COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
English please! And then maybe, I'll dance like that, for you.
ReplyDeleteWe're in America, mid.
ReplyDeleteGet used to the Portugee
y el espanol, amiga
I could be conquered by that
ReplyDeleteBlended, wi"o", not conquered.
ReplyDeleteWorld of difference.
Make us a video mld. We will post it.
ReplyDeleteYou pick the tune, mid.
ReplyDeleteI'll appauld.
Guarenteeeeed
Two votes mld. that is about as close a consensus as we get around here.
ReplyDeleteBrazil as much a "melting pot" as the US, just the end product, it is a tad tanner.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the two of you would be front and center, eyes wide open and hands together, but any video made of me would have to be exclusive. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteExclusive, we can work on that, I'm sure
ReplyDeleteA little persuasion goes a long way.
ReplyDeleteAn excerpt from Mark Steym
ReplyDeleteMy Republican friends are now saying, oh, not to worry, look at the exit polls, this is still a "center-right" country. Americans didn't vote to go left, they voted to go cool. It was a "Dancing With The Stars" election: Obama's a star, and everyone wants to dance with him. It doesn't mean they're suddenly gung-ho for left-wingery.
Up to a point.
Unlike those excitable countries where the peasants overrun the presidential palace, settled democratic societies rarely vote to "go left." Yet oddly enough that's where they've all gone. In its assumptions about the size of the state and the role of government, almost every advanced nation is more left than it was, and getting lefter.
Even in America, federal spending (in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars) has gone from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 trillion today. The Heritage Foundation put it in a convenient graph: It's pretty much a straight line across four decades, up, up, up. Doesn't make any difference who controls Congress, who's in the White House. The government just grows and grows, remorselessly. Every two years, the voters walk out of their town halls and school gyms and tell the exit pollsters that three-quarters of them are "moderates" or "conservatives" (i.e, the center and the right) and barely 20 percent are "liberals." And then, regardless of how the vote went, big government just resumes its inexorable growth.
"The greatest dangers to liberty," wrote Justice Brandeis, "lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
Now who does that remind you of?
Ha! Trick question! Never mind Obama, it's John McCain. He encroached on our liberties with the constitutional abomination of McCain-Feingold. Well-meaning but without understanding, he proposed that the federal government buy up all these junk mortgages so that people would be able to stay in "their" homes. And this is the "center-right" candidate? It's hard for Republicans to hammer Obama as a socialist when their own party's nationalizing the banks and its presidential nominee is denouncing the private sector for putting profits before patriotism. That's why Joe the Plumber struck a chord: He briefly turned a one-and-a-half party election back into a two-party choice again.
If you went back to the end of the 19th century and suggested to, say, William McKinley that one day Americans would find themselves choosing between a candidate promising to guarantee your mortgage and a candidate promising to give "tax cuts" to millions of people who pay no taxes he would scoff at you for concocting some patently absurd H.G. Wells dystopian fantasy. Yet it happened. Slowly, remorselessly, government metastasized to the point where it now seems entirely normal for Peggy Joseph of Sarasota, Fla., to vote for Obama because "I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage."
How far does
ReplyDelete"Pretty Please"
get us?
By 2012, it will be more than half on the dole, and this will be an electorate where the majority of the electorate will be able to vote itself more lollipops from the minority of their compatriots still dumb enough to prioritize self-reliance, dynamism and innovation over the sedating cocoon of the Nanny State. That is the death of the American idea – which, after all, began as an economic argument: "No taxation without representation" is a great rallying cry. "No representation without taxation" has less mass appeal. For how do you tell an electorate living high off the entitlement hog that it's unsustainable, and you've got to give some of it back?
ReplyDeleteAt that point, America might as well apply for honorary membership in the European Union. It will be a nation at odds with the spirit of its founding, and embarking on decline from which there are few escape routes. In 2012, the least we deserve is a choice between the collectivist assumptions of the Democrats, and a candidate who stands for individual liberty – for economic dynamism not the sclerotic "managed capitalism" of Germany; for the First Amendment, not Canadian-style government regulation of approved opinion; for self-reliance and the Second Amendment, not the security state in which Britons are second only to North Koreans in the number of times they're photographed by government cameras in the course of going about their daily business.
In Forbes last week, Claudia Rosett issued a stirring defense of individual liberty. That it should require a stirring defense at all is a melancholy reflection on this election season. Live free – or die from a thousand beguiling caresses of Nanny State sirens.
©MARK STEYN
Pretty please? That will just get the battery charged on the camera.
ReplyDeleteKeep going.
But I will credit Lagniappe with a bit of common sense. When he heard that Obama had somehow won the election, he made a beeline for the ammo locker. "He ain't getting this stuff, Boss!"
ReplyDeleteThat would actually be worth it to see them start to get the stuff. Okay Obama, you work County Road 12 and go knock on all those homes and grab all their their guns. Send Joe Biden up Spotted Deer Mountain Road, see how far he gets.
Gingrich 2012?
ReplyDeleteBy Robert Novak
In serious conversations among Republicans since their election debacle Tuesday, what name is mentioned most often as the Moses, or Reagan, who could lead them out of the wilderness before 40 years?
To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.
...
What a moron. And it wasn't even Nancy Reagan who held seances in the White House to call up past Presidents. It was Hillary Clinton.
ReplyDeleteNo, it was Mary Todd Lincold held the seances. Hillary Clinton "channeled" Eleanor Roosevelt. All Nancy Reagan did was consult Ronnie's star chart when laying out his schedule. But all that stuff is small potatoes when the sitting President says God told him to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden's stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians.
With sugar on top?
ReplyDeleteDR: To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.
ReplyDeleteThat's a mighty thin bench. I got a better idea. Start rolling out Bobby Jindal now. Hurricane Ike sort of aborted his moment in the sun.
You're making this hard for me, DR, but I can't give in just yet.
ReplyDeleteYou're getting closer.
"Small government belongs to Belize. Or Luxembourg. Not to us."
ReplyDeleteNo, the fact we are a big nation only makes small-government even more viable, when combined with the two oceans. Two oceans which are not irrelevant, contrary to proclamations of the current politicians, who both lack the will and prefer not to utilize them. It is also of course precisely the reason that federalism was and remains the best answer to questions that have no national consensus.
"Yes, sinless. It IS "wield the behemoth." For some goal. We are not a nation of small appetite or aim or purpose. Ask Reagan (could you). Ask Newt. We are not a small nation. Period. The state is a deliberate reflection of that. And yet we are still among the freest."
This is a decision of policy, not a reflection of permanence. State policy is always a matter of choice and never pre-determined, being derived from people. Unless you're now throwing free-will overboard as well.
Say hello to Bill, if you see him.
ReplyDeleteIf I hadn't fallen asleep I would have been in there voting for a mld video too.
ReplyDeleteAlong with a some real whipped cream and a maraschino cherry.
ReplyDeleteConservative wishes are so far from reality it's sick.
ReplyDeleteThere are quite a few Portugese in Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteDad and I hired one of their boats once, and they took us fishing. We actually caught a couple. They were nice.
Caught a couple of fish, not Portugese.
Conservatives can't even make a friendly joke without getting hammered these days.
ReplyDeleteIt's all our fault. We need fault tolerance in America.
ReplyDeleteThus the need to set achievable incremental goals on a either a broad or narrow front.
ReplyDeleteBut since the political and economic are blended beyond seperation, in the United States, now ...
The unwinding could take a hundred years, just as the winding has.
Based upon a broad consensus, of at least 39% of the elctorate.
ReplyDeleteRodney
ReplyDeleteDangerfield
Dangerfield was born in Babylon, and that's no joke.
ReplyDeleteI always like him a lot.
ReplyDeletePerfect image of a used car salesman.
It's not polite, it's not sweet and it's not red.
ReplyDeleteIt being the nature of this blog, I thought you would have had it by now.
We're a bunch of bastards, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteRat's a bastard, Bob's a bastard, the whole board of directors are bastards, all bastards, and the proprietors, too....
ReplyDeleteNot bad for falling asleep on the job. But I wasn't thinking about the company. But close.
ReplyDeleteIt's the source of all evil. When all else fails it does the talking.
I've been reading this blog on and off for over a year. You're not bastards. I stumbled upon it when I googled, "uptight frigid politicians"
ReplyDeleteI hate politics.
It's the source of all evil. When all else fails it does the talking.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell you talking about, mld?
What's this "it's" and "it".
Identify "it".
I'm older now and nead some teaching. Some straight talk.
the unsanctioned functioning of the fire extinguishing systems
ReplyDelete20 Die In Russian Sub Accident
Calling Admiral Rickover. He would fix it.
He was a guy I admired a lot when I grew up.
Hyman G. Rickover, USNavy
ReplyDeleteIt, being persuasion. DR, wanted to give me kind words and fattening food. He needs to get with the program.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it takes a little more than words to get what you want.
And reading the biography of a guy like Rickover, we actually think that affirmative action is going to get us anywhere?
ReplyDeleteReally?
We should think this over again, because the cream rises to the top, somehow.
Maybe you're not as uptight as, I thought you were, Bob. You just made me spew tea all over the place. But you may be on to something. Let me rethink this.
ReplyDeleteRethink, Rethink, I'm always in favor of that.
ReplyDeleteHm, see, Bob, that just brings us right back to the beginning of being exclusive and there's a price to pay to being let in.
ReplyDeleteRickover began work to help support the family at nine years of age, and later said of his childhood that it was a time of "hard work, discipline, and a decided lack of good times"
ReplyDeleteNah, Rickover worked his ass off, and was intelligent, and rose to the top, the way it should be.
End Affirmative Action Now.
Let the best get to the top, where they should be, and, will be, sooner or later.
That's the wisdom of a man growing old, and I know it is true.
Admiral Rickover kept the barbarian at bay, God Bless him.
ReplyDeleteah, hell, if we can't remember a good guy like
ReplyDeleteAdmiral Rickover, then we are just a bunch of crappers, that's what we are.
No, Bob, bastards, not crappers.
ReplyDeleteThis Jewish man kept the barbarians away from you, dear.
ReplyDeleteGive him "Thanks" for that.
Rickover used to personally interview all officer candidates for his nuc program. It's said he had one leg cut shorter than the other three on the interviewee's chair to see how they handled stress.
ReplyDeleteTests like that would probably qualify the whole board of directors here, assuming we got the rest of the quiz right.
It's the source of all evil. When all else fails it does the talking.
ReplyDeleteThere's only one thing that answers that riddle, but how the hell does it fit the contest?
Where is it written or spoken that we don't or can't honor Rickover, Bob?
ReplyDeleteI honor Admiral Rickover.
ReplyDeleteI honor Admiral Rickover.
ReplyDeleteOkay. Me too.
------
How'd the Vandals do?
Well, maybe it's not the source of ALL evil but it does do a lot of talking.
ReplyDeleteWhat's your answer?
What's your answer?
ReplyDeletePussy!
Oh honey, that's not evil. That is heaven.
ReplyDeleteHow'd the Vandals do?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you ask:)
We lost, of course, like we always do:)
I think. (Haven't checked the scorecard) But, I already know.....
ROTFLMAO
ReplyDeleteHelp! I can't reach my beer!
Not laughing at the Vandals, Bob.
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe it's not the source of ALL evil but it does do a lot of talking.
ReplyDeleteMust be money then.
Linear, I'm trying to find the score.
ReplyDeleteBut, I know we got clobbered.
Fresno State lost to Nevada, Bob, so don't feel like you're all alone.
ReplyDeleteNebraska beat Kansas, though. Some payback there.
I can see how you were confused. They do go hand in hand, you can buy a whole lot of pussy with a whole lot of money.
ReplyDeleteThere you go Bobal being a damn hypocrit again. There you were in the last thread moaning on about the big ole federal government and how you farmers there in Idaho don't need no federal government yet how many friggin' federal dollars have you suck out of the federal teat of the farmer subsidy system? You know the Farm Bill wholly supported by Idaho republicans?
ReplyDeleteReckon you're right there, mid.
ReplyDeleteBTW, have you met Veronica?
Can't say that I have but I'm always up for new adventures.
ReplyDeleteI don't get hardly any money from Uncle Sam. I pay really really big time to the State of Idaho, thank you very much, Ash. About 30% of my income, if you'd like to know. Property taxes on the rentals. You wouldn't believe it , what I pay.
ReplyDeleteWe need more professors like you, to get this country going again, that's for shur.
That's after working my ass all my life, and supporting pricks like you.
ReplyDeleteJust ignore him, Bob. Pretend he just farted in church.
ReplyDeleteAnd, that's just to the State of Idaho, not counting the Feds.
ReplyDeleteFuck you, you slacker.
But, money, honey, takes away from the exclusivity. Makes it someowhat common.
ReplyDeleteWhere as dancing for a friend, because he asked, real nice, allows you to dance off those marashino calories.
Thank you all, for entertaining me all night. I thought I was going to have to lie here all night, resting my foot and being bored.
ReplyDeleteOver at BC Wretchard writes in regards to the Guardian the BBC Jihad: The real crisis facing the West is the absolutely nonnegotiable public demand for comfort without the price of guilt or responsibility in any form
ReplyDeleteIn reply:
6. mika2k1: The real crisis facing the West is that people like Richard pay any attention to what the BBC or the Guardian say.
==
Seems to me Ashley is a creature of the BBC the Guardian Jihad, and the same logic should apply towards Ashley.
Where as dancing for a friend, because he asked, real nice, allows you to dance off those marashino calories.
ReplyDeleteThat rat's gotta way with words, ain't he?
Thank you all, for entertaining me all night. I thought I was going to have to lie here all night, resting my foot and being bored.
You're welcome, maam. Come back and dance for us when your foot's rested up good. Somebody step on it?
Ashley is a turd. I'm convinced of that.
ReplyDeleteMat has convinced me.
Got me sold.
Just don't by the first electric car, bob, no matter how convincing mat is.
ReplyDeleteWait for the second production run, after the kinks get worked out.
I just figured sweets for the sweet, lineman. Hell, to offer money, I could just go down to the Candy Store or the Pussy Cat Lounge and do that.
What time is it, anyway?
Maybe there's still time ...
tonite
I told him kind words won't get him far. I guess he had to try again.
ReplyDeleteThe free range game always seems to be tastier than the factory farm products.
ReplyDeleteThe thrill of the chase, and all.
ReplyDeleteIf at first you don't succeed, try, try, again.
ReplyDeleteMike Tyson may just be at the Pussy Cat Lounge ...
May as well watch those Brazilian girls, again.
after stubbing my toe twice a month ago it started to feel numb and tingly. I stubbed it again yesterday. It started to throb this afternoon after being on it all morning.
ReplyDeleteThere's something about a line dance ...
ReplyDeleteYeah, DR, maybe you should bookmark that video you may be waiting a long time for mine.
ReplyDeleteAshley is a turd. I'm convinced of that.
ReplyDelete==
Bob, it's more than that. Ashley has libeled us Racist. When I pressed her to explain this, there was no explanation. In the real world, I would have busted her head. Literally. With a baseball bat. I'm not kidding.
Ashley is especially galling, Ashley being a Jihadi apologist.
Rat, I really don't have the money to pay for an electric car. Got to pay for the Professors's saleries, you know.:)
ReplyDeleteWe might hire Mat to do some good, but, being dumb shits, we won't.
We could hire Rufus, or Bob, but we won't.
We voted Sarah Palin out of office, fools that we be.
In that case, dear lady, stay away from the cherries.
ReplyDeleteBob, don't forget you'll need money for my video.
ReplyDeletePeace out.
ReplyDeleteNot much to be done for an injured toe except rest it. Get well.
ReplyDeleteBob, don't forget you'll need money for my video.
ReplyDelete==
Electric cars will be dirt cheap.
Whit commented about my "irrational hatred" towards GM. When I saw the price tag for their electric car, I understood that there's only one rationality guiding GM: Hatred and distain for their costumers.
customers!!
ReplyDeleteHatred and distain for their costumers.
ReplyDeleteYou know it's not that simple, mat.
I saw some numbers a while back that gave the amount that GM has to add to their basic fabrication cost to cover the overhead of their union contract benefits packages for retirees. I can't remember the figure, but it's astronomical.
LT,
ReplyDeleteThe French company Renault will be making electric cars for:
$500/month x 12 month/yr x 4yr x 0.6
= <$15,000
(0.4 profit for Project Better Place. They're giving the car for free with a 4yr $500/month contract).
GM decided to make electric cars for 3 times that price. Their electric car project is a deliberately engineered clusterfsck. I've had it with GM, and I can't wait for the competition to wipe them out.
They're giving the car for free with a 4yr $500/month contract).
ReplyDeleteLast time I checked, a 4yr $500/month contract totals $24,000.
Around my neck o' the woods, they'd have to give it away to find takers for a Renault. I do remember the Dauphines were popular with high school kids and liberals in the 50's. I can't remember the last Renault I saw on the road here.
If it's an electric, there's still the issue of generation capacity, even for your commuters who can get by on a short range car. And, I don't buy into the myth that there's ample power capacity at present time to absorb an electric fleet. Simple physics tells me that.
Their time will come, mat. But we still need liquid fuels to tide us over until then. Oil's the answer for today and tomorrow.
you can buy a whole lot of pussy with a whole lot of money.
ReplyDelete:)
I knew, Eventually, someone would, surely, come along with a little sense.
Last time I checked, a 4yr $500/month contract totals $24,000.
ReplyDelete==
That's what Project Better Place collects. I'm Assuming they keep 40% of that, and 60% goes to Renault.
Btw, that $500/month includes UNLIMITED free miles and maintenance! That is, the $500 includes the electricity charges.
And, I don't buy into the myth that there's ample power capacity at present time to absorb an electric fleet. Simple physics tells me that.
ReplyDelete==
Plasma TVs vs. Plug-In Cars
We already wrote about a study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory that shows that plug-in cars might not need new power plants (or few of them), and now we learn that a big screen plasma TV actually drains more power from the grid than a plug-in.
“Plasma TVs, industry officials say, consume about four times the electricity as recharging a plug-in hybrid. Yet utilities have managed to cope with the increased loads as thousands of new televisions came on line.”
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/plasma-tv-television-plug-in-cars-electric.php
Oak Ridge National Laboratory says:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20080312-02
Around my neck o' the woods, they'd have to give it away to find takers for a Renault.
ReplyDelete==
:)
It's really a Nissan.
Already saw that, mat. Don't buy into it, though. Probably makes for enlightened conversation around the latte bars and tea rooms where readers of treehugger.com hangout. We'll be in real trouble when all the LA commuters can afford both a plasma big screen tv and an electric car. After they tear out the Hetch-hechy dam and power house and close down Bonneville.
ReplyDeleteLT,
ReplyDelete$700Bn a year will buy you 700 solar plants every year (700MW each), if you're that worried about peak capacity during the day. Same with wind for night time.
Your link took me to a dead end at the Oakridge website, but I did find out that the lab just awarded a new Ford F-150 as a prize for employees exceeding a work safety campaign target of some kind. Same page proudly announced they're putting employees on bicycles to reduce their carbon footprint.
ReplyDeleteWe're doomed.
ORNL study shows hybrid effect on power distribution
ReplyDeleteOAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 12, 2008 — A growing number of plug-in hybrid electric cars and trucks could require major new power generation resources or none at all— depending on when people recharge their automobiles.
A recent Oak Ridge National Laboratory study, featured in the current issue of the ORNL Review examined how an expected increase in ownership of hybrid electric cars and trucks will affect the power grid depending on what time of day or night the vehicles are charged.
Some assessments of the impact of electric vehicles assume owners will charge them only at night, said Stan Hadley of ORNL's Cooling, Heating and Power Technologies Program.
"That assumption doesn't necessarily take into account human nature," said Hadley, who led the study. "Consumers' inclination will be to plug in when convenient, rather than when utilities would prefer. Utilities will need to create incentives to encourage people to wait. There are also technologies such as 'smart' chargers that know the price of power, the demands on the system and the time when the car will be needed next to optimize charging for both the owner and the utility that can help too."
In an analysis of the potential impacts of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles projected for 2020 and 2030 in 13 regions of the United States, ORNL researchers explored their potential effect on electricity demand, supply, infrastructure, prices and associated emission levels. Electricity requirements for hybrids used a projection of 25 percent market penetration of hybrid vehicles by 2020 including a mixture of sedans and sport utility vehicles. Several scenarios were run for each region for the years 2020 and 2030 and the times of 5 p.m. or 10:00 p.m., in addition to other variables.
The report found that the need for added generation would be most critical by 2030, when hybrids have been on the market for some time and become a larger percentage of the automobiles Americans drive. In the worst-case scenario—if all hybrid owners charged their vehicles at 5 p.m., at six kilowatts of power—up to 160 large power plants would be needed nationwide to supply the extra electricity, and the demand would reduce the reserve power margins for a particular region's system.
The best-case scenario occurs when vehicles are plugged in after 10 p.m., when the electric load on the system is at a minimum and the wholesale price for energy is least expensive. Depending on the power demand per household, charging vehicles after 10 p.m. would require, at lower demand levels, no additional power generation or, in higher-demand projections, just eight additional power plants nationwide.
For more information on this study and other energy-related research at ORNL go to www.ornl.gov/Review. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is operated by UT-Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy.
The thing with electric cars is that you can build them smart. With a little software you can manage the charge/discharge and in effect create a smart grid.
ReplyDeleteORNL study shows hybrid effect on power distribution
ReplyDeleteYour study is more encouraging than that whiz-kid CEO at PG&E who projected that commuters could take advantage of high afternoon demand by selling the charge in their cars back to the power company while they were at work. He didn't explain how he expected them to get home, though.
Deliver us from environmental zealots.
He didn't explain how he expected them to get home, though.
ReplyDelete==
Public transport? :)
LOL
ReplyDeleteI think "smart grid" was one of the buzzwords tossed out by the PG&E asshat.
What really pisses me off is that I pay an extra surcharge on my electrical energy costs to pay a mouthpiece like him to spew the greenie pie-in-the-sky nonsense, by state mandate.
What really pisses me off is that I pay an extra surcharge on my electrical energy costs to pay a mouthpiece like him to spew the greenie pie-in-the-sky nonsense, by state mandate.
ReplyDelete==
But paying $2 trillion a year to keep the oil mafia going doesn't bother you.
Gotta go do some reading, mat. That "Atlas Shrugged" is a pretty long book.
ReplyDeleteGood night.
But paying $2 trillion a year to keep the oil mafia going doesn't bother you.
ReplyDeleteNaw. I own Chevron and Exxon stocks.
:-)
Internet revolution that elected Obama could save Earth - Gore
ReplyDeleteGore said Obama should announce a national goal of getting all US electric power from renewable and non-carbon energy within the next decade and spend the billions necessary to build an "electrinet" smart power grid.
"Web 2.0 has to have a purpose" Gore said.
"The purpose I would urge is to bring about a higher level of consciousness about our relationship to this planet and the imminent danger we face. We have everything we need to save it."
---
I broke out my Healing Crystals to harmonize my conciousness with the Universe.
…unfortunately, I now am liable for taxes on the Carbon Content of the Crystals.
And the oil mafia gives me gas. The state mandated PG&E smoke screen gives me nothing but hot air.
ReplyDeleteNaw. I own Chevron and Exxon stocks.
ReplyDelete==
Now would be a good time to review that portfolio. :)
And the oil mafia gives me gas.
ReplyDelete==
And your reason to pass your flatulence my way is?
It'll only get worse, Doug.
ReplyDeletePlant some Maui Wowie, kick back, and wait it out. Maybe put in some solar cells for your internet. Build a composting privy. Heat your bath water in black plastic garbage bags.
Gaia will smile on you.
gas = gasoline. sorry about the flatulence. must be the cabbage in my diet. and the beer.
ReplyDelete8. Leo Linbeck III:
ReplyDeleteI don’t understand the extreme reactions of BCers to regulating greenhouse gases. The two most potent GHGs - carbon dioxide and methane - are real dangers to our civilization, our society, our way of life. It is imperative that we stop their accumulation, and stop it now. In particular, we must crack down on the most pernicious, most dangerous, most noisome, and most offensive of all GHG emission.
I refer to, of course, flatulence.
Flatulence (also known as farting, gas, cutting one, breaking wind, cutting the cheese, the flatus, tooting, ripping one, and playing the anal trumpet) is one of mankind’s dirtiest production processes. Every day, billions of human beings emit a mixture of CO2, CH4, and fatty acids that adds to our planet’s environmental burden. These emissions - many of them involuntary - bring tears of sadness to the eyes of fellow humans, and nausea to their stomachs.
But flatulence is not merely a threat to our environment. It is also a significant transportation hazard, as anyone who has been exposed to its effects will acknowledge. How many auto accidents have been caused by an SBD attack on a bus driver, causing momentary distraction and, in some cases, blindness, leading to a high speed collision and death? How many air travelers have become sickened by recirculating flatus? Too many, my friends, too many.
And then there is the fire safety hazard. As has been well-documented on camping trips through the ages, the flammable fart is the single biggest fire risk in the world. More than gasoline. More than “natural gas.” More than Keith Olbermann’s head after a Republican victory.
How much longer are we going to stand idly by as Western Civilization, yea, our whole way of life threatened?
But worry not; good news is on the way. With Obama’s election, and his commitment to limiting the spread of GHGs, we are at an inflection point in history. A true carbon cap-and-trade scheme will begin the slow process of healing the planet, and making long afternoon meetings after the company BBQ safe again.
Before long, we’ll see the true cost of flatulence reflected in the prices we pay - and those higher prices will start to drive down the pace of gas growth. Baked beans, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, cashews, and lentil soup manufacturers will have to purchase credits to sell their evil goods. Sweet potatoes will be outlawed, except when combined with marshmallows in a baked form. And finally we will see balance restored to American farm policy, a policy that has long favored Jerusalem artichokes over the smaller (and misunderstood) Palestinian artichoke.
Just as importantly, the US Government will use proceeds from the cap-and-trade system to subsidize Beano for all households making $250,000 or less. Or maybe $200,000. Or $120,000. Whatever it takes to win support for this program.
So, it is time for us to come together as citizens of the world and take on this odiferous blight. And the good news is that we can harness the power of markets to help us in this noble quest. The last capitalist we asphyxiate shall be the one who sold us the oats.
Now is our time. Can we eliminate farts, and begin heal our planet?
YES WE CAN!
Obama Team Weighs What to Take On in First Months
ReplyDeleteAides said the question was whether they could tackle health care, climate change and energy independence at once or needed to stagger these initiatives over time.
Profiles: The New Team