Observations From the Back Row: 5-16-11

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“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Furthermore, if America was culturally rational, a snake oil salesman like Al Gore would be publicly mocked, horsewhipped or sued into oblivion as an utter fraud for his massive global warming scam perpetuated against the American people. However, these are perilous and perverse times we live in today where good is considered evil and evil touted as good, virtuous and laudatory.  Ellis Washington.

Flashback: Gingrich Out-greens Al Gore?  Newt Gingrich has guzzled Al Gore’s Kool-Aid. Now he wants us and the Republican 2008 presidential candidates to drink it, too. The former House Speaker’s latest book, “A Contract with the Earth” co-authored with Palm Beach Zoo CEO Terry Maple, is an appalling paean to environmental naivete and taxpayer-subsidized profiteering. While the book’s theme — i.e., let’s all just happily pitch in and do what it takes to save the environment — may sound reasonable, at least on a superficial basis, Mr. Gingrich’s notions are often wrong or simply bizarre, and his prescriptions amount to little more than a full embrace of rent-seeking “green” business and left-leaning eco-activist groups, both of which often masquerade as “protectors” of the environment. Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich Commercial on Climate Change

My Take – The man is a smooth talker giving the impression of great intelligence. However, perhaps this is an illusion. After all, he is a greenie, which makes him irrational and misanthropic and he has the moral fiber of a goat.

Saving the lady's slipper URBANA, Ohio - There is an elegant little orchid in the Cedar Bog Nature Preserve that has put botanists and conservationists in a precarious place. It's called the small yellow lady's slipper, and it is an endangered species in Ohio. It grows only here and in one other site, in Geauga County……… The orchid blooms over a short, two-week period in early May. It grows only in fens, which also are exceedingly rare in Ohio……. About 90 percent of the wetlands, bogs and fens that once covered Ohio have been drained, mainly for agriculture. Those that remain are precarious ecosystems that experts say require active and careful preservation……."We're trying to conserve these habitats over time for a whole fleet of species," she said. "The rare ones are indicators of the overall health of the habitat."When you see the rare ones declining, it's typically not good for the overall habitat." So an orchid can act as an indicator - a canary in the coal mine, so to speak. And in this case, a very popular canary.

My Take –If this species is so biologically incompetent that it can only survive in this particular environment it should disappear. Over 95% of all species that have ever lived have gone extinct.

Extinction is the rule, not the exception.

Did that change their eco-system? Of course! But so what? Eco-systems are not static. They are changing all the time based on changing conditions. What is the big deal if an eco-system is altered by man? The end result is the same. One eco-system is replaced by another that is biologically competent to survive the change and life goes on.

This idea that each and every species is absolutely essential in order for all other species to live is nonsense. I keep reading that unknown species are going extinct every day. How do they know that if they are undiscovered and unknown? And if this is actually happening; what terrible things have happened as a result? Since there clearly is no evidence that anything terrible has happened, can we conclude that these species aren’t going extinct and they are lying, or can this mean that it doesn’t matter to the rest of the universe that all of these species are gone? All of these unknown species that are going extinct every day touted by people like E. O. Wilson are nothing more than the electrons in his computer when he shuts it off…..every day! Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. This, just as all the other greenie scare mongering, is irrational.

Royal Skepticism Required Prince Charles likes to talk about “sustainability” so much that he used a version of the word 32 times in his speech about farming at Georgetown University last week. I didn’t attend the event because I was too busy planting crops here in Iowa. Commoners have to work for a living, after all. But I did find the time to read the text of his remarks. As I made my way through his address, the Prince of Wales turned me into the prince of wails--I wanted to howl in anguish over this man’s bizarre views of agriculture.

My Take – Does anyone really wonder why the queen doesn’t abdicate in favor of her son? Considering the whacko things her husband and her heir say…it must really be trying to have to sit between these two loons.

School Boots Boy Scouts for Mother Earth The school in my neighborhood told the Cub Scouts this week that their flyer cannot be distributed because it mentions God in the 12 core values. While this constitutional misstep is unseemly, it is somehow made worse when contrasted with the always-welcome creed of environmentalism. Like any normal American, I appreciate living in clean, healthy surroundings. But the green movement went past the point of preachy years ago. Environmental respect advanced from the “don’t be a litterbug” messages of the 1960s to that crying indian commercial of 1970 to the recycle obsession of the past thirty years. Somewhere along the tour, the movement got mystical.

For some time now, environmentalism has looked, walked, and quacked like a religion.

They really do want to send us back to the caves Half of Renewable Energy is Wood, Charcoal, and Animal Dung
The IPCC recently released the Summary of a report about renewable energy. Both Pielke Jr. and Donna Laframboise have mentioned it, and once the final report comes out at the end of the month I'm sure we'll hear more about it. However, in looking over the report I was stunned to find out what the IPCC considers as renewable energy……….. Why is this a problem? Look at their definition of traditional biomass: "Traditional biomass is defined by the International Energy Agency (IEA) as biomass consumption in the residential sector in developing countries and refers to the often-unsustainable use of wood, charcoal, agricultural residues, and animal dung for cooking and heating. All other biomass use is defined as modern". Traditional biomass means cooking on wood stoves, it means difficult wood collection (done mostly by women), it means smoke inhalation and deforestation. Basically, traditional biomass is another way of saying abject poverty. It means no access to energy at all. Calling traditional biomass renewable energy is more than a stretch….

Global Warming Fraud Creates Third World Food Crisis How saving the planet causes famine: the climate crisis melts away but global food shortage is legacy of the foolish rush to biofuels. Evidence for dangerous, human-caused global warming was always slim, now it lies cruelly exposed both by a cruel blowback and it’s not just coming from within the science. A far more devastating catastrophe is unfolding and it is entirely the product of the mad rush to biofuels: third world famine. Today a whopping 6.5 percent of the world’s grain has been stripped from the global food supply. That’s the kind of catastrophic cut in food supply that triggers a tipping point so that Third World hunger explodes into mass starvation. Why did it happen?

Myths About Oil and GasAs voters around the country wince at rising gas prices, panicked Democrats, in a rush to cover the failure of their all-or-nothing bet on the alternative energy industry have started singing a familiar tune – blame the oil and gas industry. Instead of facing the reality of his owned failed policies, President Obama is calling for an end to the "tax giveaways" he claims amount to $4 billion in “subsidies” to the energy industry.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax -

Of cabbages and kings,

And why the sea is boiling hot,

And whether pigs have wings."

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