If president, he would consult with Republicans like Tom Coburn. You know, the “lesbians hide in school bathrooms” Senator from Oklahoma. The guy who protested NBC showing “Schindler’s List” because it had full frontal nudity in the concentration camp scenes.
Here’s Coburn’s latest:
Citing a concern over the Second Amendment rights of veterans, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn has placed a hold on a bill that calls for the development of a program to address the group's high suicide rates.
Aaron Cooper, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Republican, says Coburn's primary concern with the bill is that information that veterans might provide during mental health screenings could be shared among agencies.
Cooper says that information could be used to infringe upon the rights of veterans to own guns.
Doesn’t matter what Obama would “consult” with Coburn about. The fact that, in order to prove he’s oh-so-bipartisan, he links himself to one of the biggest nut cases to ever sit in the US Senate (think about that for a second) is enough to reveal his capacity for rational judgment and touch with reality. Yet again, the man proves he’s just not ready for prime time.
Monday, August 27, 2007
All You Need to Know about Obama
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Weather, Water, Energy 7-31-07
The melting ice on the planet is seen by many as an opportunity to get rich on newly available minerals, and nations (like Russia) are starting to line up to dig in. There’s a treaty that would give structure to that race and possibly prevent some nasty misunderstandings. Guess which country hasn’t signed it, although its Coast Guard is begging it to? Okay, too easy. Guess which right-wing nutcase senator is going to block approval. No, not Coburn. He’s just the junior nutcase from OK. Yes, that’s right, our friend, Inhofe who is apparently claiming we already own all the minerals ourselves or something. If I find it hard to side with the optimists about the future, it’s because I understand the Inhofes and they don’t have a clue. . . . The promise and problems of carbon sequestration in just two paragraphs of this good article on the topic:
The amount of potential storage is vast. Three of the five US geologic storage possibilities under review – salt basins a mile or more deep, mature oil and natural-gas reservoirs, and deep unminable coal seams – could permanently hold at least two centuries' worth of US CO2 emissions – about 6 billion metric tons a year, researchers estimate.
But many steps lie ahead. These geologic formations must be tested for environmental safety and their ability to retain CO2. New power-generation technologies that can economically capture CO2 emissions must be developed. Finally, pipelines and infrastructure must be built to collect CO2 from emitters to move it to geologic storage. (Want more details? See also this article on sequestration in Britain.)
Friday, June 15, 2007
In the last week...
...the Daily Show has managed to both crush my former state and my current one. Delightful. First, the former:
Now, I should mention that Gary England is...well, a badass. Best meteorologist in the country. Love the guy. And weather coverage in Oklahoma is beyond state-of-the-art. However...
...yeah, that commercial is insane. Not Inhofe-level insane, but insane.
And earlier in the week, Samantha Bee shared her thoughts on my current state...
And here I thought the word "taint" would never make an appearance on this blog...with that usage, anyway.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
The Moron Twins from OK
We give so much credit here to Jim Inhofe for being the biggest numbskull in a greatly brain-challenged Senate, but we can’t forget OK’s other nutjob contribution to that body, a man who, while in the House, condemned NBC for showing “Schindler’s List” because it had frontal nudity. Actually, his list of bad nonsense may be as long as Inhofe’s. His latest? Stopping a Senate resolution to honor Rachel Carson because, get this, she got DDT banned (uh, no, she didn't) so mosquitoes in poor nations went wild and killed so many babies with malaria that she's as bad as Hitler or something. But just remember the old saying, “if you think that elected official is bad, you should see his constituents.” These two are walking ads against any business or personal development in OK and the state is, by definition, too ignorant to see it. (And I did look it up. Incest is illegal in OK, . . . but if everyone's your relative, who's going to find you guilty?)
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Weather, Water, Energy 3-22-07
- Climate Progress has done a great job reviewing President Gore's testimonies yesterday in Congress. Lots to pick from but our favorite here has to be his takedown of Sen. Inhofe (OK-REPUB), who went off like the crazy uncle at Thanksgiving . . . and was treated accordingly. You can get good roundups of Gore's major recs here and here. The foundation is there now. We just need to rid the room of lunatic relatives.
- By 2025, 2/3rds of the planet will be affected by "water stress," particularly in the Third World, enough that the World Water Assembly is calling for water to be recognized as a basic right and kept out of private enterprise. Good luck on that latter one.
- Lipo + biofuel = synergy??? New tech to turn any old fat into energy. I'm sensing an irresistible tax credit concept here.
- All the coal-fired plants around the world being built as fast as they can be thrown up before regulations catch up mean an extra 1.2 b. tons of carbon emissions each year. These guys think they're coming up with new tech to make major cuts in those emissions, and these guys think carbon capture (aka sequestration) is the answer (assuming people start actually doing it). You like to think the emission stoppers will win, but you also know human history. We better hope they rise to the occasion. Here's why: "To date, many climate models have not fully accounted for the worldwide acceleration of coal-plant building, scientists say. 'The phenomenon ... would lead to greater CO2 emissions than most 'business as usual' forecasts project,' says Robert Socolow, co-director of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University in an e-mail. 'Fortunately the world has now begun to take CO2 seriously, and coal-power emissions will be target No. 1 worldwide over the next decade. The fact that the US is waking up at last will give us the opportunity to have a positive effect on CO2 policy in the rest of the world,' he adds. Yet another indicator that things will go faster and worse, not slower and better, than the models predict. But let's fiddle.
- Predictions that hurricane season this year will keep the local tv weatherpersons off their meds and borderline hysterical. (Well, actually the local tv thing is my prediction.)
- Stop hunger. Use the new generation of hybrid vehicles. Cut need for biofuels such as ethanol. Save corn for people. The new protest movement.
- Finally, this may be the way to at last get the clueless paying attention to global warming. Drought in Africa = scarcity of chocolate. Heart just clutched, didn't it? See what I mean?
Friday, March 16, 2007
Weather, Water, Energy 3-16-07
David Roberts at Grist says it all in this rant about the idiocy of the smart people in the global warming debate, thinking they can just throw the facts out there and the liars and deniers won't be able to put on better shows and muck things up even more. Recounting a public debate with some absolute morons who were later judged to have won the debate by the audience, he cites one of the "smart" scientists and then takes off:
Over at RealClimate, Gavin Schmidt offers a recap, in which he says:
"The organisers asked us afterwards whether we'd have done much different in hindsight. Looking back, the answer is mostly no. We are scientists, and we talk about science and we're not going start getting into questions of personal morality and wider political agendas - and obviously that put us at a sharp disadvantage ... "
Yeah, that sounds like what went wrong. When Gavin says "questions of personal morality and wider political agendas," I think he just means, "all that stuff that's not science." He knows science, he's trained in science, he's confident in the accuracy of his scientific judgments, so that's what he's sticking with -- even if it means losing a debate, and with it a chance to change some minds.
I think that is a huge mistake, and Gavin is far, far from the only one making it. It's not just scientists who do it, either. Many people in the environmental field -- and I'd even generalize to progressives, broadly speaking -- seem to be operating on a set of assumptions: The facts,
organized and clearly conveyed, should carry the day.
When facts do not change minds, more facts are required, perhaps delivered more slowly. When facts do not change hearts, more facts are required, perhaps delivered more loudly. Those not swayed by facts are intellectually, possibly morally, deficient. If sticking (merely) to the facts means losing a debate, well, that's the price of virtue.
He just gets better from there. Folks, this is the problem with virtually every issue of importance facing us today, this "facts speak for themselves, we just need to get them out better" attitude that pervades everything from Iraq to prison policy to evolution to everything that has a chance of keeping us afloat in this changing world. Didn't we learn from Jimmy Carter's major flaw that the showmen will whupp the "smart people" every time??? The quote above couldn't be more stupid if the guy collaborated with all his other clueless scientist friends for a generation. Al Gore has succeeded because he became a performer despite the tut-tutting of the "serious" people. Get a goddam clue! As Adlai Stevenson said when told he had the vote of the thinking man, "That's not enough. I need a majority." If this is the best that can be done, there will be salty water in Silver Spring, MD, before we get moving on this disaster. And that ain't good. (And while you're at Grist, check out as well David's catch on John Edwards being the first to pledge 80% US emissions reductions by 2050. Edwards has been doing some truly disturbingly stupid things lately, but this puts a giant plus next to his name.) . . . Meanwhile, in the real world away from professors who can't find their asses with both hands if you gave them a damn map, a U of CO study indicates that "Arctic sea ice that has been dwindling for several decades may have reached a tipping point that could trigger a cascade of climate change reaching into Earth's temperate regions." Again, we don't have the historical data to get models for the sudden changes that could occur in non-linear developments like these. Things could happen very fast, not slower or not at all. . . . Oh, and this winter was the warmest on record and the aerosol "sunscreen" that blocks some of the sun's rays has weakened (I wonder if that was built into the models. If not, oops, something else that could make things happen faster.) . . . One way to deal with all this, it looks like? Geothermal, with research reporting major steps toward making it inexpensive. Wait, wasn't it geothermal that we reported Bushnev cutting in the fed budget yesterday? No, that's too stupid to happen. . . . Speaking of too stupid to happen, Sen. Inhofe (OK-REPUB) says that global warming is a Weather Channel conspiracy. . . . Speaking of too stupid to happen II, go here to find all the nutty ideas coming out from under the baseboards as money is available to "solve global warming." . . . Better happen soon. Switzerland, Italy, and Florida are both drawing up major drought relief plans, and it sounds like most of the West in the US is in great need of the same. . . . Terra Daily is burning hot on climate stories right now, including one on the problems that may come from the plethora of fuel choices that seem to be developing, one on the EU's summit next week to get member nations to lay down tough greenhouse gas emission reduction targets (and green groups' skepticism about their success), one on China's already backing off its old targets, and one on the sediments in a Turkish lake that may be able to take us back to climate conditions at the time of the Neanderthals (no, I don't mean the people in the debate at the top). . . . Climate Progress has a great post on how GM can be a renewable energy proponent in Europe and such a--holes here in the US. Of course, they get a lot of support from the Neanderthal United Auto Workers. Uh-oh, maybe those sediments aren't that old after all, just check Lake Michigan instead. . . . Finally, though, let's close on some cool and promising news. An experiment in IA is going to use wind power to fill a large underground hole with pressurized air that will then be released to generate electricity. If it works, maybe scientists will get excited enough to talk to people in intelligent instead of intellectual ways and we can get moving on these things. All right, getting carried away now. I'll quit before we start speculating about all the pressurized air emitted from enclosed spaces at frat houses and male dorms that could localize the technology enough to allow self-generating power. Not just for them but for blocks around them. Have a good weekend.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Better Hope He's Not Paying Attention
Inhofe (OK-REPUB) on why global warming's a hoax--"God's still up there." Uh-huh. I hope so, you ignorant piece of crap. And please, please, please filibuster any legislation dealing with global warming and make yourself, your state, and your party so conspicuously ridiculous that people flee in masses.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
The Inhofe Alert
Grist has started what it's calling The Inhofe Alert. No, it's not a catalogue of his ridiculous and determinedly ignorant comments on global warming (that would crash servers), but stories that refute his talking points. Predictably, a couple of morons demonstrated why the Alert is needed, but were quickly and well put down. Like I say, pray for long lives for these fools so they get to live with the reality they're denying. They'll still deny it, but we and Mr. T will get to point at them and snicker. As we paddle.