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The Green Zombie Apocalypse: Here and Now

trzupr — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:50:33 +0000

Yesterday Floyd linked to a post from Reason that celebrated the death of cap and trade (yay!) and suggested that this could be a turning point, to wit: the beginning of the end of global warming hysteria. As reasonable as that reasoned conclusion seems, there are many reasons to suggest that this is not the reasonable case. (I’ll stop that now). The fight over cap and trade was not the climactic climatic battle, it was rather an over-hyped skirmish in a much larger war that – as painful as it is to say it – our side has been losing for some time.

As is the case in any war, momentum means a lot and the Green Armies of Good have established a hurtling freight train’s worth of momentum over the past decade. Sure public opinion is turning against them. Sure Congress handed them a defeat. So what? If the Sierra Club and their pals accomplish nothing more going forward, it does not matter. Not a whit. All of the things they have already done – in the name of battling the chimera we call “global warming,” or “climate change,” or whatever the hell we are calling it today – have changed this nation more than anyone seems to realize and the rate of change will continue to accelerate. Those changes are already costing us, in terms of jobs and prosperity, and the costs will only increase.

I wish I could say that there is some way of rolling all this crap back, but how do you roll back a swamp, especially when you can count the number of people who understand that the swamp is actually there on one hand? Unless somebody organizes a Fossil Fuel Liberation Front sometime soon (which isn’t a bad idea) the net result of all the global warming induced goofiness that we have already put in place will be more expensive energy, the continued decline of the industrial sector in America and – consequently – a weaker economy over the long run. And – oh yeah – you’ll be driving craptastic cars too. The Chinese, who stand to benefit from this disaster more than anyone, are laughing their asses off right now.

So what happened while we were sleeping? Let’s review:

Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) happened. Over half of the states in the Union have RPS now, and more will be developed. A state that has RPS requires it’s electric utilities to generate more and more electricity from “renewable” sources every year. So, for example, a particular state’s RPS might require 5% renewable power this year, 7% next year and so forth, till they get to 25% by 2020.

Regional cap and trade programs happened. There is a regional cap and trade program in operation right now among east coast states and we’ll see programs go live on the west coast and in the Midwest within the next couple of years.

Subsidies for renewable fuels (mostly wind and ethanol) happened. Energy is thus more expensive, but since that expense is filtered through your tax dollars, you don’t actually know it.

Increased fuel efficiency standards for vehicles happened. Your cars are about to get more expensive as a result and, history suggests, less reliable.

The Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) happened. The EAB isn’t really a new thing, but over the last 10 years the Sierra Club (and some other enviro-heads) have learned how to work the EAB to obstruct, delay and ultimately kill projects it doesn’t like. Yeah we can build innovative power plants that use cheap coal and emit practically nothing, but the Sierra Club will use the EAB to kill those projects anyway, so why bother trying?

The Lisa Jackson/Carol Browner EPA happened. Buried in the details of seeming innocuous environmental regulations that the EPA has been promulgating over the last couple of years are dozens of regulatory “Trojan horses.” These are obscure, poorly-understand provisions that effectively make it virtually impossible to build any new coal-fired power plants in the country and almost as hard to construct new heavy industry of any kind.

The national cap and trade debate happened. Yeah, we won that one, but it kept us distracted for a long, long time and it allowed the states, the feds and the environmental groups to lay the foundations of Green America anyway.

A final note: between 2000 and 2009, per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the United States dropped over 15%. That’s more than any industrialized nation in Europe (which has cap and trade) and of course more than China or India, where per capita greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. The majority of that decrease occurred before the onset of the Great Recession. And that’s without all the stuff I described above kicking into high-gear. Do you suspect that might have something to do with our declining industrial base the lamentable state of the economy today?

I sure do.

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Picture Day!

trzupr — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:00:14 +0000

It’s been a while since we’ve done this, so I think it’s high time that we Lileksed some official White House photography. Everything below the fold is from the official White House web site – the pictures that the Obamamaniacs knew you just had to see. Your tax dollars at work boys and girls, as well as your president. Well, sort of anyway…

Enjoy.

I have an iron-clad rule that I have never, ever heretofore violated when I’m writing about this or that in the various venues that will have me: I never mention a person’s race when writing about someone. I don’t know why a person’s race is relevant to any discussion. I won’t break that rule, except in this back-handed way, but what we have here is a summit between the current president, an ex-president and business leaders who are all trying to figure out how to get the private sector going again. Racial balance, as it were, seems to be a bit lacking. Interest also seems to be lacking, as a few close up will amply demonstrate:

This guy has heard it all before and he’ll hear it all again. Might as well grab a nap before returning to the real world.

Might there be a bit of disgust on this fellow’s face? Just a little…

For the Love of GOD! Just make it stop! Make it STOP!!!

The one person at the table who appears to be interested in whatever the president is blathering on about. Why does Bill’s rapt attention make me suspect that Obama is describing the 2010 crop of White House interns?

So who is more enraptured – the middle-aged moms who have gotten the chance to see the Messiah close up, or the Messiah gazing upon his own visage?

Not really a contest is it?

The latest plan to revive the economy: the official White House Wacky-Tobacky Farm. How many dime bags does it take to cover $2 trillion in debt?

This is the picture of Obama interacting with Bibi Netanyahu that the Obama administration WANTED you to see. You know, a picture that demonstrates how deeply the president respects the Prime Minister of our closest friend in the Middle East, rather than one that suggests – based on body language and the placement of the parties – that the president doesn’t hold Bibi in contempt and is trying to box him into a corner. That picture.

Seriously dude – fifty bucks and the pooch is all yours. We could really use the money right about now.

Obama and Cameron. They appear to have undergone sympathetic amputations in order to re-establish the special relationship between the US and the UK, with Obama sacrificing his right leg and Cameron his left. GOOD SHOW!

Obama is pointing again. He points more than a Labrador Retriever. Based on the angle, I’m guessing that he’s explaining just how high into the stratosphere he is driving the national debt.

Last time we did this, we found an Abbey Road shot and dutifully mocked it. I had assumed that was a one-off kind of deal, but the evidence above suggests it will be a theme of the Obama presidency. Perhaps the Prez will go all barefoot Paul on us just before the election? No doubt that Axelrod is running the polling numbers even as we speak.

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Pretty Much Explains It All

trzupr — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:31:24 +0000

Hey – this came up #2 when I Binged “professor.” Who am I to argue?

Does it seem like the Obama administration is over-loaded with pointy-headed academics and career “public servants” who don’t have any actual real world experience?

While I can not vouch for the accuracy of the chart waiting for you below the fold, it rings true. According to the e-mail I got via this interwebs thingy, the chart originated in a report published by J.P. Morgan. (The company, not the dead guy).

In the case of the current administration, the chart covers 432 Cabinet members. And how many of those have real world experience you wonder?

Wonder no more:

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Risky Business

trzupr — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:41:54 +0000

As far as classic board games go, Risk has always been one of my faves. It’s an elegant balance of strategy and luck, it makes it entirely clear why one should never start a land war in Asia and it also taught me where Kamchatka is. What’s not to like?

This weekend, I got to teach the youngest step-son the ins and outs of the game. Interesting experience. If you’re a Risk aficionado, you know the basic troop deployment strategy: keep your big armies at the points of contents and stash 1 man garrison troops in the back lines. Alec, on the other hand, decided that a defense in depth was the way to go, so he had piles of troops standing around far in the back like a bunch of bureaucrats waiting for the next SEIU rally. This annoyed his mom, whom is also my wife, because it left her with the thankless job of trying to break my stranglehold on Europe and Africa instead of consolidating her North American holdings. But then that’s a parent’s life in a nutshell isn’t it? You’re always cleaning up your kids’ messes. Didn’t matter at the end though; despite their best efforts to defeat the evil step-dad/husband, my Invincible Army of Despair conquered all. BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!!

At one point, Alec was in a quandary about where to attack, prompting the following bit of advice from the smokin’ hot Mrs. Trzupr. She points to the board and patiently explains to the boy:

“Well, you’ve got two choices Alec. You could you these guys to attack me in Alaska from Kamchatka, but I’m pretty strong there and you’d probably lose. Or, you could those guys to attack Rich in the Middle East – he’s only got two armies there.”

Which prompted me to observe:

“That’s a choice? ‘Commit suicide or beat up on Rich’ is a choice? Christ, why don’t you just sell him a nuclear weapon and get it over with.”

She laughed, but the observation was meant more for Alec than for Cheryl. It’s never too early for a young fellow to learn about the wicked, manipulative ways of women. Not that he’ll be able to do anything about it, but it’s best to be aware of the consequences when one decides to go hetero. As Ron White famously said: as a husband, you can be right or you can be happy, but you damn sure can’t be both.

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WWHD?

trzupr — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:54:50 +0000

As Floyd alluded to an open thread comment, the libs who complain about Bush circumventing the Constitution would probably go into shock if they understood Abraham Lincoln a little better. Not only did Lincoln have Democrats in the Maryland legislature detained so they couldn’t vote to take the Old Line State into the Confederacy, Abe also routinely ignored habeus corpus. His response to somebody who complained was that the nation was at war and nobody needed to worry about the Constitution, for he was keeping it in a very safe place, thank you very much.

Much the same could be said of FDR, who instituted military operations in the North Atlantic against Germany – including hunting for U-Boats and occupying Iceland – without Congress declaring war. I don’t think that the founders would be bothered in the least by presidents who bend the constitution in defense of the constitution in time of war. I know I’m not.

But how would Andrew Napolitano – or Eric Holder – react to an administration that not only let a high-ranking Nazi go right after WW II, but also employed him in a very sensitive position and let all his pals go as well? Do you know who I’m talking about? If you don’t know this bit of history, the above describes something that happened under the Truman administration and it’s quite the amazing story. Can’t imagine anybody pulling this off today:

Reinhard Gehlen was a Major General in the Wehrmacht at the end of WW II. He ran a large spy ring deeply imbedded within the USSR during the war. At the end of the war, he offered up his services and that of his organization to the US, in exchange for his freedom and that of his comrades. Allen Dulles and Bill Donovan – almost certainly with the knowledge and approval of Truman – took Gehlen up on his offer. The Gehlen Organization provided us with invaluable intelligence in the early years of the Cold War.

In his autobiography, Gehlen said he was involved with Stauffenburg in the bomb plot and that he was never a Nazi at heart. Could be – you’d like to believe that is true – but there’s no way of knowing for sure and, in my mind anyway, it shouldn’t have mattered. When somebody gives you a gift that valuable, is it really necessary to check how dirty the giver’s hands are? Gehlen later moved on to run the West German Foreign Intelligence Service (that’s “Bundesnachrichtendienst” to you Fritz) from 1956 through 1968.

So, do you think that Eric Holder or any of those clowns in this administration would welcome a deal with a Reinhard Gehlan today? Do you think our pathetic MSM would let it happen? Or do you think a bunch or righteously-indignant, utopian, liberal idiots would insist that the Nazi bastard face justice before judge and jury?

Yeah, me too.

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Happy (?) Day After Bastille Day

trzupr — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:29:32 +0000

Yesterday – in case you missed it – was Bastille Day. The French celebrate Bastille Day because it was a beginning, the day that their ancestors started to remove the shackles of the despotic monarchy that had ruled their country for centuries. There’s nothing wrong with throwing off the shackles of despots, but Bastille Day really represents something else. The events that inevitably followed led France down a road that altered the nation’s national identity into something both uniquely arrogant and incredibly touchy. I enjoy bashing the French (who doesn’t?), but I’m not talking about the people here – there have been and still are some cool Frenchmen. National identity is something else and France’s is both haughty and insecure. A big reason for that, in my humble opinion, is that they completely screwed up their revolution and they’ve never really recovered from that. America kicked out a king and replaced him with democracy, stability, Washington and Jefferson. France killed their king and filled the void with tyranny, volatility, Robespierre and Napoleon.

As interesting, the tides of history carried the western world directly from Bastille Day to September 1, 1939 – the day that WW II began in Europe. Incredulous are you? Prepare to be credulous – below the fold.

1 – Bastille Day marks the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution, which leads us to…

2 – Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, which leads to…

3 – The Directorate, which governed for a while once Robespierre was deposed and dispatched, which lead us to…

4 – One of the Directors, Paul Barras, who advanced the career of a heretofore obscure artillery officer, one Napoleon Bonaparte, which leads us to…

5 – The Napoleonic wars, which – although the Corsican is ultimately defeated – becomes a source of enormous pride for many a Frenchman as the years pass, which leads us to…

6 – The eventual rise of Napoleon’s nephew, Napoleon III, a few decades after the return of a wholly unsatisfying monarchy and Napoleon III’s creation of the Second Empire, which leads us to…

7 – The rather incompetent Napoleon III trying to recapture his uncle’s glory and, in the course of trying to do so, getting suckered by Otto von Bismark into the Franco-Prussian War, in which…

8 – Napoleon III gets his ass kicked, losing Alsace-Lorraine, bruising French pride once again and boosting the prestige of both Bismark and Prussia enormously, which leads us to…

9 – The final unification of Germany, which becomes the dominant power in continental Europe, which leads us to…

10 – Kaiser Wilhelm II deciding that imperial Germany not only had to step in to help Emperor Franz Joseph and his empire of Austria-Hungary in 1914, but that the war presented another great opportunity to kick French butt, which leads us to…

11 – The defeat of the Central Powers in 1918, the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France and the Treaty of Versailles, all of which…

12 – Creates a smoldering resentment among the German people, who had heretofore enjoyed a century of martial success, and this bitterness is particularly strong in the case of…

13 – A weird Austrian corporal who won the Iron Cross in the Great War and who, while still enlisted in the Army, is sent to investigate a new, obscure political party called the “National Socialist German Workers Party,” which leads us to…

14 – Said corporal, who despite his intense, humorless demeanor and freaky mustache, is one hell of a rousing speaker, and he is thus able to quickly taking control of the party whose acronym – the world would soon learn – is commonly pronounced “Nazi” in English.

The rest, as they say, is history.

(Actually, so was everything else).

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Warriors

trzupr — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:06:44 +0000

It’s entirely possible that I will quit my job and spend the rest of my life at Shorpy, now that I’ve found it. (And why in the heck didn’t any of you slugs send me there before?) Civil War buff that I am, I was naturally drawn to that tag. In the course of poking about, I came across the picture above. It’s a group of scouts and guides attached to the Army of the Potomac, photographed at Brandy’s Station in 1864.

Note that during the Civil War “scouts and guides” usually meant “spies”. These were the guys who rode ahead of the troops, usually out of uniform, and tried to gather intelligence from the locals and sometimes from members of the opposing army. It was dangerous work and the men who performed it knew that if they were caught by the enemy, they were dead.

Those who thrived in the job were courageous, smart, audacious and – most of all – tough-assed SOBs. Check out the close ups of some of these warriors, below the fold, and imagine meeting them in a dark alley. Sure, nobody smiled in photographs back in the nineteenth century, but it’s not the stern expression that sends a chill up your spine – it’s the cold, hard eyes. During the Civil War, soldiers distinguished themselves as either having “seen the elephant” (been in combat) or not. These guys have seen a herd.

No moobs – I promise. And no commentary either. No witty remarks or oh-so-clever observations. Just the grim faces of American warriors.

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Window On The Past

trzupr — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:57:20 +0000

If you haven’t been there, allow me to suggest a trip to shorpy.com. Shorpy is a vast interwebs repository of vintage photographs. Not photos of great historical significance mind you, but rather pictures of everyday life. Most are very old, from the 19^th century and early twentieth, but there some as late as the 70’s. Fascinating stuff.

The pictures are interesting enough by themselves, but if you click on the “high def” button, they come to life in amazing detail. Consider just one example, below the fold.

The boardwalk, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1906. It’s a windy day, probably in the fall based on how people are dressed. Let’s take a closer look.

The woman walking is – what? – in her mid thirties maybe. Probably fairly well-off, based on her clothes. She’s got a walking stick. Always thought that walking sticks were a guy thing back then, but the angle suggests that our gal is using it jauntily as she walks briskly down the boardwalk.

Are her teeth are gritted against the cold? (Doesn’t look like a smile). Her eyes are glancing over to her left, toward the couple on the rolling cart, where we see:

Disapproving grandmother. What’s got her corset in a knot, I wonder? Is it the unseemliness of seeing a female in public without a male escort? Is it the walking stick? Or is it just the general disapproval that some senior citizens express when they espy someone who is in the prime of life? Her facial expression seems to scream: “you shameless hussy!”

Hubby, on the other hand (who may or not be Fritz) has heard it all before. There was a time when he’d call her on it. “Mother,” he’d say “let’s just enjoy the day, shall we?” That hadn’t worked for twenty years. Now, whenever she got that way he’d just stare off into space and remember happier times. At least she had let him keep the little sign that meant so much to him and reminded him that life wasn’t really as bad as it seemed:

Meanwhile, far in the background, we finally have photographic evidence that Atlantic City was ready if King Kong every came to town and needed a shave:

h/t: Stosh from da Sticks

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What Nightmares Are Made Of

trzupr — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:46:37 +0000

As a kid growing up in a Polish household, there were few foods I despised more than sauerkraut. The very knowledge that sauerkraut would be on the menu when I got home was enough to distract me from fantasizing about Carol Stone’s ample and prematurely developed bosom in junior high. Sauerkraut was a horror. I couldn’t stand the sight of it nor the smell of it. I hated the taste and the revolting slimy feel that it has – like your mouth was full of nightcrawlers. When I left home to go to college, I resolved that sauerkraut would never, ever slide down my gullet again. I have kept that promise.

With that in mind, my heart goes out to this guy:

“Todd Michael, 44, was trapped in the debris with his legs pinned for about four hours before he was rescued. Wiersma said he didn’t know the extent of Michael’s injuries but that it appears he will survive.”

Screw the injuries, the poor dude was trapped in the rubble of a sauerkraut factory in Ohio after its roof collapsed earlier today. The psychological trauma of being surrounded by rotting, pickled cabbage is more than even the strongest mind can bear. If we subjected terrorists to four hours of sauerkraut torture the ACLU would go ballistic and I, for one, wouldn’t blame them.

On a serious note, one worker died in the accident. R.I.P. to Nate Kern. Having spent a good deal of my working life crawling around factory roofs – and having been around and through a few close calls – this kind of accident hits home. But at least Nate Kern went quick. For Todd Michael, the nightmares have just begun.

P.S.: While attending a family wedding many moons ago, I once offered my younger bro $5 if he could eat an entire plate of sauerkraut – without using any utensils or fingers. I lost the fiver, but gained a memory worth so very much more!

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Just When You Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider Dept.; Exhibit 538

trzupr — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:42:12 +0000

Sadly, these episodes will no longer be part of mission briefings.

And then this happened:

“It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the _____ (nations),” he said. He held up the International Space Station as a model, praising the contributions there from the Russians and the Chinese.

That’s NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, talking about what he describes as his “foremost” mission. And what nations are going to make these invaluable contributions to our missions in space? Oh, you know the answer, because you know this administration.

Sigh.

It’s the Muslim world of course. You know, the culture that placed all technological advances on hold circa 1300? Yeah, yeah – there was a time when Arab scholars were leaders in the scientific world, particularly in mathematics and astronomy. Then the caliphs clamped down on anything that God didn’t specifically dictate to Big Mo for inclusion in the Quran and scientific study pretty much ended in the Muslim world.

So, unless NASA has some use for abacuses and sun-dials, I’m not sure exactly what is “to be gained” on our side from this exciting new partnership. On the other hand, I’m sure that Syria, Saudi Arabia, Eygpt and – dare we say it? – Iran would absolutely LOVE the thought of tapping into NASA’s pool of knowledge.

Does it get any stupider than this?

Seriously.

Does it?

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