Nom de guerre: Rivrdog

Where are the bugs?

OK, drag out Rachael Carson's Silent Spring. But wait! We don't use DDT anymore, so what explains the almost total lack of flying insects of ANY kind in Western Oregon this year? Sure, we had a long Winter, which extended right into and mostly through Spring, but are all those insects all THAT put off by a little cold and rain when it came time to do the nasty and reproduce?

Missing almost entirely are:

Grasshoppers, most wasps, bees of all sorts, including the pesky little ground-dwelling bees which are usually plentiful around here, mosquitoes (almost none), houseflies (a few, but I can leave the doors open for 20 minutes and not get one in the house), moths and butterflies.

I scrubbed the windshield on the LBT on Thursday, loaned the truck to the Doctor Daughter, who used it to move into her swell new digs in the Portland West Hills, then got it back Sunday. As I got home and filled up the tank in a local gas station, I got out to clean the windshield, but it was still whistle-clean from 48 hours ago, despite the vehicle having been driven all over West Portland, a lush forested area, and across the Willamette River twice, some 125 miles.

Nope, there are no bugs.

Very strange. BTW, during "Global Warming", aren't insects supposed to abound?

Deflating ecotard gasbags

I'm proposing Ron Tonkin, the local CEO of numerous car dealerships, for my "Golden Saber" award for deflating several hot-air balloons with one letter to the editor.

A little background: last year, the "Smart Car", a tiny Euro econobox 2-seater, surprisingly NOT all that economical (less than 40 mpg), burst on the local scene with much ballyhoo from the ecotards. It was touted as the panacea to save everyone from, well, everything. It was expensive, almost bumping itself into the luxury class at around $28,000, held only two people, and had a persnickety engine which required spendy premium fuel.

But the ecotards and the City Fathers loved it. It was soooooo cool, and soooooooo hip, and it was soooooo going to save the planet.

I saw it right away as a fraud. You can get a Kia Rio econo-bean for a third of the dollars (the Doctor Daughter has one, going on 7 years now, a decent little car for her), and it will get as good mileage (I got 39.5 mpg on a major highway trip in it last year). You could get one of the newer Fit, Yaris or Versa sedans, and get BETTER fuel mileage, on regular, for just over half of the bucks. For the same money, you can get a Prius, which will get 50% BETTER mileage! The only advantage left to the tiny Smart Car was it's length, just under 9 feet bumper to bumper. Big deal. I can put my Little Black Truck into any parking space you can legally put a Smart Car into.

Ron Tonkin just put the coup de grace on the smart cars today with his letter, though. Read it and see the actual BUSINESS point of view behind car selection.

Tidbits

Bit 1: Looks like I have survived the most recent health issue, which appears to have been a kidney inflamation, most likely caused by a kidney stone. Will find out today if it was a stone, and where it is now, and whether I have to have it de-materialized by ultrasound. The pain from this situation, which I mistook for another bad spinal disc, was some of the worst I have ever experienced. I did some homeopathic therapy when I finally got it right (with the help of the RivrDoc), consisting of a water purge (drank 2 gallons of water yesterday) and the use of the aviator's high-G maneuver, basically a major tensing of all the upper torso muscles for a few seconds. Amazingly, this kills off the huge pain spasms as they are starting.

Bit 2: It's looking better and better for Dr. Oleg Sorohktin's climate theory. He was one of the first to say we are in a global cooling situation, not the other way around as has been bandied about for the past 12 years. The proof of his theory, which says that global warming or cooling is dependent on the sun's albedo, or heat output, is right overhead, where the sun still fails to show any sunspots. On a connected note, Aspen, CO ski areas are opening back up this weekend, and the Washington Cascades have gotten a foot of new snow overnight, a very rare occurrence for June. I don't want to wish starvation or crop failure on anyone, but it seems that it will take that to convince us gullible, undereducated filk that GlowBull Warming is a hoax foisted off on us, and the Socialists will need a different excuse to tax the very shirts off our backs.

Bit 3: As I scan my daily reads, mostly gunbloggers, I note a certain sense of urgency among them now, urgency to complete all gun-buying in the next 7-10 months. Folks, I can't stress this enough: We will probably see laws effectively shut down the Second Amendment next year. You will need to have all your gun buying completed by then, and all your ammo as well, especially military surplus ammo, which will probably be forbidden from import (I think Obama will be able to do that by Executive Order). We're all conservative over here, but if you have to go into debt to finish filling your gun safe(s) and ammo locker, you need to do that.

OK, time to get some morning chores done.

BCNU

What if....

...there really WAS an Environment Court....

Bailiff (yours truly): Oyer, Oyer, Oyer, Environment Court is now in session, the Honorable Judge Dracon presiding.

(Judge enters from chambers, wearing the usual black robes)

Bailiff: The parties to today's proceedings are present, together with their attorneys.

Judge: Today is the time set for Preliminary Motions in the case of Village of The Damned versus Al Gore. In previous hearings, Mr. Gore was bound over for trial on charges of Grand Larceny and Impersonating a Deity. Mr. Gore has waived his right to jury trial, and as I noticed, also waived his right to counsel. He will be proceeding Pro Per. The Village of The Damned is represented by Dudley DuRight, City Attorney.

Judge: Just for the Court's continuing education, just where in Hell IS the Village of The Damned?

     (Laughter)

Counsel DuRight: Your Honor, the Village of The Damned sits on the Idaho/Oregon border, near the northeast corner of Oregon.

Judge: I've fished out there. So the Village of The Damned is in Hell's Canyon?

Counsel DuRight: Yes, your Honor.

Judge: You may proceed, Counsel

Counsel DuRight: Thank you, your Honor, and if it may please the court, I'll waive plaintiff's statement and allow Mr. Gore to proceed.

Al Gore: (Rising to address the Court) Your Honor, Defendant objects to the jurisdiction as well as the charges and specifications this Court has handed me. On the main charge, Grand Larceny, I should be tried in either  State or Federal Court, depending on the the allegations of the Complaint, and I can't even find a reference to the second charge of Impersonating a Deity in any penal code. I have prepared a Motion to Dismiss based on these arguments.

Judge: Counsel?

Counsel DuRight: Your Honor, how quickly Defendant forgets his history. Two years after Defendant won the Nobel Prize for defending the environment, Environment Court was established as the first order of business for the then-new Obama Administration. Certainly Defendant remembers his own stirring speech before the United Nations General Assembly where he declared that every citizen on the planet was responsible for the environment, and that such responsibility required enforcement? He was immediately followed by President-Elect Obama's address declaring that even the United States Constitution would be secondary to the jurisdiction of this Environment Court.

Al Gore: Defendant recognizes the events Plaintiff's Counsel refers to, but I fail to see any logic behind this Court seizing jurisdiction from a lower court, and especially I fail to see how this court has authority to invent new law.

Judge: Bailiff, will you take a position nearer to Defendant's Table, the same position you would take if this were a Custody Matter?

Bailiff: (completely fails to suppress a wide grin) Yes, your Honor.

Judge: Will the Defendant please rise? (Al Gore stands). Mr. Gore, you have the temerity to make a slur upon the integrity of this Court, and now it's time for some Draconian Justice. You say this Court "invented" new law? Mr. Gore, you have failed again to remember your own screed. You've written and spoken many times that we are killing the planet, and you yourself invented so-called "science" to attempt to prove it. The planet is not dying, Mr. Gore, in fact it is not even heating up any more, it is cooling down. How else would you explain Heavy Snow warnings in the Cascade Mountains in the second week in June, or the record snowpack in those same mountains, a snowpack which might not completely melt before the next snow season? How do you explain the recent satellite mappings of Earth's temperatures, all of which show cooling compared to the cherry-picked locations you cited in your book and movie? How do you explain the fact that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tolerated weather stations for years that failed to meet their own standards for accuracy of temperature observation?

Judge: I'll explain it for you, Mr. Gore. Two words. Pure invention. You invented "Global Warming Hysteria", and based on that form of pseudo-science, you have personally enriched yourself, and you have caused millions of people throughout the world to suffer a loss of income and lifestyle, the dollar totals of which may never be known. You only did that because you, yourself were convinced that you were a god, a messiah put on this Earth to return Earth to the conditions it was in before the advent of Man. You are NOT a god, Mr. Gore, you are a common thief, but because you have so warped and destroyed proper modes of Earth's stewardship, your crime rises to the level of genocide. It's not exactly genocide, but it accomplished the same thing.

Al Gore: Will the Court please hear me out?

Judge: No, this court has heard enough from you Mr. Gore. This court dismisses your motions, and finds, in summary judgment, that you have, indeed stolen countless billions of dollars from citizens all over this good Earth, and you have, indeed, impersonated a deity. Tomorrow, this court will impose sentence on you, Mr. Gore, but until then, you will be taken into custody. Mr. Bailiff, stand this man down. There will be no bail.

Bailiff: All rise. (Judge Dracon rises from the bench, signs two papers from the clerk, and leaves the courtroom).

McCain kisses AlGore's Ring

Portland, OR: McCain landed the "Straight Talk Express" in Portland at noon today, and immediately knelt down to kiss Pope AlGore's ring and suck up to the greenies. He probably lost the election today, losing far more conservatives than he gained lefty-greenies.

That cuts him from me, for one. He gets no support from this blog from here out.

For me to support or even vote for McCain and lie about it later, I would have to see him retract what he said today.

Let's look at what he said that turned my stomach so badly.

He came here to tout a Danish company that has located here to build parts for wind turbines, and to look "Presidential" in a state that suddenly has emerged from political obscurity to be a crossroads of election activity due to the closeness of the (D)onk race for the POTUS nomination. The company, Vestas, is currently building only the 40-yard long windmill blades, but will soon get into building the turbine masts as well.

A German company, Siemens, builds the gear reduction and alternators.

So, the CEO of Vestas, (D) Governor Ted Kulongoski and (RINO) Sen McCain are sharing the dais under a tent. McCain starts off RINO style, by lauding the (D) Guv to the skies, but it gets worse rapidly.

First off he makes the un-makeable link, calling Global Warming "Climate Change". This is ALGore's BIG Lie, since yes, there IS "Climate Change" going on, and there always will be, since the climate is never constant, it's ALWAYS either getting colder or warmer. It happens to be getting colder at the moment, but that didn't stop McCain. Climate Change is EITHER warming or cooling, but never just one or the other.

"Global Warming" doesn't sell anymore, what with the recognized-by-NOAA cool cycle in progress (although McCain lied about that too, saying NOAA's latest satellite technology confirmed global warming, when the opposite is true. The satellites, measuring at random, not at targeted locations like the hand measurements used to establish AlGore's "hockey stick", have confirmed cooling since 2000). So McCain calls it "climate change", but strangely enough, his "cure" for "climate change" is the same Ponzi-scheme carbon-credit trading that AlGore first foisted off on us as a global-warming cure after the Kyoto Protocol was refused as a treaty by the US Senate.

McCain went on to give a Mark One Model Zero AlGore speech on the horrors of Glow-Bull Warming.

He's toast, except for one glimmer of hope, but if we conservatives hang on to that shred of hope, we are fools. That would be if it's all just a mask for McCain, who knows he must have some crossover voting from the left to make it to the White House, and he has no intention of ever signing any laws concerning glow-bull warming.

Of course, if McCain will lie about Glow-Bull Warming, what else would he lie about?

When HRC or BHO lie in their campaign speeches, McCain's campaign HQ is all over them like stink on shit.

Will either HRC or BHO call him on THIS lie? Don't hold your breath.

McCain, embracing the words "climate change", which, by definition means warming AND cooling, whichever is prevalent, REFUSES to present any remedy against global cooling, which, in fact, is what is happening now. You won't see ANY remedies for global cooling presented, one, because they might not be necessary, this isn't the Middle Ages, and we know how to keep ourselves warm and grow food indoors now, and two, because such remedies offer no potential for the advance of socialism.

Now, some of you "support McCain or we are all gonna DIE" people are going to point out that McCain's carbon-trading schemes are NOT like alGore's, because they are "market-based" or some such other schlock. Horsepuckey. Bulltwaddle. There will be wealth re-distribution involved in carbon trading or it won't happen, end of story.

So, today, McCain declares himself to be a Socialist. A socialist who swears that he loves guns. Tell me, are there any other Socialists of that stripe anywhere else in the world?

I didn't think so.

Scam alert!

First it was "Carbon Credits", the Ponzi Scheme of all time, now it's "Vetroleum"

Read this article. Read it knowing it has been written to bamboozle the reader.

Let's take some principles of the old "snake oil" type of scam and see if we can find them here.

1. Find everything a new name to make an older process (in this case, making biodiesel) seem like a breakthrough. We start with the very catchy word "Vetroleum". No, that's not correct. we should start with the reference "biocrude". It doesn't exist. Crude oil is a specific substance, namely petroleum oil pumped right out of the ground. It is "crude" or un-refined. There is no such thing as "bio-crude". If you are going to make biodiesel, you start with raw materials called biomass. At some point in your very long (not "8-minute") reaction, the substance you are cooking down in the presence of reagents, at high pressure, takes on characteristics of a long-chain oil molecule. You may then refine that substance, once it is fractionated (distilled and the fractional compounds removed) in the process (which is not called a "time reaction", it's Catalytic Cracking) into other products (in this case, they seemed to have refined it down into a form of volatile fuel usable as gasoline, but that is a HUGE waste of time, refining equipment and energy, it should be left at the earlier state where it resembles diesel).

2. Get impressive-sounding groups to push your snake oil for you. In this case, they've gotten the "Central American Parliament" on their payroll. Read about the CAP here, it seems to be a club that talks about economics, mostly, and wants to be a super-government like the European Union, but isn't recognized as such. Then get a "Large Corporation" with an impressive name to package your product. Here we find US Sustainable Energy Corporation, whose stock is listed here. That's right, it's a Penny Stock, in this case trading for a little over two cents per share, and three-quarters of the impressive looking 1.3 billion shares are restricted (and may not exist). The capitalization of their UNRESTRICTED stock (Book Value) is less than $750,000.

3. Finally you locate in place known for it's involvement (in energy here), and enlist well-known local government leaders to help you push your product. Baytown-Sugarland in Chambers County, Texas isn't exactly on the cusp of energy production these days. I was down in that area a few weeks ago, in Dickinson, and there didn't appear to be much in the way of energy production going on. Some old oilfields are being drilled for gas now, but that's about the extent of it. My guess is that the Chambers County Commissioner cited in the article isn't exactly an oil baron, either.

Nope, this is a scam designed to line the pockets of a few folks who get in early, and all the rest of the suckers who get in at the end are going to get nada as investors. Maybe this refinery will produce a few barrels of biofuel, but you wouldn't want to have to pay their production costs, and somehow, those aren't even talked about in the article, are they?

The world is going to see many, many fast-buck operators in the biofuel arena in the coming years. This is just one of the earlier ones, that's all.

H/T to the EllTee for this one.

Cease cutting carbon dioxide emissions, or I will sue

Now that even the Socialist Brits have said that this is going to be a "cooling" year of "climate change" (what a stupid term, the climate is always changing, it never is in any sort of stasis or equilibrium), it occurs to me that all this panic-driven cutting of "carbon footprint" or whatever the Holy Church of Al Gore wants to re-invent carbon dioxide emissions control as THIS week, is counterproductive.

We are going to get colder as a result of the mistaken cutting of our warming atmospheric blanket of carbon dioxide, and the atmosphere is already cooling off, making the oceans cooler, etc.

Damage WILL occur because of this climate change, caused in some part by the reduction of the insulating and warming blanket (not my idea, it's Gore's) of carbon dioxide.

When damage occurs to ME, as it will today, I want to recover the cost of that damage from someone. Al Gore is as good as anyone to recover it from, since he is directly in the business of advocating the cutting of carbon dioxide, and has appointed himself Pope of the Church of Carbon Footprint Reduction.

Today's damage for me will be in the form of a trip of 90 miles to my marina, and back, to re-start my winter-protection heaters on my boat to keep it from freezing. Yes, a hard freeze may occur tonight (did occur nearby the marina last night). This hard freeze, BTW, is highly unusual, since the normal date-of-last-freeze is March 15th in these parts. In fact, our area is due for a modified Arctic Outbreak this weekend, with lows near freezing (below freezing in the hinterlands) and high temperatures in the mid-40's, unheard of for mid-April. Arctic Outbreaks are usually unheard of here after February 15th.

This cold spell (or mini-Ice Age, if you're a real pessimist like Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin) would have been milder if we hadn't done all this idiotic "carbon footprint reduction". How much milder? Well, I can answer that just as precisely as Al Gore can predict the horrible results of "Global Warming".

In the meanwhile, I'm saving receipts of expenditures for everything connected with reacting to the cold spell. I might just be able to get it back from Al Gore himself, in Small Claims Court.

The shoe (make that a hobnail boot if it's on MY foot, Mr. Gore) is on the other foot, now that we're likely in for a spell of global cooling.

We should be compensated.

Of course, idiot C-O-two rules affecting automobiles, etc should be immediately suspended, but that's another lawsuit for another time.

Sir Richard Branson, kiss my ass

Richard Branson may kiss my rosy red arse. This idiot idea isn’t going to save the planet. If the aircraft had actually been carrying a payload, then all this relative data might be useful to determine how much more CO2 is released with conventional fuels vs. the biofuel mix he used in his engines.

He carried no passengers, so the CO2 added during entire flight added un-necessary greenhouse gas to the atmosphere, by his own definitions of what causes "global warming", and he also just wasted a large chunk of his stockholders' capital, which he doesn't have the right to do in the capitalist society which he pretends to be a member of.

Branson’s engineers didn’t need to do this, either. All this information can be obtained in a laboratory setting, so actually fueling up the plane with the gook and flying it proves nothing that was or could have been proven already.

It has been adequately demonstrated that obtaining these biofuel materials from the third world has zero positive effect on the atmosphere, and in fact damages multiple ecosystems. First, the third-worlders use old technologies to produce the material the oils are made from, and those technologies are horribly polluting to the atmosphere and damaging to the ecosystems (think: burning rain forests to plant biofuel crops). Then, there is the not-inconsequential matter of the balkanization of those supplies, necessitating a huge, inefficient logistics system to get them to where the fuel can be blended. Finally, I have to see the figures of just how much lest CO2 this fuel mix is going to produce in a turbine engine not designed for it, and Branson is NOT forthcoming with that information.

Now that I have shot down Branson’s attempt, let’s consider also that it was all totally unnecessary. The planet is NOT dying of excess CO2, and in fact, is probably entering a cooling period during which we will be happy to have every kilogram of “greenhouse gas" that can be stuffed into the atmosphere, just to keep our asses from freezing solid over the next few centuries.

Branson is just another hypocrite, toying with “saving the planet” while his attempts to do so violate his own ecological principles, six ways to Sunday. Does this rich clown really think that anything he’s doing will actually have finite results? I’d like to see his measured predictions of the results of his own actions. That is the true measure of success, and he’s not offering it. He just offers us feel-good, but so do all others of his ilk. With the new and accumulating evidence out there that planetary warmth is driven primarily by insolation, or the amount of the sun’s energy striking the earth, and with the proven data that said insolation has been reduced of late, Branson and all the other global warming cultists are behind the times. The so-called “science” they sling at us like so much feces is exactly that, crap, and it has been proven to be crap. All political derivatives of this crap are also still crap.

If you want to make a conscious choice to live in a world of crap, you make that choice for yourself only, please.

Richard Branson, Meet Pope Algore. I'm sure the two of you can sell each other another cockamamie idea on saving the planet, but keep the ideas to yourselves, we have more important things to do, such as saving the planet from Islam.

Goracles to the core....

The leftoid AssPress doesn't even try to hide their politics these days.

They're reporting on the Bali Horsepuckey Conference, Global Warming and Beach Blanket Bingo Party Climate Change Conference in Bali. Consider:

"Those gathering on the resort island of Bali were charged with launching negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. What they decide in the next two years will help determine how much the world warms in the decades to come."

(Emphasis mine)

I guess I could accept that explanation, but ONLY if it means that if they decided to just STFU, as opposed to their penchant for generating heat with billions of words, the Earth would be a cooler place by some amount.

The explanation that AssPress WANTS us to read into that paragraph is that only us can save us from a fate worse than death (when the sky itself falls on us). With ever-increasing evidence that global warming is NOT occurring due to man's activities, it's unlikely that advanced nations of ANY political stripe are going to risk their economies and their position in the world's economic pecking order just to suck up to Pope AlGore.

I'll put Realpolitik up against Gaiapolitik any day, and give you odds that reality will win, because in the end, even the Socialists realize that they aren't going to oversee the tanking of their economies for this cause.

By 2012, when Kyoto sunsets, "Global Warming" will be sooo last decade.

Fair is Fair

One of the basic principles that most democratic nations follow is that of fairness. Most people realize that laws have to apply equally to have meaning and be given the correct impetus to actually work.

Here in the US of A, we have actually made that principle, "Equal Justice", a guiding light. Many, many laws have been struck down at all levels of government that have been proven unfair, or impinge more on one person or class of people than others. Many of the high and mighty have fallen when laws they supposed could never be enforced against their class actually were.

So, as the Bali Bullsh*t Brouhaha convenes, I am led to speculate that unless democratic principles mean nothing to the United Nations, they could use a dose of fairness there as they craft their proposals for taking over the world's economies with their carbon-emissions bulltwaddle.

I noted in another blog, which I can't seem to find now, that fairness has some support in the Second Amendment arena, as two  carry-permit states are considering laws that will force enterprises which want to be gun-free to accept liability for shootings that occur in their gun-free zones. When enacted, this application of fairness will probably kill off those gun-free zones, because the cost of insurance to cover the liability will be too high.

As I awoke this morning, and my mind kicked into gear, it suddenly occurred to me that a dose of liability acceptance is what Pope AlGore (Church of Gaia, Fraud Synod) needs to be confronted with, and his lackeys, the United Nations as well.

I have formed a proposal. Here it is.

We will let the bullshooters in Bali come up with their plan, which they will encode into a draft treaty. When they bring forth the treaty and ask us to sign it, we will agree to sign, on one condition: that the United Nations accept total pecuniary liability for any and all economic losses incurred by all nations under the treaty, if and when it finally becomes obvious that carbon emission reduction was not required. It wouldn't be required if, for example, we proved that man's emissions make no difference to the pace of natural climate change, if man is not capable of reversing or even affecting climate change or if "global warming" is not actually occurring. For a few more reasons, see this excellent post by the Conservative UAW Guy.

Additionally, I would propose that time be the arbiter here, and that no statute of limitations ever apply. I further propose that any "science" advanced in support of the United Nations treaty be subject to the same principle. If any person advances theories of science which are later proven to be incorrect, those theories must be couched in terms leaving no doubt that they are opinions only, and must not be construed as fact. If the scientist's theories do not carry this caveat, but instead masquerade as proven truth, then when proven wrong, those scientists agree to the draconian, but very fair, deletion of their credentials. That means that they may not refer to themselves by their doctorates, for example, and that they be considered unqualified to do work based upon their credits as scientists.

Now, the United Nations will never have the funds, nor will it ever be able to gather them, to make up for the dollars or euros lost in their climate change treaty scheme. I have a solution for that, as well.

Here in the USA, when a business loses a lawsuit in court, and can't pay the judgment, that business is forced into bankruptcy.

I propose that if the United Nation's climate change treaty causes huge economic damage, and it's forecast damage will be comparable to damage on a scale of that left by World War Two (the previous most economically-damaging, man-caused event), that the United Nations should go out of business. Permanently.

Fair is fair. We can't live without fairness, or so we are told every day by our progressive brethren. Well, brothers and sisters of the "fair Left", how about helping me spread this word, and how about standing up for real fairness for once?