A Seething Miasma Just Below The Surface

Look, I know she's not ever going to be president but sometimes you have to listen to Michele Bachmann because she is the standard-bearer for a significant segment of the American right. That's why this stupid thing she said matters.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann wants oil drilling in Florida's Everglades. That's not sitting well with many Floridians. Bachmann told the Associated Press: "The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent upon American resourcefulness. Whether that is in the Everglades... we need to go where the energy is. Of course it needs to be done responsibly. If we can't responsibly access energy in the Everglades then we shouldn't do it." However, geologists believe there's not much oil under the Everglades anyway. Collier County's Sunniland Field, the only significant oil field nearby, doesn't produce large quantities of oil, and a former employee tells 10News the oil is difficult to refine. ...Bachmann hasn't been deterred by any naysayers, telling 10News, "The radical environmentalists put up one road block after another to prevent accessing American energy. We also have oil in the Eastern Gulf region."

I say we keep after her until she insists that we need to drill into the side of Lincoln's face on Mt. Rushmore, in case there's some oil there.

But the larger point is now these guys are starting to insist on drilling for oil even where it will never be profitable to do it! Is there any clearer sign that the right values their own talking points over what's best for the country?

Global Warming Deniers -- Problem Solved!

Good news - if someone says global warming isn't a man-made problem, you can ignore them. Because THEY DON'T EXIST.

Let's take James Inhofe (said to be a Republican Senator from Oklahoma) as an example. Inhofe gets a lot of press for being a "global warming skeptic". But let's face it, have you ever seen him? Most people haven't. There simply isn't enough evidence to conclude there is such a person as James Inhofe. Plus that name is pretty unlikely.

Now say you're at a party and a guy you DO know makes the same claims. It's true that most of the people in the room will vouch for the guy's existence, including you. However, there are philosphers who insist that you can't prove that anything exists outside of your own head. The rest of the world, to them, could just be an elaborate construct of their own imagination. So while this guy has 99% of the room vouching for him (let's say someone at the party is passed out and isn't voting), that's hardly a concensus. And as any global warming denier will tell you, if there isn't a concensus then you should simply ignore it and walk away.

The great thing about this construct is that the only people who would buy it is the global warming skeptics. That is, if there were any.

The Amazing Colossal Blogger

See that? According to the New York Times, that's the plume of radioactive steam that will be over my head tomorrow just after midnight. After that according to my favorite movies I'll either grow to over 50 feet tall or, if it's a radioactive mist I could shrink to the size of atoms. If I'm not personally affected I could still have to contend with assorted giant insects.

Actually even the Times points out that "Health and nuclear experts emphasize that any plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States." Unless they're lying to forstall panic. Which they always do. The thing that worries me is that radiation is linked to cancer, which won't show up for maybe 30 years. On the other hand, in 30 years maybe they'll cure cancer. I hope so because there will be virtually no way to prove that MY cancer is the result of this radiation, therefore I would have to pay for it myself.

Anyway, worrying won't stop the cloud. The usefulness of worrying is that it makes you wonder just how cheap Nuclear power REALLY is.  It doesn't even burn clean, when you consider how long you have to hold on to the waste. If anything, coal is CLEANER than nukes. And it's not that much more plentiful than fossil fuels; so why the headlong drive for more plants? Enough! Put the solar panels back up on the White House willya?

NOW You're Talkin'

PALO ALTO (CALIFORNIA), Aug 3 (Bernama) -- Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way, that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil.

Stanford University news said that unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels - which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises - the new process excels at higher temperatures, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported Tuesday.

Now obviously this isn't a solution for all locations - Seattle wouldn't be contributing too much power to the grid for example, and until we come up with better wind farms, we'd be burning a lot of fossils during winter. But imagine the boon this would be to cheap energy on the whole! Getting just a fraction of your power load from the sun would result in lower costs, less environmental damage and less financing of terrorist states. Downside anyone? Anyone?

No Wonder There's No Global Warming!

"People complain that we are buying — importing from the Middle East — oil and gas. And then they find out that we have it all right here. We don’t have to do that. If their argument there is “Well, we don’t want to use oil and gas because we think it pollutes” — which it doesn’t — but if that’s their argument, then why are we willing to import it from Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East?"

James Inhofe, who doesn't believe in global warming or even air pollution.

Happy Earth Day, Half The Country!

"It's April 22 and everybody knows today is Earth Day / Merry Christmas / Happy Birthday to whoever's being born." - Dramarama

I just want to take a moment to wish a happy day to everybody who isn't actively campaigning against environmental prudence, energy saving, and alternatives to fossil fuels which could destroy us all if they don't run out first.

Happy Earth Day to those who believe that the oil companies don't have people's best interests at heart; to those who don't think CFC bulbs are a political issue, who don't think that the majority of the worlds scientists are lying because they're liberals. Happy Earth Day to Al Gore, and to all those who don't make an issue of the fact that a guy with a bigger than average house uses more power than a guy with an average-sized house. Happy Earth Day to me, because I ride a bike to work.

Happy Earth Day to the Earth. Good luck to ya, baby.

No Happy Earth Day to the RNC Talking Points crowd, because you're trying to kill me.