MaxRedline

Science Lurches On

Scientists told us that the Coelacanth was long extinct.  Then, the fish turned up in fishemens' nets. Oops.  So much for that idea.  And for a long time, scientists have been telling us that reef-building glass sponges have been long extinct.  But yesterday, it was announced that they've been found off the coast of Washington state.  Oops, again.  Scientists told us that the Northern Spotted Owl could only exist in old-growth forests, which led to the elimination of logging in old-growth forests and in virtually all National forests.  But then it was found that they actually do well in fragmented habitat as well.  Ooops.  Dang.  Don't you hate when that happens?  As if in support of the Law of Unintended Consequences, the frantic effort to preserve habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl has resulted in ideal habitat for the larger and more aggressive Barred Owl.  The result has led to the more rapid decline of the very species that the scientist assurred us would survive if we stopped logging in the Pacific Northwest.  At the same time, the Barred Owls are now hybridizing by interbreeding with the Northern Spotted Owls, yielding viable offspring and further muddying an already clouded situation.  Biologists now believe that two options for maintaining a distinct Northern Spotted Owl population exist:  shooting barred owls indefinitely, or capturing the remaining Spotteds and reproducing them in captivity.  The former approach is, of course, not a viable option: once you begin shooting the barred owls, you have to be prepared to do so ad infinatum.  And quite obviously, politics and "Animal Activists" will not permit this approach.  The latter option, although sure to be vigorously fought by "Animal Activists", is more likely to be successful.  "Animal Activists" such as the Audubon Society and Sierra Club fought tooth and nail in the courts to prevent USFWS and zoos from embarking upon just such a plan to preserve the California Condor, for example, and ultimately failed.  Meanwhile, the Condor program has resulted in a managed expansion of the gene pool, repopulation, and in some cases successful return of the birds to the wild.

But taken together, the above should make one stop for a moment to consider:  scientists were wrong about the coelacanth.  Wrong about glass sponges.  Wrong about habitat preservation for the Northern Spotted Owl.

You can't trust them to predict the weather four days from now.

Yet you believe them when they tell you that Global Warming Is All Your Fault?  Psst!  Want a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge?

At Least Somebody Gets It

Sydney - People wanting to settle in Australia will need to show a willingness to integrate into the host society, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said Tuesday in a speech detailing a further shift away from the gospel of multiculturalism.

Is the pendulum of multiculturalism finally swinging back into the realm of sanity?  Not likely, not in the USA.

You Can Spot 'Em A Block Away

Ever noticed that moonbats just can't place one or two bumperstickers on their cars?  Nope - they've got to nearly paper the whole back end over, as they have so much to say that is just so important.  What is their problem, anyway?  Now granted, some conservatives may sport a sticker - maybe even two.  It's not uncommon to see a sticker that says "Peace through superior firepower" with one of those ribbon-like magnets supporting our troops.

But you can at least tell that there's an actual car in there, somewhere.  Not so with the moonbats:  they've got their Kerry for President sticker, three or four anti-Bush stickers, a bunch of others.  So many freaking stickers that you can't see anything other than the rear window - if that.  It's a good thing that they're such "tolerant" folks.  Otherwise, they'd cover the car on all sides.  Leftists are just given to excess.  Must be a genetic thing.  Or maybe it's just that they're inherently stupid - so they can't come up with any original thoughts.  That sounds about right, as they use bumper-stickers to do their talking for them.

This presents a huge hurdle for folks at Metro and the City of Portland.  And it's something they've never considered.  Since moonbats rely upon plastering bumperstickers all over their cars, this amounts to their most visceral means of "communication".  And that means that you can't get them out of their cars and into mess transit or onto bikes because - well, there's no provision for bumpersticker-plastering.

In essence, a shift toward mess transit or bikes is incompatible with the only means that idealistic moonbats have available as a means of disseminating their "messages".  Perhaps this is one of the few arguments that actually favor "planning" for more mess transit and bikepaths.

Everybody Knows

Global Warming is anthropogenic - it's All Your Fault.  Aspartane is a harmless sweetener.  DDT destroys the planet.  Second-hand tobacco smoke is so deadly that smoking must be banned.  Light rail is good.  Roads are bad.  Cows must be trained not to emit so much methane.  Governmental "planning" is good.  There are such things as "hate speech" and "hate crimes", and these are especially heinous; requiring especially harsh measures to deal with them.  As "you are what you eat", then vegans are plants, while carnivores are composed of animal corpses.  Oh - and one other thing:

Just as smoking is banned virtually everywhere, the next ban to head your way will be...

printers.  Yes, the latest study from Australia shows that it is imperative that printer-free zones be established.  Printers, it turns out, are as bad as cigarettes.  And naturally, the researchers are calling for governmental intervention to "regulate" office air quality.  The day when governmental bureaucrats are present in restrooms to ensure that your backside is properly wiped seems not far off.

It's reminiscent of the old Ames Tests for carcinogens.  Staples of modern science in the 1970's and 1980's, they were the holy grail - until further study was done and the tests indicated that two amino acids essential to life were considered by the Ames Tests as strong carcinogens.  Ooops, never mind.

The humble office laser printer can damage lungs in much the same way as smoke particles from cigarettes, a team of Australian scientists has found.

Global Warming: It Must Be The Clams

The Religion of Global Warming makes it clear that the phenomenon occurs solely as a result of human activities.  It is gospel; it cannot be questioned.

Except by heretics.

The rise of mollusks across the globe was a harbinger of doom roughly 250 million years ago, ushering in the most devastating mass extinction in Earth's history, research now reveals.

Hmmm.  Now, as Global Warming Is All Your Fault - how could this be?  There weren't any humans around back then; even dinosaurs had not yet arrived on the scene.  Yet 95% of all life on the planet was wiped out in the most massive episode of Global Warming known to have occurred.  Oh, Father Gore, where art thou?  Deliver us from Fact, and return us to the fold of Your Belief!  In Gaiia's name, we beseech thee!

You, Too, Can Be A Wiener!

Willamette Week notes that an enviro magazine based out of Seattle has voted Portland as the second greenest city in the world.  While it'd be nice to see what the criteria were and who, exactly, did the "voting", it seems clear that folks who love choo-choo trains and biofools just naturally gravitate to Portland these days.

But speaking of biofools, Rolling Stone is out with an article that takes a surprisingly in-depth look at Fireman Randy's latest crusade, and concludes that it's a scam.  Although focusing on ethanol, the same applies to biodiesel; in both cases, valuable cropland is converted to produce fuels that not only do not burn cleaner than gasoline - they aren't any less expensive.  In fact, taking all of the costs into account, biofools are more expensive and cause greater environmental damage than do conventional fuels.  Of course, folks don't want to hear that, so it's all the more impressive wher the venerable Rolling Stone comes right out and says it like it is: 

This is not just hype -- it's dangerous, delusional bullshit. Ethanol doesn't burn cleaner than gasoline, nor is it cheaper. Our current ethanol production represents only 3.5 percent of our gasoline consumption -- yet it consumes twenty percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to double in the last two years and raising the threat of hunger in the Third World. And the increasing acreage devoted to corn for ethanol means less land for other staple crops, giving farmers in South America an incentive to carve fields out of tropical forests that help to cool the planet and stave off global warming.

Another misconception is that ethanol is green. In fact, corn production depends on huge amounts of fossil fuel -- not just the diesel needed to plow fields and transport crops, but also the vast quantities of natural gas used to produce fertilizers. Runoff from industrial-scale cornfields also silts up the Mississippi River and creates a vast dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico every summer. What's more, when corn ethanol is burned in vehicles, it is as dirty as conventional gasoline and does little to solve global warming: E85 reduces carbon dioxide emissions by a modest fifteen percent at best, while fueling the destruction of tropical forests.

Of course, that was touched upon here, but the Stone goes into greater detail.  It's well worth the time it takes to read the three-page piece.

Going back to another part of the puzzle that nets Portland "the second greenest city in the world", you might want to check out the actual effects of light rail "planning".  For another look, and for commentary pro- and con-, you might spend a few seconds  at the Catalyst.  Finally, to counter the onslaught of PR emanating from Metro and other sources (there are a minimum of 500 "planners" employed by Metro, the PDC, and the City of Portland), you can get a glimpse of the actual impacts of fixed rail here.

The bottom line:  most of what you think you know about the world's second greenest city is dead wrong.

A $250 Million Town Center, Successful

The latest one - conceived, designed, and constructed without Metro's "planners" and without "public investment" seems to be kicking off private development all around it.  Again, without "public investment".  This really puts the lie to the views of folks like Metro's David Bragdon and Portland's Tram Adams.  That development?  Bridgeport Village. 

Bragdon, Adams, and their legions of "planners" are doubtless falling all over themselves trying to "plan" fixed rail to the place, in a desperate effort to claim some degree of credit for the success.  Hmmm...wasn't Clackamas Town Center a success before the "planners" got involved and decided that fixed rail should run out there?  While the rail is still under construction, and thus hasn't had any impact on the center, this is nothing more than a transparent bid to claim that "planning works".

Teddy "The Bowler" Strikes Again

Well, if the effort against democracy can't be stymied on the national level, you can count on Oregon's sock-puppet to come through for the unions which not only own him, but which effectively are now in charge of state government.  Of course, it's hardly perfect:

House Bill 2891 enables majorities of public-sector workers to form new unions under Oregon's collective-bargaining law simply by signing cards, rather than holding elections.

The problem here is, obviously, that it only applies to government workers.

"Every time we put a union card in workers' hands, we are guaranteeing they are going to earn more money,have a better chance for health care and retirement in dignity, and a chance to restore the American dream for their children," said Tom Chamberlain, the president of the Oregon AFL-CIO and a former aide to the governor.

"My only regret is that we cannot have the same effect on private-sector workers in Oregon."

You bet they do regret that.  The fact is that every time they put a union card into somebody's hands, they are guaranteeing that that worker will see an annual pay increase that is below the cost-of-living (unless they're members of the teacher's union).  Workers may look forward to as much as a two-cent increase in pay on the dollar.  And of course, they'll pay far more than that in increases to health-plan contributions.  Oh, but let us not forget Union "dues".  The nice thing, too, is that unions can take it straight out of the employees' paycheck, to the tune of $40, $50, $60 or more each month.  Why, the employee will never miss that.  Not when the union has "negotiated" a fat 2 cent-per-hour pay hike.

Of course the unions wish they could do the same in the private sector - that's be even more money pouring into the coffers so that they can support Democrat campaigns,   "march" alongside illegal aliens while demanding "rights" for them (hey, it's a great recruiting tool!),  and engage in any number of other activities that aren't supported by a majority of the "membership".  This is the really cool thing about unions:  it doesn't matter whether you want to be in one or not!  They get a cut from your paycheck, to do essentially anything the "leadership" wants to do with it, and it doesn't matter how you, the worker, feel about it.

Now, you could attempt to organize a decertification - which would rid you of the union - but that's a long and arduous process.  And it requires a secret ballot, so it's much harder to "lean" on the fence-sitters.  What's really cool about the Kulongoski signing, though, is that in the case of public employees, unions don't have to bother with old-fashioned ideas like a ballot box and anonymous voting.  Nope, by signing a card, they can immediately identify who their "friends" and "enemies" are.  Is Teddy a visionary leader, or what?  The fact that his vision is stuck in the 1930's or 1940's is really sort of irrelevant.  Of course, Teddy himself is irrelevant.

If you don't believe that your best interests are being served as a union member - it doesn't matter.  They're going to do what they're going to do.  If it works for you, then great.  If not - suck it up.  Your money's just going to keep rolling in, anyway.

NOTE: I am, as it happens, sort of represented by a union.  It's not a desire, it simply is the case.

Unions:  shining beacons of democracy in action.

It's Only Money

In the words of junior wizard Randy Leonard: "The best way to bridge the urban-rural divide is with good old American greenbacks."   Yours.

How much diesel fuel will it take the tractors to plow and plant the canola of which Randy's so enamored?  How much petro-based pesticides and fertilizers will be involved?  How much diesel fuel will it take to harvest and transport the canola to the biodiesel plant?

What's the actual cost of Randy's Green Dream?  Want to bet that when all factors are taken into consideration, ROI falls into negative numbers?

Uh-Oh! Something Positive In Iraq!

There is a great rending of clothes, gnashing of teeth, dumping of ashes, and general wailing amongst the cut-and-run crowd today:  Iraq's soccer team, composed of a mixture of Shiite, Sunni, and Kurds, won the Asian Cup.  Massive celebrations are occurring across the country, the team is being hailed as heros, and several officials have noted that the victory has united the country.  One hopes the unity prevails.