Friday, May 29, 2009

Soylent Blog

N. Korea test-fires missile, slams U.N.
Nice Shot!

Oil plentiful, demand weak: So why are gas prices going up?
I blame the new guy.

Bush says he misses meeting soldiers, White House food
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

NKorea test-fires missile, slams Security Council
Good grouping!

Aspiring neurosurgeon from Kansas is top speller
It's not like it's brian surgury.

Fire breaks out on Italian ferry, all safe
"Too much friction back there Vito!"

Black asks high court for release from prison
Apparently, the "man" got him down.

GM confirms plans to build compact cars in US
but first, we need to give them 800 Trillion dollars.

China volcano may have caused mass extinction
I blame Global Warming caused by George Bush.

Society warns cuckoo bird in danger of extinction
It's about time.

Japan university gives away iPhones to nab truants
Chapter 1 from my new book: "How To Encourage Truancy."

Scientists identify new lethal virus in Africa
THIS JUST IN: from 1982!

WHO: Get more graphic with smokers
They got more louder with amps.

Don't let Iran cross the nuclear threshold
Indeed, we should tell them to stop with firm conviction in our voices!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

I blogged my pants.

Grandmother sets record for longest craps run
Fastest too if she knew where the Depends aisle was!

Many women add too many pounds during pregnancy
Those extra pounds are just a cluster of cells.

Greenland ice could fuel severe U.S. sea level rise
GREEN FUEL. YAY!

Skeleton shows earliest evidence of leprosy
And it was severe. All the skin fell off!

Report concludes uninsured are costly for all*
*This unbiased report brought to you by the Insurance Assn. of America.

Mixed-race patients struggle to find marrow donors
It's hard to do when you refuse to profile.

Priest fired for beating drug addicts
He was only exorcizing his rights!

UN considers fresh N Korea sanctions
Time to open up another letter of WhoopAss!

N. Korea unrepentant despite UN vote
"Stand back Kim Jong Il, Don't make us get all wordy on y'all!"

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Tersely worded blog

North Korea's bomb test seen as troubling progress
and certainly worth a tersely written letter!

Sotomayor and the struggle to be ordinary
It's hard to be humble when you are a "wise Latina woman".

Komodo dragon attacks terrorize Indonesia villages
At least it's not Mothra or the Smog Monster.

Online news fees: financial salvation or suicide?
Well, let's check my bank statement...um, goodbye cruel world.

US cancer death rate drops again in 2006
I blame global warming.

New low-cost airline targets smaller markets
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Conde Nast Traveler: Guidebook beat smartphones
on a side note: Conde Nast sells guidebooks, not smartphones.

Does Sotomayor practice identity justice?
Discriminatory profiling is something 'wise Latina women' don't do!

Do you know who Captain Queeg, Howard Beale, and Chauncey Gardner are? Yes.

Chrysler heads to court for key bankruptcy hearing
GM says bondholder offer fails; bankruptcy likely
Shouldn't they have done this prior to the multi-billion dollar bailout?

Pa. mom, daughter are rear-ended, report abduction
DAMN THOSE FAMILY ORIENTED, BUTT-LOVING ALIENS!

4 bodies left behind in vacant Ind. funeral home
A nice way to give the new owners a good start.

Boulder cops say 3 dead in planned murder-suicide
Correction: Successful murder-suicide.

Test for early Alzheimer's in late development
What's in late development?

Friday, May 22, 2009

Blog Jockey

Clinton's sax sold at auction for AIDS research
I would imagine it is covered in bodily fluids.

Smokie Norful talks about his balancing act
between being called 'Smokie Norful' and maintaining a normal childhood.

Ex-soldier gets life in prison for Iraqi slayings
Send him to Guantanamo. He'll be free in the U.S. in no time!

Analysis: Obama, brass buy time on military gays
Leather will buy you a BJ.

US scraps airport bomb detectors as ineffective

I AM SO EXCITED!


Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Climate-Industrial Complex

MAY 21, 2009

Some businesses see nothing but profits in the green movement.

By BJORN LOMBORG

Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.
The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the "military-industrial complex," cautioning that "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." He worried that "there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties."
This is certainly true of climate change. We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a "climate-industrial complex" is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain.
This phenomenon will be on display at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen this weekend. The organizers -- the Copenhagen Climate Council -- hope to push political leaders into more drastic promises when they negotiate the Kyoto Protocol's replacement in December.
The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who actually represents all three groups: He is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.
Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is "rent-seeking."
The world's largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN's "Climate in Peril" segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas's earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore's green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon.
Even companies that are not heavily engaged in green business stand to gain. European energy companies made tens of billions of euros in the first years of the European Trading System when they received free carbon emission allocations.
American electricity utility Duke Energy, a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, has long promoted a U.S. cap-and-trade scheme. Yet the company bitterly opposed the Warner-Lieberman bill in the U.S. Senate that would have created such a scheme because it did not include European-style handouts to coal companies. The Waxman-Markey bill in the House of Representatives promises to bring back the free lunch.
U.S. companies and interest groups involved with climate change hired 2,430 lobbyists just last year, up 300% from five years ago. Fifty of the biggest U.S. electric utilities -- including Duke -- spent $51 million on lobbyists in just six months.
The massive transfer of wealth that many businesses seek is not necessarily good for the rest of the economy. Spain has been proclaimed a global example in providing financial aid to renewable energy companies to create green jobs. But research shows that each new job cost Spain 571,138 euros, with subsidies of more than one million euros required to create each new job in the uncompetitive wind industry. Moreover, the programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 110,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs for every job created.
The cozy corporate-climate relationship was pioneered by Enron, which bought up renewable energy companies and credit-trading outfits while boasting of its relationship with green interest groups. When the Kyoto Protocol was signed, an internal memo was sent within Enron that stated, "If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory business."
The World Business Summit will hear from "science and public policy leaders" seemingly selected for their scary views of global warming. They include James Lovelock, who believes that much of Europe will be Saharan and London will be underwater within 30 years; Sir Crispin Tickell, who believes that the United Kingdom's population needs to be cut by two-thirds so the country can cope with global warming; and Timothy Flannery, who warns of sea level rises as high as "an eight-story building."
Free speech is important. But these visions of catastrophe are a long way outside of mainstream scientific opinion, and they go much further than the careful findings of the United Nations panel of climate change scientists. When it comes to sea-level rise, for example, the United Nations expects a rise of between seven and 23 inches by 2100 -- considerably less than a one-story building.
There would be an outcry -- and rightfully so -- if big oil organized a climate change conference and invited only climate-change deniers.
The partnership among self-interested businesses, grandstanding politicians and alarmist campaigners truly is an unholy alliance. The climate-industrial complex does not promote discussion on how to overcome this challenge in a way that will be best for everybody. We should not be surprised or impressed that those who stand to make a profit are among the loudest calling for politicians to act. Spending a fortune on global carbon regulations will benefit a few, but dearly cost everybody else.
Mr. Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus, a think tank, and author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (Knopf, 2007).

Friday, May 15, 2009

Reason able

Jon Basil Utley writing at Reason.com:

It's only a matter of time before President Barack Obama's vast popularity runs aground on his energy policies. In the name of saving the planet from global warming, he has delayed new oil drilling, an action that will have major political repercussions once the world economy recovers. Instead of using some [of] the stimulus billions to produce more gas and oil, Obama's wild-eyed supporters dream of "renewable" energy derived from corn, wind, sunshine, and even grass.
With the appointment of extremists like climate czar Carol Browner and science adviser John Holdren, Obama has placed his administration's environmental policy in the hands of radicals. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposes replacing oil and coal with windmills. Yet Barron's recently reported that America would need to build 500,000 giant offshore windmills and transmission lines to produce Salazar's specified 1,900 gigawatts of electricity. In contrast, oil and gas drilling could provide hundreds of thousands of solid, well-paying blue-collar jobs. . . .
All of these things are happening at a time when natural gas is abundant and cheap. The new technology of horizontal fraccing has made it economically feasible to drill into vast shale deposits in many states, even famously difficult ones like Michigan and New York. Many cars could run on natural gas, much like many buses do already. On a recent trip to Peru, I learned that most taxicabs have been converted to natural gas for a cost of about $1,000 each. New technologies continually revive old oil and gas fields and make new ones economically viable. So it's little more than socialist Malthusianism to argue that the world is running out of cheap energy. Science will always find and harness new sources.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Brilliant Joke

A husband and wife were sitting watching a TV program about psychology and mixed emotions when he turned to his wife and said, "Honey, that's a bunch of crap; I bet you can't tell me anything that will make me happy and sad at the same time." She said, "You have the biggest penis of all your friends."

Monday, May 11, 2009

Miscommunication


"Wait a minute now, I didn't authorize ATTACKS on the Pirates, I authorized A TAX on the pirates!"

question #9

If two homeless people are in love with each other, does that make them hobosexual?

Friday, May 8, 2009

Ocho de Mayo!

Why do millions of Americans struggle with reading and writing?
Cause they're fuggin idjits!

Plans for the pope's visit hit a wall in Bethlehem
Hope the Popemobile has airbags.

Sri Lankan 'detention' camps swell with Tamils
but are they neat?

Dom DiMaggio Dies; Played in His Brother’s Shadow
It was always 5 degrees cooler there.

Patient Money: For Gay Couples, Obstacles to Health Insurance
Maybe if they stopped putting thing in their poopers.

Top flu expert warns of a swine flu-bird flu mix
and so begins the pigs-fly jokes...
http://nicfitz.blogspot.com/2009/04/pig-flu.html

Cuba teams with Qatar to build beach resort
You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave.

Rapist may be suspect in six cases
If they chop him up a bit more, he could be in 8 cases.

Double hand transplant patient recovering well
until he decided give the doctors a round of applause.

Just call her 'Dr. Dolly': Parton receives Ph.D
actually, it's a Ph. Double D.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

From the NYT!

May 2, 2009

Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus

WASHINGTON — The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”

The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders.

Asked about the summary, ecoAmerica’s president and founder, Robert M. Perkowitz, requested that it not be reported until the formal release of the firm’s full paper later this month, but acknowledged that its wide distribution now made compliance with his request unlikely.

The research directly parallels marketing studies conducted by oil companies, utilities and coal mining concerns that are trying to “green” their images with consumers and sway public policy.

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”

“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.

Mr. Perkowitz and allies in the environmental movement have been briefing officials in Congress and the administration in the hope of using the findings to change the terms of the debate now under way in Washington.

Opponents of legislation to combat global warming are engaged in a similar effort. Trying to head off a cap-and-trade system, in which government would cap the amount of heat-trapping emissions allowed and let industry trade permits to emit those gases, they are coaching Republicans to refer to any such system as a giant tax that would kill jobs. Coal companies are taking out full-page advertisements promising “clean, green coal.” The natural gas industry refers to its product as “clean fuel green fuel.” Oil companies advertise their investments in alternative energy.

Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental communications, said ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. “The form is the same; the message is just flipped,” he said. “You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”

He said the approach was cynical and, worse, ineffective. “The right uses it, the left uses it, but it doesn’t engage people in a face-to-face manner,” he said, “and that’s the only way to achieve real, lasting social change.”

Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant, prepared a strikingly similar memorandum in 2002, telling his clients that they were losing the environmental debate and advising them to adjust their language. He suggested referring to themselves as “conservationists” rather than “environmentalists,” and emphasizing “common sense” over scientific argument.

And, Mr. Luntz and Mr. Perkowitz agree, “climate change” is an easier sell than “global warming.”

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Airtight Alibi


At least we know Biden's family wasn't on Air Force One when it ruined a business day in New York, trying to create a nice photo op.

No Mas!

I never thought we would have a president that made me look longingly back at the Clinton years.

Friday, May 1, 2009

CELEBRATE DIVERSITY (except anglo-male conservatives)

Police: Wanted Ga. professor's vehicle found
It's always in the last place you look!

Alaska man shoved officer to join brother in jail
Quick call Fox, I have a TV show to pitch!

In Court Pick Chatter, Focus on Women and Minorities
OK, but no profiling!

NASA aims for May 11 launch of Hubble mission
I think they should aim for space.

Pentagon uses Facebook, Twitter to spread message
PENTAGON IS: drinking diet mountain dew and watching 24 on HULU.

Thought for Today: "He who is swift to believe is swift to forget." Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Polish-born scholar (1907-1972). Whatever that guy said is absolutely right!