the Incest Taboo and 2) The Child Abuse Taboo. There is no where that you can go and yell out in the local dialect “Someone is hurting a child” without knowing that every adult within hearing is heading to your location. Yelling “Help Murder” or “Free Beer” will not do that. The callous inducement of fear in children, like the relentless sexualization of children by the same media groups, is clear child abuse.

Apr 24, 2009 - 9:00 pm 25. LFMayor:

Myself, I’ve been fighting the good fight de-programming my children over this latest idiocy about turning the lights out so the planet can “get a breath”. That and reloading cartridges.
There’s also a new animated movie coming in early May that’s been engineered for the little ones… it depicts a war-like band of space faring humans intent on taking over a habitable new world by liquidating the cute and peaceful denizens. Sort of like Independence Day with the roles reversed. Thank God I’ve got that on movie disc. (And all 4 of my daughters love it!).

Nomenklautura, you’re dead on, I’m hoping their religion goes the way of the Shakers or Heaven’s Gate sooner than later though. They certainly aren’t rooting for the human race.

Apr 24, 2009 - 10:09 pm 26. JMH:

I wonder how these kids would respond to the pricey details of BHO’s wagyu beef appetizers or the amount of jet fuel he wastes and the pollution he causes flying thousands of miles for two-bit photo ops.

This avenue should be pursued heartily. Children are highly susceptible to charges of hypocrisy. They haven’t lived long enough to realize life demands compromises, and hammering away at how profligate their eco-idols are is probably the best way to cleanse their young minds of the brainwashing.

Apr 24, 2009 - 10:17 pm 27. Mad Fiddler:

[Warning: facile diagnosis of vast cultural moral crisis follows!]

Hmmmm. Now that I’ve pondered this a while, all I can say is that any culture that glorifies Dr. Seuss is clearly hurtling towards Doctor Spock, B.F. Skinner Boxes, Plaine des Jarres, Pot, Dien Bien Phu, Burning Monks, JFK, Gulf of Tonkin, Khe Sanh, MLK, RFK, Weathermen, Panthers, Parrot’s Beak, Kent State, Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Boat People, Pol Pot, Embargo, Deep Throat, Mayaguez, Disco, Carter, Hostages, Kabul, Baby’s-first-Slut-Outfit Halloween costumes, Kepone, Mercury, DDT, Abscam, Tris-dipped PJ’s. Alar-dipped Apples, Monica, Rwanda, Gore-on-Crack, Oil-for-Bribes, and the current set of idiots in charge.

How could it have been otherwise?

Apr 24, 2009 - 10:28 pm 28. JMH:

The Lorax has made kids cry and hate daddy since 1971. The Lorax “speaks for the trees”… though no person or tree ever appointed him.

Y’know, the thing is, it is possible to screw up the environment (at least locally) and make a mess of things. It’s possible to cut down too many trees and not have them grow back – look at large parts of Europe and (especially) the Middle East.

But that doesn’t mean everybody who cuts down trees is screwing up. The US has had pretty damn good forestry management. (And speaking of trees, or rather speaking for them, I grew up in the Redwoods so maybe I can speak for those grandest of all trees – a little global warming raising the moisture content of the amtmosphere would be a wonderful thing and help the Redwoods regain some of the range they’ve lost in the Ice Ages. So: Save the Trees – Burn Some Carbon).

That’s the cincher for me about the warming mongers. Prosperous societies always take better care of the environment than impoverished ones. Because a nice view, fresh air and happy cavorting furry animals are things prosperous people can afford. Scrabbling pesants need food for their kids and they’ll stick Mother Nature in the back with a shiv to get it. That the eco-wacks ignore this tells me they aren’t really interested in the environment, they just want to tell other people how to live.

Nomenklatura is right, they’re religious zealots.

Apr 24, 2009 - 10:35 pm 29. twobyfour:

they’re religious zealots.

I think it is much worse, It is a cult.

Apr 24, 2009 - 11:01 pm 30. Alexis:

Okay, perhaps logging corporations could hire tree priests. A tree priest would utter a proper incantation of regret, ask the tree’s permission to be sacrificed, and then bless the chainsaw before the tree sacrifice is performed.

Then, the corporation would sell the paper as sacred paper because a tree was properly sacrificed to ensure that people had paper available for their sacred activities. Activities such as making printouts from a computer screen. Or writing calligraphy.

Furthermore, the tree priest would be necessary for coal company operations. Before each day of digging for coal, the tree priest would apologize to the dead trees for disturbing their resting place. The incantations of the tree priest would be necessary to ward off the curses that would result from robbing the tombs of dead Paleozoic trees to feed the fossil tree crematoria.

Well, at least mandating rituals by a tree priesthood would be more honest than certain other confidence tricks being proposed in the name of saving the Earth.

Apr 24, 2009 - 11:03 pm 31. bob:

Take a look at The Hills of Haiti in confirmation of #26.

Apr 24, 2009 - 11:45 pm 32. ADE:

Er, can I do a Doug?

From a speech by P J O’Rourke
in Sydney:

America has wound up with a charming leftist as a president. And this scares me. This scares me not because I hate leftists. I don’t. I have many charming leftist friends. They’re lovely people – as long as they keep their nose out of things they don’t understand. Such as making a living.

When charming leftists stick their nose into things they don’t understand they become ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the door of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people’s money. They are the lap dogs of the poly sci-class, returning to the vomit of collectivism. They are pig herders tending that sow-who-eats-her-young, the welfare state. They are muck-dwelling bottom-feeders growing fat on the worries and disappointments of the electorate. They are the ditch carp of democracy.

And that’s what one of their friends says.

And now that I’ve offended Doug, I’ll redeem myself with this explanation of the Master Strategist

“President Obama’s reaching out to the Muslim world at the start of a new American administration, is welcome, smart, and can play a big part in defeating the threat we face. It disarms those who want to say we made these enemies, that if we had been less confrontational they would have been different. It pulls potential moderates away from extremism.

“But it will expose, too, the delusion of believing that there is any alternative to waging this struggle to its conclusion. The ideology we are fighting is not based on justice. That is a cause we can understand. And world-wide these groups are adept, certainly, at using causes that indeed are about justice, like Palestine. Their cause, at its core, however, is not about the pursuit of values that we can relate to; but in pursuit of values that directly contradict our way of life. They don’t believe in democracy, equality or freedom. They will espouse, tactically, any of these values if necessary. But at heart what they want is a society and state run on their view of Islam. They are not pluralists. They are the antithesis of pluralism. And they don’t think that only their own community or state should be like that. They think the world should be governed like that.

“In other words, there may well be groups, or even Governments, that can be treated with, and with whom we can reach an accommodation. Negotiation and persuasion can work and should be our first resort. If they do, that’s great, which is why if Hamas were to accept the principle of a peaceful two state solution, they could be part of the process agreeing it. But the ideology, as a movement within Islam, has to be defeated. It is incompatible not with ‘the West’ but with any society of open and tolerant people and that in particular means the many open and tolerant Muslims.”

Mea maxima culpa,

ADE

Apr 25, 2009 - 3:58 am 33. Tony:

In Catholic school, the nuns taught about sin, temptation, prayer and redemption. Kids these days seem to think that modern life is sin, and redemption comes through the passionate rejection of capitalism and Western society.

My liberal friends who believe that humanity is a virus infecting the Earth, and America is Earth’s greatest despoiler, don’t care that cap’n'trade will destroy our economy, that’s actually a good thing. But they don’t even care if mankind really controls the climate or not, if that’s a real thing or a fantasy, the important thing is their fervent beliefs in this cult. Just as we Catholic children prayed the rosary and the Stations of the Cross, the poor greenies see their very society, even their parents, as sin surrounding them, only they have no God to pray to for relief and comfort.

Meanwhile, the Nobelist brave hero of the greenies can not even be challenged on this new “scientific” cult: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing.

Apr 25, 2009 - 5:01 am 34. Talnik:

Not to get overly conspiratorial here (nobody ever discounted “Limits of Growth” and Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope”), but isn’t Gore a member of the Club of Rome? And doesn’t the Club of Rome advocate using environmentalism to unite the entire the world under a single government? These kids are being groomed, set up to accept what’s coming: penury in the name of Gaia for the benefit of a tiny elite.

Apr 25, 2009 - 5:22 am 35. ADE:

Apparently my quote above (which was from a Tony Blair speech in Chicago) was a ripper in full. Here it is.

ADE

Apr 25, 2009 - 5:25 am 36. toad:

Hmmmmm, I wonder how trivial the danger of terrorism will seem if we have a Beslan school massacre here in the West? The left media would of course downplay it but a couple of parents with some rope and a tree might have a little protest meeting involving media and government officials.

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:10 am 37. Barry 0351:

The EX daughter in law is a teacher fills the grandkids heads with such drivel and the way to keep the kids away from the truth is to seperate the kids from all grandparents who would teach the children the old bad ways of living.
The Grandkids live with her in a multicultural, multiracial family attend school from early morning to 7:00 PM and then go home to the same family situation everyday.
We have let the wrong folks run the education system these want to tell a child what to think not how to think.

Apr 25, 2009 - 7:06 am 38. Doug:

The 2009 Iowahawk Earth Week Virtual Cruise-In

Apr 25, 2009 - 8:02 am 39. NahnCee:

I feel the same way about Lord of the Rings and those damned hobbits as Fiddler does about Seuss and Lorax. It’s difficult sometimes to not rip out the jugular of who-ever is earnestly making Hobbity comparisons to whatever the current crisis is.

Welles and 1984 and Dune are enough. Leave those stupid hobbits out of it!

Apr 25, 2009 - 8:36 am 40. Mark:

Sustainability is an important concept, and a complex one. But for every complex question there’s a simple answer, and it’s usually wrong.

What are the essential features of a sustainable economy, a growing economy that benefits and involves currently poor nations? What are the constituent parts of a viable neighborhood, town, city, and state? What are some of the constituent features of a sustainable culture?

Questions about these kinds of sustainability rarely get discussed in a serious way. When the questions arise, they quickly get framed in such ways that the the ideal becomes the enemy of the real, and the best becomes the enemy of the good.

Apr 25, 2009 - 8:41 am 41. Mad Fiddler:

Dear NahnCee,

O-o-ouch!

Apr 25, 2009 - 10:20 am 42. Mark:

addendum:

Consider economic sustainability in higher education. Higher education is bleeding red ink. Institutions with large endowment, ironically, are facing the biggest cuts, as at Yale and Harvard, because the institutions budget for a 4.5% return on endowment each year.

There seems to be almost no attention on campuses, however, to the question, “What economic policies will lead to conditions that might best contribute to sustainable growth in the economy, and therefore to the endowment (not to mention parents’ ability to earn money for tuition, and not to mention faculty retirement accounts.)

Some ’stimulus’ gravy is flowing towards academia, and that sop is sufficient payoff or distraction for the denizens. Every ill is still all Bush’s fault, all the time. Not even self-interest can leverage discussion of sustainable economic growth. Faith-based adoption of green strategies, including cap-and-trade etc., is de rigeur. The good, taking into account the compromise that complex situations require, is always seen, in academia, as an insipid enemy of the best.

Apr 25, 2009 - 10:25 am 43. JMH:

But for every complex question there’s a simple answer, and it’s usually wrong.

With all due respect, bullshit. The simple answer is right more often than the complex one, if for no other reason than the complex answer is a hell of a lot harder to implement. Often the “complex” answer is nothing more that a way of either obscuring the real intent or else avoiding the problem entirely.

Sustainability is actually pretty damn simple. Replace what you take, clean what you get dirty, replant what you harvest, don’t take a resource faster than it can replenish itself. Do that and you’re sustainable. Don’t and you’re not.

Apr 25, 2009 - 11:20 am 44. Habu:

Maybe this happens and the MSM doesn’t cover it, I sure don’t know.

But my question is this. If parents know their kids are being teaught a bunch of bullsh*t than why don’t they Alinsky the SOB’s that are doing the damage?

I never had any children so I’ve managed to avoid for the most part the educational arguments…however my wife is in her 33rd year of teaching and she’s seen the changes, doesn’t agree with them and does organize against her union…she also says most parent talk big and demand a good deal but never confront the powers that be.

I can’t say I have much sympathy for those unwilling to create a bit of hell for school administrators if the need for it is there.

Unlike the liberal left who consider an arrest a badge of honor, ask yourself would you chain yourself to the school board building to make your point and risk arrest and more TV coverage or is a 3×5 foot protest sign sufficient?

When was the last time you saw or participated in a ROWDY crowd of conservatives?

It’s an oxymoron and that’s why the left is kicking our brains out.

Apr 25, 2009 - 11:53 am 45. twobyfour:

Sustainabi… whenever I heard (read) that word, I have a visual of a pile of BS. Smell it too.

Please be sensible and use sparingly. In your own interest, as I may start associating your nick with the same. It is completely involuntary.

Thanks for consideration!

Apr 25, 2009 - 11:55 am 46. blert:

sustainable living = monastic lifestyle

That’s the equation the neo-Puritans/neo-Shakers.

Sustainability also means repudiation of ALL fossil fuels. Obviously, they can’t be replenished — can’t be sustained!

Likewise mining should stop and recycling must ramp-up.

Well if we’re not to exploit oil and coal and fission then the time proven method to sustain culture is human slavery.

In a world before cheap energy every advanced culture exploited slaves/ lower castes/ serfs/ peasants to sustain the social order.

So sustainability really requires the majority to accept morlock status so that the Ivy League clan becomes eloi.

What a perfect vision!

——

Give me a break!

The mineral reserves to be found here and among the near Earth asteroids are effectively limitless. Finite, yes, but limitless in terms of human need.

What we consider rare hard rock minerals are ONLY rare because of Earth’s gravity gradient and geo-chemistry. Yeah, the heavy stuff went below the Moho.

The amount of heavy minerals in a typical heavy asteroid is so gigantic that when mankind exploits them [brutal, aren't we...] the scarcity of gold, platinum, and the rest will be recast.

Rockets that expel iron ions will become the route to orbital abundance.

Lagrangian mega-factories will permit the construction of the impossible.

Space ships will finally get as huge as our imagination.

Sustainable! Bah, humbug!

Apr 25, 2009 - 12:28 pm 47. blert:

Here’s a perfect example of where the Left is getting inspiration:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html

I’m somewhat astonished at his innocence, arrogance and piety.

More than him, view the reaction of the elite audience.

This then, is the dream view of Soetoro Co.

Apr 25, 2009 - 1:52 pm 48. Voltimand:

It is no accident that the true-believers in the global warming nightmare on elm street never, ever come in meaningful contact with the growing mass of climatologists and other relevant scientists (as distinct from irrelevant sillies like Al Gore). The first act as if the second don’t exist, which in a way for them they don’t. It’s a cliche by now among those who believe that these alarmists are runaway neurotics who simply cannot awaken from the nightmare of their own primal fantasies, that the global warming people have no meaningful contact with and no understanding of what a serious, professional scientific argument even looks like. This is, oddly, a source of their strength: what you simply are unable to see you never engage with.

Our problem is that the scientists who know that this is all hooey are way behind the curve in grasping the simple fact that “saying it’s not scientific” doesn’t mean jack to these people. They’re too use to pronouncing their scientific ipse dixits and having other people kowtow. Well, the Al Gores are not kowtowing, because nothing succeeds like 100% massive ignorance of what you’re talking about. Insulated as they are by a wall of simple intellectual imperviousness, telling them that scientists think this is all ridiculous means less than nothing to them, and the scientists haven’t yet grasped the fact that to make a dent in that armor they’re going to have to go nuclear with their facts and the conclusions they draw from them. Anything short of serious throat-grabbing and yelling into ears is simply going to go down the drain.

Apr 25, 2009 - 2:00 pm 49. hdgreene:

Mr. Agassi illustrates the problem I have with those who promote “Alternatives.” In the end, they always insist on putting the competition out of business. And if their heavily subsidized alternatives doesn’t work? Can you bring the murdered (and heavily taxed) industry back? And will people invest in any business that is not a favorite of some Washington Politician?

I wish Mr. Agassi all the best in a straight up competition with the “old ways.” But if he wants Godzilla government to smash the old establish industries (and his own words say that he does), than I wish him failure and the rest of us success. Unfortunately, given the current crowd in Washington, I expect the entire US to get pantsed and only the political wire puller “entrepreneurs” like Mr. Agassi to prosper.

Apr 25, 2009 - 3:35 pm 50. blert:

hdgreene @49…

Hard to miss Mr. Agassi’s faith in WIND POWER to replace base load generation!

His knowledge level is obviously limited. He admitted that he seriously explored hydrogen as a source of power. He dismisses hybrid machines out of hand, but without substantive reason.

All touchy-feely… What a dreamer.

Apr 25, 2009 - 4:00 pm 51. buddy larsen:

Voltimand, someone called it “invincible ignorance”. I can’t help but envision a fistfight with that giant Pillsbury Doughboy in Ghostbusters. Punch punch punch, zip zero nada, & back in the corner on the stool with Bundini Brown fanning you with a towel singing “float like a bee, sting like a butterfly” –

Apr 25, 2009 - 4:15 pm 52. Doug:

Jeeze,
Fiddler is no Seuss fan.
…never saw him as a kid, all I remember as a parent is one about folks fighting while others are busy getting things done/built.
Thought that was a good lesson…

Apr 25, 2009 - 4:51 pm 53. Doug:

Breitbart.tv » ‘Nobody in This Country Realizes That Cap-and-Trade is a Tax’ — and it’s a great big one,”
Rep. John Dingell (D-Michigan) said Friday.

Apr 25, 2009 - 4:54 pm 54. Leo Linbeck III:

So, I guess I have a different take on this issue.

I’m not at all worried about the 12-year-old tunaphobe. Any kid whose parents can afford to take them to a restaurant where seared tuna is on the menu will, by the end of their senior year in high school, be able to read, write, and calculate well enough to enter college and get a degree. These kids will likely enter the workforce, make good money, pay their taxes, and vote. Over time, armed with enough literacy and numeracy, they will come to see that the environmental movement is anti-human; after all, the ecos hardly mask their hostility to homo sapiens sapiens.

Now if they choose to live in a liberal bubble like the West Village or Haight-Asbury, they’ll still believe all this gobbledygook. But, then, that’s the way they’d believe regardless of what they learned in 3rd grade, because those bubbles generally operate on, and attract people to, a collective identity narrative that is impervious to logic, reason, and data. The good news is that these bubbles are small, electorally-speaking.

No, the big danger to our republic is the mass of urban children who either don’t graduate from high school (>50% nationally), or graduate with such minimal skills that they are dependent upon their “betters” in the political world. Without the ability to read, write, figure, and think critically, they are easily manipulated by the latest purveyor of snake-oil.

Since Plato (at least), it has been well-known that a republic relies upon an educated populace. Circumstances and environments change, and it is the ability for the citizen to assess these changes themselves, without the “leadership” of the so-called elite, that allows them to make good decisions as a collective, through the ballot box.

What we are seeing in the AGW movement is an attempt to leverage widespread ignorance into political power through the liberal application of arguments from authority. This style of argumentation is most effective on those who are intimidated by smart people, and it is a lot easier to intimidate the illiterate.

So, at the end of the day, I’m not as concerned that kids are learning the wrong stuff (though this is still a concern). I’m much more concerned that kids are being rendered incapable of learning and thinking on their own, and it is this incapacity that leaves them open to the demagoguery that characterizes the proponents of AGW.

And it is this incapacity that puts our republic at risk.

L3

Apr 25, 2009 - 5:03 pm 55. buddy larsen:

L3, beautifully argued. Perfect storm #9, weak K-12 authority, motivation, execution, vibrating against sybaritic anti-authoritarian pop culture. Where to attack? First enemy is probably the cynicism that is the result of the former. New energy has to short circuit. These kids need a hero corps, a hero corps would need heros ready to sacrifice themselves to service & poverty –like monks and nuns of olde.

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:01 pm 56. buddy larsen:

mad fiddler –imho, it’s the witless execution. a cartoon has to have wit in the drawn lines. a picture of something not necessarily funny is made funny (or fun) by the way the lines look and evoke and suggest. Dr Seuss tries for funny with pictures of things that would look funny if they were real and not cartoons, but forgets all about the line execution. IOW he’s always explaining the joke but never telling it. the drawing itself per se, the pencil handling, is dead dull witless waste –and dispensible, the story would be better text only. but that shouldn’t piss you off like that. something else pisses you off, probably that everybody says he’s good, you know he isn’t –and this makes you hate your fellow human cartoon-lovers. and THAT pisses you off.

now that i think about, it pisses me off too. thanks a mil, just what i needed!

Apr 25, 2009 - 6:44 pm 57. Doug:

Definitely need Jamie’s opinion on # 56!

Apr 25, 2009 - 7:34 pm 58. JWT:

Fiddler, Buddy:

Keen-shooter, mean-shooter, bean-shooter bugs.

What’s not to like?

Apr 25, 2009 - 7:44 pm 59. buddy larsen:

mairzy doats
and dozey doats
and little lambsey divy

Apr 25, 2009 - 7:55 pm 60. JWT:

Buddy,

Time’s up, is that your final edit?

Apr 25, 2009 - 8:02 pm 61. buddy larsen:

oh, i guess so. actually, it should be [ "but" little lambsey divy ]. since you asked –i had been leaning toward leaving it as is, with the “and”.

Apr 25, 2009 - 10:36 pm 62. Oh, bother:

Wow. Now I know why Mom never let me read Dr. Seuss.

L3 says much of what I was thinking. Being alarmingly innumerate myself, I would never have caught the AGW alarmists except that I have a good grounding in geologic and human history. For those looking for, ahem, a breath of fresh air let me recommend Anthony Watts’ site, wattsupwiththat.com. Lotsa physics for those who understand such things yet friendly to the rest of us. The tide is turning, and we have Old Sol to thank for it. Good science will prevail over cultic swindlers.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:27 pm 63. Oh, bother:

NahnCee, I share your aversion for people who analogize their lives to science fiction.

Having said that, can anyone remember the name and author of the science fiction post-apocalyptic short story of a grandfather who tells his grandkids bedtime stories of the old days when we had cars, plumbing, and electricity, and every night he winds up crying, and the kids can’t imagine why? I was reading about our hellbent drive to marxism and a vague memory of this story came to me….

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:34 pm

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