Apr 08 2011

Redstate: Ezra Klein Supports Killing Black Babies

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 7:54 pm

This from Redstate is absolutely on target: Ezra Klein Supports Killing Black Babies|

 

What’s wrong with you, bitter clingers? Don’t you realize that a dead child is a cheap child? I mean, all dead babies cost is the funds to suck or cut them mercilessly from their mother’s womb. Presto! No more pesky expenses of a living child.

Ezra Klein, writing at the Washington Post, actually proffers that argument in favor of  taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood; that abortions are cheaper for the government than having an “unintended pregnancy”. (That’s their euphemism for unborn baby killed by abortion.) His article is filled with predictable talking points, all easily disproved – the SBA List has already done so here.  Setting the horrid spin aside, his concluding paragraph is truly vile:

The fight also isn’t about cutting spending. The services Planned Parenthood provides save the federal government a lot of money. It’s somewhat cold to put it in these terms, but taxpayers end up bearing a lot of the expense for unintended pregnancies among people without the means to care for their children.

Did you mean among “those people”, Ezra? After all, the majority of babies aborted are minority babies. In New York City alone, nearly 60% of unborn African-American children were aborted.

Somewhat cold, Ezra? I’d go with revolting and sick, but that’s just me. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, however, would surely be proud of you.
“The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” – Margaret Sanger

 Fellow travelers of the abortion “rights” industry, be proud.

UPDATE:
I’ll never understand why so many self-described “diversity activists” vote for abortion promoting politicians, which describes essentially all Democrats (what else can you call a party that supports unlimited abortion for any reason at any time in the pregnancy before birth?).

See the link to LEARN in the blogroll on this page.

Apr 08 2011

The sky is falling. Again.

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 5:51 pm

No death benefits for military during shutdown

 

In the event of a government shutdown, the Pentagon would have to delay payments of the $100,000 death benefit that families receive if a military service member dies in the line of duty, a senior defense official said Friday,

Families would get the money eventually after the government re-opens, but they could have problems paying expenses, including for the funerals, the official said, adding that the Pentagon will reach out to various military aid agencies to help those who need it.

Another in the long line of horror stories telling us a government shutdown is going to be a disaster.  The question these stories don’t ask, of course, is, “A disaster compared to what?” 

Like driving the country over a cliff by continuing business as usual?

I haven’t heard any report of any bad outcome from a government shutdown that comes close to comparing to what will happen to the nation if the Republicans don’t stand firm on spending cuts.

 

Apr 07 2011

God and the bass players

Category: music — harmonicminer @ 11:18 am

From talkbass, we have this:

 

THE CURSE OF THE BASS PLAYER  

In the beginning there was a bass.

It was a Fender, probably a Precision, but it could have been a Jazz –
nobody knows. Anyway, it was very old …definitely pre- C.B.S.

And God looked down upon it and saw that it was good. He saw that it was
very good in fact, and couldn’t be improved on at all (though men
would later try.)

And so He let it be and He created a man to play the bass. and lo
the man looked upon the bass, which was a beautiful ‘sunburst’ red,
and he loved it. He played upon the open E string and the note
rang through the earth and reverberated throughout the firmaments
(thus reverb came to be.)

And it was good. And God heard that it was good and He smiled at his
handiwork.

Then in the course of time, the man came to slap upon the bass. And lo
it was funky. And God heard this funkiness and He said, “Go man, go.”
And it was good. And more time passed, and, having little else to
do, the man came to practice upon the bass.

And lo, the man came to have upon him a great set of chops. And he
did play faster and faster until the notes rippled like a breeze
through the heavens.

And God heard this sound which sounded something like the wind, which
had created earlier. It also sounded something like the movement
of furniture, which He hadn’t even created yet, and He was not so
pleased.

And He spoke to the man, saying “Don’t do that!” Now the man heard the
voice of God, but he was so excited about his new ability that he
slapped upon the bass a blizzard of funky notes. And the heavens
shook with the sound, and the Angels ran about in confusion. (Some of
the Angels started to dance, but that’s another story.)

And God heard this – how could He miss it – and lo He became
Bugged. And He spoke to the man, and He said, “Listen man, if I
wanted Jimi Hendrix I would have created the guitar. Stick to the
bass parts.”

And the man heard the voice of God, and he knew not to mess with it.
But now he had upon him a passion for playing fast and high.
The man took the frets off of the bass which God had created.
And the man did slide his fingers upon the fretless fingerboard and play
melodies high upon’ the neck.

And, in his excitement, the man did forget the commandment of the
Lord, and he played a frenzy of high melodies and blindingly fast licks.
And the heavens rocked with the assault and the earth shook, rattled
and rolled.

Now God’s wrath was great. And His voice was thunder as He spoke to the
man. And He said, “O.K. for you, pal. You have not heeded My word. Lo, I
shall create a soprano saxophone and it shall play higher than you
can even think of.” “And from out of the chaos I shall bring forth
the drums. And they shall play so many notes thine head shall ache,
and I shall make you to always stand next to the drummer.”

“You think you’re loud? I shall create a stack of Marshall guitar amps
to make thine ears bleed. And I shall send down upon the earth other
instruments, and lo, they shall all be able to play higher and faster
than the bass.” “And for all the days of man, your curse shall be
this: that all the other musicians shall look to you, the bass player,
for the low notes.

And if you play too high or fast all the other musicians shall say “Wow”
but really they shall hate it. And they shall tell you you’re
ready for your solo career, and find other bass players for their
bands.

And for all your days if you want to play your fancy licks you
shall have to sneak them in like a thief in the night.” “And if you
finally do get to play a solo, everyone shall leave the bandstand and go
to the bar for a drink.”

And it was so.

 

Apr 06 2011

Paul Ryan’s budget proposal

Category: Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 2:33 pm

Apr 04 2011

California Prius woes: how not to catalyze the economy

Category: economy,environment — harmonicminer @ 9:13 pm

I drive a Toyota Prius.  It needs a new catalytic converter.  If I lived in any state but California, I could buy one for around $350, and pay maybe $100-200 to have it installed.  For example, here is a website selling the item, for any state but California (notice, it says “no sales to CA”).

Since I live in California, it will cost me $2200 to have a new catalytic converter installed, because it is a dealer only item, and since Toyota has no competition for the part, they have a legal monopoly on it…  which means they can charge whatever they want, and I really have no choice.

But wait, you say, aren’t monopolies illegal in the USA?  The answer, of course, is that monopolies have mostly only flourished where the government enforces them in some way (it’s called crony capitalism, and one of the earliest examples was the building of railroads in the 19th century, based on monopolistic leases from the federal government), and California, as we’ve mentioned before, is a state dedicated to the proposition that most businesses should be driven from the state, and all paying customers should be punished for being customers, or at least for having sufficient funds to be customers.

Call it another example of why California is going the way of the dodo.  And, as a state government, it has about the same IQ.

It would be cheaper for me to drive the car to Arizona and have it repaired there, then drive it home.

I asked the service manager at Toyota why the catalytic converter costs so much.  He said it “has precious metal in it.”  Maybe, if I get a new one, I’ll sell it and retire.

This is emblematic of California’s ridiculous posture on so many issues, where it is willing to pay (AND force the citizens to pay) 10 times as much as some other states, for a tiny increment of “improvement” in the quality of the thing purchased.  Is it possible this catalytic converter is 8-10 times as good as other catalytic converters on other cars?  Really?

It is a government imposed monopoly, and the sky is the limit on how much Toyota can charge, because they are literally the only legal game in town, so says CARB.

 

 

 

 

Apr 04 2011

Do enviro-greens believe in a free lunch?

Category: society — harmonicminer @ 11:08 am

This is from New Scientist. I’m not sure how long the link will be good, so I copied the whole thing here for your perusal.

Wind and wave energies are not renewable after all

 

“The sun is our only truly renewable energy source“

Build enough wind farms to replace fossil fuels and we could do as much damage to the climate as greenhouse global warming

WITNESS a howling gale or an ocean storm, and it’s hard to believe that humans could make a dent in the awesome natural forces that created them. Yet that is the provocative suggestion of one physicist who has done the sums.

He concludes that it is a mistake to assume that energy sources like wind and waves are truly renewable. Build enough wind farms to replace fossil fuels, he says, and we could seriously deplete the energy available in the atmosphere, with consequences as dire as severe climate change.

Axel Kleidon of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, says that efforts to satisfy a large proportion of our energy needs from the wind and waves will sap a significant proportion of the usable energy available from the sun. In effect, he says, we will be depleting green energy sources. His logic rests on the laws of thermodynamics, which point inescapably to the fact that only a fraction of the solar energy reaching Earth can be exploited to generate energy we can use.

When energy from the sun reaches our atmosphere, some of it drives the winds and ocean currents, and evaporates water from the ground, raising it high into the air. Much of the rest is dissipated as heat, which we cannot harness.

At present, humans use only about 1 part in 10,000 of the total energy that comes to Earth from the sun. But this ratio is misleading, Kleidon says. Instead, we should be looking at how much useful energy – called “free” energy in the parlance of thermodynamics – is available from the global system, and our impact on that.

Humans currently use energy at the rate of 47 terawatts (TW) or trillions of watts, mostly by burning fossil fuels and harvesting farmed plants, Kleidon calculates in a paper to be published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This corresponds to roughly 5 to 10 per cent of the free energy generated by the global system.

“It’s hard to put a precise number on the fraction,” he says, “but we certainly use more of the free energy than [is used by] all geological processes.” In other words, we have a greater effect on Earth’s energy balance than all the earthquakes, volcanoes and tectonic plate movements put together.

Radical as his thesis sounds, it is being taken seriously. “Kleidon is at the forefront of a new wave of research, and the potential prize is huge,” says Peter Cox, who studies climate system dynamics at the University of Exeter, UK. “A theory of the thermodynamics of the Earth system could help us understand the constraints on humankind’s sustainable use of resources.” Indeed, Kleidon’s calculations have profound implications for attempts to transform our energy supply.

Of the 47 TW of energy that we use, about 17 TW comes from burning fossil fuels. So to replace this, we would need to build enough sustainable energy installations to generate at least 17 TW. And because no technology can ever be perfectly efficient, some of the free energy harnessed by wind and wave generators will be lost as heat. So by setting up wind and wave farms, we convert part of the sun’s useful energy into unusable heat.

“Large-scale exploitation of wind energy will inevitably leave an imprint in the atmosphere,” says Kleidon. “Because we use so much free energy, and more every year, we’ll deplete the reservoir of energy.” He says this would probably show up first in wind farms themselves, where the gains expected from massive facilities just won’t pan out as the energy of the Earth system is depleted.

Using a model of global circulation, Kleidon found that the amount of energy which we can expect to harness from the wind is reduced by a factor of 100 if you take into account the depletion of free energy by wind farms. It remains theoretically possible to extract up to 70 TW globally, but doing so would have serious consequences.

Although the winds will not die, sucking that much energy out of the atmosphere in Kleidon’s model changed precipitation, turbulence and the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface. The magnitude of the changes was comparable to the changes to the climate caused by doubling atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (Earth System Dynamics, DOI: 10.5194/esd-2-1-2011).

“This is an intriguing point of view and potentially very important,” says meteorologist Maarten Ambaum of the University of Reading, UK. “Human consumption of energy is substantial when compared to free energy production in the Earth system. If we don’t think in terms of free energy, we may be a bit misled by the potential for using natural energy resources.”

This by no means spells the end for renewable energy, however. Photosynthesis also generates free energy, but without producing waste heat. Increasing the fraction of the Earth covered by light-harvesting vegetation – for example, through projects aimed at “greening the deserts” – would mean more free energy would get stored. Photovoltaic solar cells can also increase the amount of free energy gathered from incoming radiation, though there are still major obstacles to doing this sustainably (see “Is solar electricity the answer?”).

In any event, says Kleidon, we are going to need to think about these fundamental principles much more clearly than we have in the past. “We have a hard time convincing engineers working on wind power that the ultimate limitation isn’t how efficient an engine or wind farm is, but how much useful energy nature can generate.” As Kleidon sees it, the idea that we can harvest unlimited amounts of renewable energy from our environment is as much of a fantasy as a perpetual motion machine.

Is solar electricity the answer?

A solar energy industry large enough to make a real impact will require cheap and efficient solar cells. Unfortunately, many of the most efficient of today’s thin-film solar cells require rare elements such as indium and tellurium, whose global supplies could be depleted within decades.

For photovoltaic technology to be sustainable, it will have to be based on cheaper and more readily available materials such as zinc and copper, says Kasturi Chopra of the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

Researchers at IBM showed last year that they could produce solar cells from these elements along with tin, sulphur and the relatively rare element selenium. These “kesterite” cells already have an efficiency comparable with commercially competitive cells, and it may one day be possible to do without the selenium.

Even if solar cells like this are eventually built and put to work, they will still contribute to global warming. That is because they convert only a small fraction of the light that hits them, and absorb most of the rest, converting it to heat that spills into the environment. Sustainable solar energy may therefore require cells that reflect the light they cannot use.

TANSTAAFL

Apr 02 2011

Government employees: our riders

Category: society — harmonicminer @ 6:24 pm

This from Power Line

 

Government workers are everywhere proliferating, even as private sector employment flags. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore notes this astonishing fact:

Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined.

To borrow an analogy from biology, if the parasites overwhelm the host, it is catastrophic for both the host and the parasites. (Which is why viruses aren’t really trying to kill you, at least not quickly.) That analogy may be unfair; certainly not all government workers are parasites. Let’s try this one: if the cowboy gets bigger than the horse, both the horse and the cowboy are in trouble.

There are many reasons for pessimism these days, but first on the list is the prospect that the growth of the public sector at the expense of the private may have become irreversible.

The analogy of government as rider on the private citizen is too true.  And as one of the founding fathers pointed out, none of us was born fitted out with stirrups, nor were any of us obviously designed to be ridden.