Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
– P.J. O’Rourke
– P.J. O’Rourke
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
Michelman jumps in? Philadelphia Inquirer
Hmm…
Arrested: AP/MSNBC
The accompanying photo is about as unflattering as you could get.
I don’t have a link yet, sorry. Dana Reeve, widow of Christopher Reeve died of lung cancer. She was 44.
Good lord – how tragic.
Link
I just heard that on the radio. I didn’t even know she was sick, did you?
Yes. She announced back in August that she had it, and was undergoing treatment. She appeared at some function or other in the fall looking frail and with a wig on. I think I heard that 80% of people diagnosed with lung cancer die within the first 2 years. She never smoked, but sang in smokey bars.
I am a huge proponent of smoking bans in all public places.
Warning! Warning! K.P. is going soft in his old age: Another no-bad-news edition!
You may have heard (including here) about the recent supernova / gamma ray burst object. Now you can see a lovely picture of it, nestled in the arms of its spiral galaxy, here. (I’m always happy to have a reason to promote NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website.)
While we’re floating free in the cosmos, here are another couple of astronomy stories: according to astronomers, Jupiter has developed a second red spot. The existing red spot is a giant storm over 300 years old. The red color is believed to be due to chemicals pulled up from lower levels in Jupiter’s atmosphere, and indicates the severity of the storm (Jupiter has many smaller white spots in its atmosphere as well).
And scientists using a new computer model at the National Center for Atmospheric Research said Monday the next sunspot cycle could be 30 percent to 50 percent stronger than the last one. They now understand what drives the Sun’s 11-year cycle of sunspot activity, and they are confident the model can help them predict the cycle accurately enough to allow NASA and the satellite and electric-power industries prepare for periods of maximum solar magnetic activity years in advance. They soon expect to be able to predict solar activity into the 2020’s.
From the Karl Rove College of Agricultural Sciences: Japanese researchers have succeeded in making the sweet smell of vanilla come out of the last thing people could imagine — cow dung. In a world-first recycling project, a one-hour heating and pressuring process allows cow feces to produce vanillin, the main component of the vanilla-bean extract, according to researcher Mayu Yamamoto.
I ask you – what other progressive political blog brings you this kind of news on a daily basis, eh?
Organic farming has long been touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional agriculture. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides strong evidence to support that claim. The story discusses many of the points regarding nitrogen pollution we made a couple of weeks ago in the New Environmentalism diary on the subject.
For our archeology story fans: The oldest remains of seafaring ships in the world have been found in caves at the edge of the Egyptian desert along with cargo boxes that suggest ancient Egyptians sailed nearly 1,000 miles on rough waters to get treasures from a place they called God’s Land, or Punt.
Chemists at UCLA and the University of Michigan report an advance toward the goal of cars that run on hydrogen rather than gasoline. While the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that practical hydrogen fuel will require concentrations of at least 6.5 percent, the chemists have achieved concentrations of 7.5 percent. The materials they developed are a solid matrix that can store hydrogen (or methane) for release into fuel cells as needed, making not only hydrogen cars but also hydrogen-powered laptops and the like (instead of using batteries) a possibility. The materials only work so far at low temperatures, and need to be further modified to work at room temperature.
A scientific study pinpoints 20 areas in the world where animals are not at immediate risk of extinction, but where the risk is likely to arise soon. The regions include Greenland and the Siberian tundra, Caribbean islands and parts of South East Asia. The research team believes its work will help conservationists prevent extinctions through early intervention – prevention, not cure. The study is reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Human genes involved in metabolism, skin pigmentation, brain function and reproduction have evolved in response to recent environmental changes, according to a new study of natural selection in the human genome. Researchers developed a statistical test to find genomic regions that evolution has favored over the last 15,000 years or so – when modern humans dealt with the end of the last ice age, the beginning of agriculture, and increased population densities.
Scientists who study hurricanes, whirlpools and other large fluid vortices have puzzled over precisely how these vast swirling masses of gas or liquid sustain themselves. How do they acquire the energy to keep moving? Researchers now believe they get their energy by stealing it from smaller vortices, in a “hostile takeover.” “This discovery is important because it could lead to a better understanding of how hurricanes and large ocean eddies form,” said Shiyi Chen, an author of the paper. “It should also help us to create better computer models to make more accurate predictions about these conditions.”
Yeah, he can deliver all good news when it’s pure research, but can he cover the political end of science and not go negative?
Double whammy for Tony Blair on scientific issues: A torrent of high-level opposition is building up to the proposals to scrap Britain’s three leading wildlife research centers, which are due to be voted on tomorrow. And Blair’s backing for nuclear power suffered a blow yesterday when the Government’s own advisory body on sustainable development came down firmly against the building of a new generation of reactors.
And one for Ahnuld: The California Chamber of Commerce, perhaps Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s closest political ally, [and still drunk on Kool-Aid,] may split with the governor over his commitment to drastically cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
And a black eye for Bush from Pacific fishermen, who are over the Kool-Aid: The Pacific Fishery Management Council meets next week in Seattle to considering an unprecedented ocean fishing ban on Chinook salmon along 700 miles of California and Oregon coast to address plummeting commercial salmon stocks on the troubled Klamath River. Biologists have warned for years that a combination of warm and low-flowing waters in the once mighty Klamath – at one time among the nation’s most productive salmon-producing rivers – would cause the highly prized Chinook runs to plummet. Fishermen blame the Bush administration’s water management policies that favor farmers, timber companies and dam operators over fish for creating the problem.
Kool-Aid – Communion wine for Voodoo budgeting; Democrats pass the cup unsipped: Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Budget Committee said Monday they opposed putting in the 2007 budget bill language assuming the government will raise billions of dollars in oil drilling leasing fees from Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Posse forms to challenge climate thieves: California and 11 other states asked the US Supreme Court on Friday to review the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate motor vehicle emissions of gases that scientists blame for global warming. The states were joined by the cities of New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the island of American Samoa and numerous environmental groups in appealing a federal court ruling last year that upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision not to regulate so-called greenhouse gases.
Food Fight: Scientists are taking on sodas as the ‘cigarettes’ of obesity One of every five calories in the American diet is liquid. The nation’s single biggest “food” is soda, and nutrition experts have long demonized it. And now they are escalating the fight.
The Chinese province of Hunan, home to China’s largest zinc smelter, is considering closing heavy industrial plants that pollute, a senior government official said on Monday.
And in an interview with Grist, Lester Brown, founder of Worldwatch and Earth Policy Institute, is more hopeful about our chances than you might expect…
…Partly because of stories like this: Global annual sales of renewable energies such as wind, solar and biofuels could more than quadruple in a decade to nearly $170 billion if oil prices remain high and technology costs fall, according to a study.
The photo is captioned a type Ia supernova in M100 in Virgo.
Evidence that this was a gamma ray burster would be more than astounding–a bit of “previously understood” physics would have to be reconsidered. Not impossible, but you should not leave us hanging like this!
Here’s another P.J. quote.
Is he a friend of your brother Phillip?
I think they have met but they are not friends as far as I know. They also have much different ideas about the proper role of government. PJ thinks politicians are useless and we shouldn’t trust them to do anything. Phillip thinks the government should be very pro-active on health and environmental issues. Yet, they both are far to my right.
I can’t believe nobody has a comment on the Karl Rove College of Agriculture story on making vanilla from cow dung. People, people, people, are we all that grim today? Time to get the passports in order and head to Casablanca?
With the coming of the Second Iraq War, many eyes in imprisoned America turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the E.U. New York became the great embarkation point. But, not everybody could get to New York directly, and so a tortuous, roundabout refugee trail sprang up – Nashville to Knoxville… across the Smokey Mountains to Asheville… then by train, or auto, or port across the rim of the East Coast, to Key West in Florida. Here, the fortunate ones through money, or influence, or luck, might obtain exit visas and scurry to New York; and from New York, to the Old World. But the others wait in Casablanca (uh, I mean Key West)… and wait… and wait… and wait.
…We’ll always have Booman Tribune…
I think it’s a reflex of the brain to avoid any links that involve Rovitt….too many head asplosions over the past year.
Vanilla cow dung eh? I wonder if it still smokes up the joint if you throw it on a campfire, not that I’ve ever done that before 🙂
Somehow stories about turning cow shit into artificial vanilla flavoring just seem to go with Karl…