Just Right

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Voted off the island

This is my last post from Victoria. We voted ourselves off the island.

Gulf disaster - “Whose Blowout Is It, Anyway?”

Charles Krauthammer:
Here’s my question: Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place?
Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama's tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, weve had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
So we go deep, ultra deep -- to such a technological frontier that no precedent exists for the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
Not that the environmentalists are the only ones to blame. Not by far. But it is odd that they’ve escaped any mention at all.
Meanwhile Obama points a finger:
... Obama didn't help much with his finger-pointing Rose Garden speech in which he denounced finger-pointing, then proceeded to blame everyone but himself. Even the grace note of admitting some federal responsibility turned sour when he reflexively added that these problems have been going on for a decade or more -- translation: Bush did it ...

Michelle: Barack's "home country in Kenya"

Michelle's nod to Birthers (45 seconds in):

Sunday, May 23, 2010

More bad news on climate

Geologist Declares 'global warming is over' -- Warns U.S. Climate Conference of 'Looming Threat of Global Cooling'

... the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming and a cause for even greater concern because:
1. A recent study showed that twice as many people are killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat.
2. Global cooling will have an adverse effect on food production because of shorter growing seasons, cooler growing seasons, and bad weather during harvest seasons. This is already happening in the Midwestern U.S., China, India, and other places in the world. Hardest hit will be third world countries where millions are already near starvation levels.
3. Increase in per capita energy demands, especially for heating.
4. Decrease in the ability to cope with problems related to the population explosion. World population is projected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050, an increase of 50%. This means a substantial increase in demand for food and energy at a time when both are decreasing because of the cooling climate.
... The possibility of temperatures dropping to the level of the Dalton Minimum is suggested by the recent passing of the sun from a solar grand maximum to a solar grand minimum similar to that of the Dalton Minimum. The unusually long sun spot cycle 23 and the solar magnetic index suggest that a solar minimum similar to the Dalton is very possible. A fourth possibility is that we may be approaching another Maunder type minimum and another Little Ice Age. ...