Thoughts on the Debt Ceiling

Thoughts on the Debt Ceiling

Make no mistake, both sides are being equally dishonest in this thing. Pretending that "deficit reduction" or "balanced budget amendment" are what we are talking about is a fraud that both parties are playing with. The fact is that neither side wants to talk about the real end game - tax increases on the middle class and benefit reductions in medicare and social security. We pretend that these are not the real issues, but a balanced budget could never be accomplished without these things.

Face it, We the People have been hosed, our representatives have betrayed us, and now they play games in the hopes that we never figure it out. The Ponzi scheme is crashed, and tax increases are in store for all of us, as is the diminution of our "entitlements." I say, bring it on! But the rest of the electorate will feel betrayed, and they were.

Science was better in the 60s

Science was better in the 60s

I was reading Luboš Motl's fine physics blog and came across this fine post about stratospheric aerosols. These substances have lately come into the news since they are the most recent excuse that warmists have come up with in their attempt to explain away the lack of warming the last decade and a half. First Luboš points out that the last actual science that addressed this phenomenon without the taint of warmism was done in 1965. Then Luboš makes some very strong points about where modern climate science has gone wrong, and, as he does, he goes on to prove it.

Some of the greatest commentary on the status of modern climate science is in this post. A little bit:

Their science resembles the science of the chieftain of a terrorist training camp. He believes in the Tooth Fairy and designs an amazing method to earn some money for his terrorist hobby. He punches away the teeth of all the mujahideens in his group, puts the teeth under the pillow, and expects that the Tooth Fairy will replace them by millions of dollars during the night, when he sleeps.

Instead, he still finds the teeth in the morning. So he is totally puzzled: what miraculous, unexpected, supernatural power could have prevented the Tooth Fairy from replacing the teeth by the money? Of course, he is as clever a chieftain as the IPCC scientists so he finds an explanation that satisfies him: the Tooth Fairy asked the Bone Fairy for a permission and didn't get it.

So the chieftain breaks all the bones of his men and puts them under the pillow. It must be different this time, he is confident, and he is waiting for the Tooth Fairy to replace the teeth and bones by millions of dollars. His belief in these laws of physics remains perfect - well, up to the moment when this man is finally shot by a NATO soldier.

It's very similar with the global warming nuts. Instead of admitting that their could have made a wrong assumption, they always prefer to add dozens of other wrong assumptions.

Read the whole thing. It is refreshing to read a young physicist who is not concerned with the career consequences of telling it like it is. I am grateful that he finds the time to write about warmism, especially after a week in which so much other news came out in his field of physics.

Thoughts on TSA and Airline Security

Thoughts on TSA and Airline Security

I remember the days when anyone could get on a plane with a pistol and nobody cared. I remember the days when planes were actually hijacked and/or blown up fairly frequently, and the proud American people did not cower in fear, or submit to indignities and loss of basic personal freedoms in the hope of a morsel of additional safety.

Our government has lost its respect for the people, and the people acquiesce. We have lost our honor as a people, our moral code, and all we seem to care about is having the wherewithal to make the lease payments on the Lexus.

Electric Cars And The Future

Electric Cars And The Future

In the 50s the Soviet Union made Thorium reactors and put them in buoys and lighthouses that provided electricity for years with no maintenance. It is inconceivable to me that, if the current hysteria against nuclear power were to subside that there could not be a superior technology developed. I noticed in today’s news two items. One, there are going to be brownouts in the middle and east of the country due to air conditioning use in the current heat wave. Two, I noted that Mayor Bloomberg of NYC contributed 50 million dollars to a group whose goal is to stop electric power generation from coal, which is currently our major energy source for electric generation. I can not be sanguine about current trends and technologies resulting in not having enough power to recharge millions of inefficient car batteries.

The answers to our problems are technological. We are currently in thrall to a political movement that threatens to cause shortages in electric power generation. If new technologies are retarded by political action, I fear that electric automobiles will not be successful now, any more than they failed to provide mass transportation in the last century.

Electric automobiles are an older technology than gasoline or diesel. We need something new. While projecting current technologies as the answer to our future transportation needs is all fine and well, it is entirely too pessimistic for this optimistic, ever more wealthy society, it seems to me that, rather than societal poverty, our tremendous wealth will continue to increase, once our modern Luddite political movement towards energy poverty will be circumvented. If America does not step forward into the future, China will surely continue development of new technological answers to our current problems.

Environmentalists are Cargo Cultists

Environmentalists are Cargo Cultists

Cargo Cults were belief systems developed by primitive tribes to make sense of parachute resupply pallets that missed their mark in World War 2. They found the bounty, had no easy explanation for how the goods arrived, and so designed a religion that ascribed these things to God. Environmentalists suffer from a similar misunderstanding about what they see in the world today. The actual explanation is easy to see, if we look at what is happening with open eyes.

The planet has changed, and it will continue to do so. Humanity has emerged as the apex predator in recent years, and we hope to remain at the top of the food chain for a long time to come. We humans need food and energy, and are fantastically gifted with the ability to provide it for ourselves. The Cargo Cultists and their ilk believe humanity to be vermin in a formerly "pristine" environment, who have ruined the optimum environment that existed before we ascended to primacy. There are too many of us, they believe, and we live too well, devouring too much food and energy for the planet's good, or something.

That is fatuous nonsense. We humans are here to stay, and our numbers are bound to increase. Pretending that yesterday's fish species or yesterday's climate is somehow "optimum" is merely a political talking point with no basis in fact or science. The political class wields these ideas to amass great power and wealth. I understand and respect where they are coming from. They know exactly what they are doing, and have no compunctions, or conscience, about it.

What I cannot respect is otherwise intelligent people buying in to these notions of peak oil, global warming, or endangered species. These changes are all natural, they have been happening for more than four billion years. There is no reason to believe that the earth will mot survive for billions years more as a fecund environment for whatever species have the hardiness and will to cling to life here.

Me? I'm betting on humanity. If the wild salmon can't make it in the real world, we will just have to find a better fish to eat. I see no danger in a warmer climate, even as I doubt that we shall see one. We are not that lucky - we may well have to deal with the cold. Air is cleaner every year, even as gas, oil, and coal are more abundant today than ever before. Victory will go to the bold, which pretty well describes humanity. Those who would cower in cold drafty caves instead of gleaming edifices because they fear the unknown can do it without me. Al Gore apparently agrees with me on that last point, for himself, at least.