Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Archive for February, 2011

Overcoming Liberalism: Step 11

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Step 11 of 12: Stop re-writing political history

It’s now time to admit that Bill Clinton is a lying-cheating-sexist-racist idiot, Hillary Clinton is one of the worst role models for women in this country, Al Gore really did lose the 2000 election by every vote tabulation you attempt, Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War and didn’t create the homeless problem, John McCain is not a typical Republican, and Jimmy Carter is a nice man but has one of the worst presidential records of anyone in history.

Monday Book Pick: The Mote in God’s Eye

Monday, February 28th, 2011

The Mote in God’s Eye by Dr. Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven

One of the classics of Science Fiction by two of the best “Hard Science Fiction” authors out there. This was their first collaboration and for extra bonus points, they had it vetted by the Grandmaster of Science Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein.

Monday Book Pick Archive

Quote of the Day

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

Bill Whittle nails it shut with this observation:

“After the second amendment goes, the first will soon follow. Because if some social engineering genius determines that real people can’t be trusted with dangerous guns, then it’s just a matter of time until they decide they can’t be trusted with dangerous ideas either.”

Overcoming Liberalism: Step 10

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

Step 10 of 12: Eat a hamburger

If God didn’t intend for us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat. You can put your sprouts and tofu on the hamburger, but get some meat into you. You’ll look and feel better than you ever imagined. You can always remind yourself that Nazi propaganda hailed Adolf Hitler as a vegetarian to get you through this step.

Editorial note: If you believe in evolution, then you should be eating meat along with your veggies. Science points out that man evolved as an omnivore. If you are a denying that part of your evolutionary heritage, then don’t get upset when an Homo sapiens points out your “anti-science” habits.

More violent rhetoric from the left.

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Gateway Pundit has this story that you won’t see on MS-NBC.

Gay black Tea Partyer attacked By Racist SEIU Activists at Denver Tea Party

Ann Coulter summed it up well.

“You can always tell what liberals are up to by what they accuse you of doing.”

Let’s review the video of how those “tolerant and open minded liberals” act in the wild.

Overcoming Liberalism: Step 9

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

Step 9 of 12: Stop smoking the wacky tobacco

Okay, some of you might need to enter another 12-step program to complete this step. Marijuana is distorting your sense of reality, and you need to stop using it. Besides, you’ll save a fortune on snacks.

Editorial Note: As a Libertarian, my view is that what ever adults choose to put into their own bodies is their business. A clear view of reality is a big help on the way to political enlightenment though.

Good advice from Dr. Pournelle

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Dr Pournelle writes the following words of wisdom.

we must expand domestic energy production, and we ought not a priori rule out any of the methods: coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and yes, wind, solar, and biofuels. However, we need to have some priorities here. The urgent need is massive amounts of energy now, both for static installations — factories, homes, street lights, and so forth — and transportation. For static installations the primary fuel now is coal, followed by oil (for heating homes). For transportation we burn oil, much of which must be imported. We don’t import coal.

The first order of business, then, is to increase domestic oil production and refining, but that’s a temporary measure, and has environmental consequences. We can tolerate some smog better than we can tolerate bankruptcy, but we’d prefer to avoid both. Over time we can phase in natural gas, which is also a good source for electric generation. Note that it takes energy to develop and produce sustainable energy sources: with cheap enough energy, the price of solar cells will fall. Solar cells produce low voltage energy, good for supplementing central power grids. Solar electric is very useful for home lighting and air conditioning and other on-site uses, and leaving out the conversion systems for putting that trickle into the grid makes the initial installation cheaper as well. If the overall cost of solar cells is low enough, there will be more such uses.

And of course when we mention electric power, the gorilla in the parlor is nuclear: we have the technology, and we ran the most expensive destructive test in history at Three Mile Island, where we learned that even when everything goes wrong the costs are economic, not a public health disaster. France and Japan have demonstrated nuclear’s long term cost effectiveness.

Our first order of business ought to be to reverse Jimmy Carter’s disastrous stoppage of spent fuel recycling, and start building nuclear power plants. Cheap electricity won’t free us from the billion a day we export to buy oil, but it will go a long way toward letting us develop the means to use natural gas and domestic oil to make us North America energy independent. Once we’re on that path we can have a good look at how biofuels fit into the pattern of sustainable energy; but that, I would say, is nowhere near the top of the priority list. In A Step Farther Out I showed that biofuels can be useful. I fear I didn’t make it clear enough that it wasn’t the top priority. Of course when I wrote that I didn’t know just how much energy trouble we would be in, although I should have: After all, those were the times when I wrote my major series “Our Looming Energy Crisis.”

Cheap energy is good for the economy. The 90’s economy was floated on cheap oil (around $20-$25 a barrel), and a new economic boom could be floated on cheap electricity. The trick is that you need much more than solar & wind can produce. For that you have to go nuclear.

If anyone is concerned about the environmental impact of increasing the number of Nuclear Power plants, get thee to a library and read Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy by Gwyneth Cravens.  This book is by an environmentalist opposed to Nuclear Energy, but  did actual, honest research on the subject and came to the conclusion that only Nuclear Power can provide the base load of clean electricity needed. Actual science trumps rhetoric.  This was my Monday Book Pick for May 11, 2009 BTW…

Math is clearly not our Dear Leader’s strong point

Monday, February 21st, 2011

Charles Krauthammer points out that the “accounting” in our Dear Leader’s so-called “budget” is the type that would get an ordinary citizen thrown in jail.

Classic Obama debt reduction: Add $2 trillion in new taxes, then add $1 trillion in new spending and, presto, you’ve got $1 trillion of debt reduction. It’s the same kind of mad deficit accounting in Obamacare: It reduces debt by adding $540 billion in new spending, then adding $770 billion in new taxes. Presto: $230 billion of “debt reduction.” Bialystock & Bloom accounting.

Bonus points for the Mel Brooks reference.

HT to the Vodkapundit

Be sure to read the whole thing.  Trust me, it gets better.

Monday Book Pick – Special Double Volume Edition: To Your Scattered Bodies Go & The Fabulous Riverboat

Monday, February 21st, 2011

To Your Scattered Bodies Go & The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip Jose Farmer

A double hit by one of my favorite authors. The first two books in his Riverworld series are back in print in a single volume. To Where Your Scatter Bodies Go was my book pick way back on 9/7/09, but I saw that it was back in print today. It’s worth the repeat, especially combined with The Fabulous Riverboat. This is one of the grand epics of Science Fiction and certainly worth the read to any student of the genre.

Monday Book Pick Archive

Overcoming Liberalism: Step 8

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

Step 8 of 12: The earth is not your “mother”, and she’s not dying

The time has now come to stop your donations to Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, and every other EnviroNazi organization to which you belong. Face the reality that the earth, society and our environment are better off today than ever in recorded history and that they are continuing to improve. I realize that many of you tree huggers will have a very difficult time letting go of the Douglas Fir on this one. I would suggest reading The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. Mr. Lomborg is a former member of Greenpeace and is currently a statistics professor at a university in Denmark. He set out to prove the world was in bad shape and ended up surprising himself by proving the exact opposite.