Snow in Bagdad, First Time in Living Memory

The Far Left gets stuck in an infinite loop as they can't choose between blaming the administration's Iraq War policy or Anthropomorphic Global Warming.




Al Gore was found stationary in a corridor, staring blankly ahead muttering, "global bushing... george warming... global bushing...."

The first thing I look for when considering a new home is the existence of home owners associations and historic districts.

This is why.

My wife and I want to get out of the People's Republic of Kennedy-Kerry-Catsup.
Badly.
Communities that prevent me from doing reasonable improvements to a house WILL NOT GET MY TAX DOLLARS OR INVESTMENT.


Sorry to shout....

I grew up in a 250 year old post and beam New England farmhouse. In order to heat it (in the middle of the woods with no winter road access for at least a half a mile) my dad used coal and wood. I love old houses, and if I get to buy one, my hope is to return it to its original glory in as practical a manner as possible. 17th or 18th century drafts and entrances for mice and other vermin, as well as smoke and soot belching heating systems are right out.

I'm sorry. If you want to legislate moral behavior, you gotta choose between saving the world from pollution and anthropogenic global warming or keeping your neighborhood a perfect example of 18th century building techniques. You're not going to get both.

Many zoning regulations end up being anti-home owner. You add "historic preservation" and homeowners associations on top of that, and you have (a not very) soft totalitarianism.

No, I don't want a strip mall or a strip joint right next to my house. I don't blame anyone for fighting those in an established residential only neighborhood.

However, I don't want drafty windows and the constant smell of burning oil or sulfur either.



Somebody go out and slap these people, please!

Once again, I am forced to disagree with The Glenn

He accuses "Big Oil" of paying off Sheryl Crow and other big media types to say nonsensical things to discredit the idea of anthropogenic global warming.

For once, he's gravely mistaken. This is just another psy-op run by the nefarious Karl Rove! Why else would the All Powerful Man Behind The Curtain allow himself to be forced into scurrying from his table by two mere entertainers? Everyone knows that the APMBTC controls all of Washington in his iron grip. This dust-up was a deflection. By running from Crow and David, Rove cleverly hid his diabolical connections to this whole affair.

The White House, Congress, the Oil Industry, and now the Entertainment Industry, what is there left in the world that has not bowed before the abominable scheming of the APMBTC?

An excellent post on Climate History at Done With Mirrors

It lays out the historic pattern of climate change, and makes the excellent argument that real understanding of climate is what's needed, not reactionary political posturing.

I am all for added efficiency. If someone can come up with viable and scalable replacements for our current power sources, that would be great! For instance, the internal combustion engine in the car you drive is essentially a piece of late 19th century technology, with lots of add-ons. Yes, it's built to better standards, which has help a lot, but in essence the motivating power of transportation hasn't changed much since the transition away from steam power.

So yes, I'm all for polluting less. I'm even all for saving the environment! But let's actually do something positive about it, instead of shackling the economy (for no good result) or calling for the third world to stay in perpetual poverty, just to assuage the guilt of rich baby-boomers.

Done With Mirrors' money quote, "It's a common complaint of the secular left that their opponents put dogma above science. But the underlying fallacy of much of the climate-change alarmist rhetoric is that it is the left's equivalent of creationism."

H/T Maggie's Farm

OK, Sheryl Crow's silliness is being commented on all over

Examples, Ms. Malkin and the Glenn (with many wonderful links from them to others.)

But this does raise and interesting question. As has been pointed out by others, pretty much all wood used by the paper industry is grown for that purpose. Now when you grow a tree, it takes carbon out of the atmosphere, and uses it as a building block for its growth. Then paper manufacturers turn the tree into pulp, and then paper, which means that the carbon is now in the paper.

So here's my question. Since engineers and scientists have been looking for ways to sequester carbon from pollution, and paper is - in part- carbon pulled out of the atmosphere by purpose grown pulp-trees, wouldn't that mean that burying waste paper in landfills is a form of carbon sequestration?

Just a question...


Save the world, stop recycling paper and send it to the dump instead!

WBZ Channel 4 in Boston just announced that Governor Deval Patrick has signed a bill which (starting emediately) will require private developers to calculate the amount of 'greenhouse gasses' that will be released by their construction projects, and provide offsets.

It's not like Massachusetts hasn't put the screws to business enough...now the construction industries are burdened with another bill. Housing costs will go up. Jobs will be lost. More people and businesses will leave the state.



Yep, the Massachusetts Miracle!

What a bunch of yahoos...

UPDATE It appears from this Globe story that this is about major projects. However, I think there will still be some negative economic effects. Also, if by "large scale projects" they include any multiple dwelling construction (if for example a developer is building 5 or more units at a time, or even 10 or 20), there will still be a negative effect on housing costs. I'm not quite as incensed as I was, but we'll wait and see how this plays out.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. He is not entitled to his own facts." Senator Pat Moynihan

I'm afraid the condition of the Earth is incurable

A thought about this whole Global-Warming thing. Late last Fall, I went out and bought a 5.5 horsepower snow blower. Living on a corner lot (with a driveway across the street) I had just gotten tired of all the shoveling. And so, three months later, the North Inner Suburbs of Boston finally gets two snowstorms, about two weeks apart with enough accumulation to break this thing out. The second one was an inch and a half. The only reason to actually use the machine was that I also did the walks and driveways of two neighbors. The snow blower has turned out to be an expensive, and so far useless, toy.

Yesterday, with the threat of snow followed by rain and ice, I got the bright idea to go to Home Depot and pick up a 50 lb. bag of driveway-melt. So today? Rain, all rain, washing the remaining snow and ice from the previous storms away.

On the other hand, Al Gore (you have to feel sorry for the guy) shows up in city after city this winter to preach about the coming catastrophe of global warming, only to arrive to major snowstorms and unusual cold, even in DC. It became so predictable that some wags even named it "the Gore Effect."


The Earth isn't being overtaken by global warming, the Earth has an advanced case of "Murphy's Law."


And I'm afraid that is incurable.

Al Gore projected to increase by one degree

...he really needs to stop exhaling so much carbon dioxide.

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!

Don't drive! Your selfish use of hydrocarbons is dooming the planet to a terrible hothouse fate!

But wait, the sky is falling! All those students starting college this week in Boston who are avoiding the I-90 connector between the city and the airport (which goes nowhere near any college) may cause the subway system in Boston to overload!

DANGER, WILL ROBISON! DANGER!

It Makes More Sense Every Evening

"Those of us who scorn the idea that people in the twentieth century still believe in witchcraft and sorcery should consider our blind faith in newspaper pundits, television seers, and political soothsayers. This flagellation of reason may do more harm to a greater number than the hexing of a neighbor's horse or crop...." Carl Fox, in the begining of the caption for plate #2 of The Doll, New Concise Edition 1973, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York.

No! The main stream media would never flagellate reason!

Hmmmm...blind faith?

Nope, no hexing here.

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, so another six weeks of winter.

Does anyone remember a year where he didn't see it?


I blame global warming.