February 27, 2008
Conservatism lost it's staunchest voice today and it will be a loss felt for a long time to come. My heartfelt condolences to his family and friends; remember there are many of us who share in the pain of your loss.
There is a reason I cited the NY Slimes story of his passing rather than any other. That reason is that even though he represented the anthesis of everything the Slimes stand for, they still respected Mr. Buckley for the great thinker and writer that he was. You would expect The National Review to write a glowing truibute, but that the Old Grey Slut wrote a respectful piece is a true measure of the man and the respect that even his political foes had for him.
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It seems that Turkey, the most secular of the Muslim states, is attempting to effect a Reformation by government committee by attempting to streamline and reinterpret the Hadith, the second holiest scripture after the Koran itself in Islam; and the writings used the most in the formation of Shari'a Law.
This is something that NEEDS to be done, no religion can be practiced for over 1300 years without being re-examined in the light of modern knowledge. I fear however, that Islam as practiced by the Islamofascists sects is highly resistant to ANY new interpretation; that is one reason that it is so virulent an enemy. Turkey may just have bitten off way more than it can chew.
The question is: will the West provide aid in this endeavour, or will Turkey have to try to go it totally alone. If it does go it alone, it may find itself as the new "great Satan"; almost as bad as the U.S. and Israel. If we attempt to aid them, we may just be hurting the chances for real reform on the basis that Turkey is being "seduced by the Great Satan" and give even more justification to the Islamofascist POV. Either way, we are damned.
My view is that True Reform can only come from within. I believe that we as a people can only wish Turkey the best of luck in this endeavour, and hope and pray that it is successful. If we can provide support at a later date, we should, if asked, provide it; with the proviso that we maintain neutrality in the Reform itself.
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February 22, 2008
Well, really I consider it more of a second Birthday, really.
It was on this date in 1957 when My parents, second oldest brother, and I landed upon these fair shores to begin a new life full of promise and hope.
We may not have achieved all we hoped to in the intervening years, but it sure wasn't because of a lack of opportunity. For that, and all the happiness I've experienced in the last 51 years, I thank you America from the bottom of my heart.
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February 21, 2008
In line with some prior posts I've made about Progressive ideology and feel good-inane proposals I wanted to talk today about something thats crucial to us all . . . Energy. How we use it, where we obtain it, and most important of all, the future of collection and utilization of energy.
The majority of energy used in the U.S. is derived from fossil fuels: it's estimated that 40% of the nation's energy comes from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 23% from natural gas. The remaining 14% was supplied by nuclear power, hydroelectric dams, and miscellaneous renewable energy sources.
We are currently experiencing a crisis in the cost of most of these fuels; whether because of OPEC pricing policies; restrictions on allowing recovery of these fuels, or unduly burdensome environmental policies. All of these factors are raising the cost of these vital energy sources to the point of unsustainability.
We are keeping ourselves tied to the volatile sources of petroleum in the Middle East and South America; while disallowing resource recovery in our own baliwick. We have cut down our refinery capacity by over 75% over the last thirty years, and there are no current plans to boost capacity anytime soon.
We have reduced overall refining capacity and increased the cost of using petroleum products by mandateing so called 'regional blends' of gasoline. We have forestalled building new coal fired electrical generation plants by imposing draconian regulations on all new capacity, in the name of clean air and water, even though new technology makes such new facilities compatible with meeting that goal. it's not good enough that the majority of pollutants are controlled; the Green lobby insists that NO pollutants be produced at all, clearly an impossible mandate.
Most, if not all of the well-meaning folks of the Green Revolution simply are naive when it comes to the nuts and bolts reality of energy production/consumption cycle. They advocate conservation, which is a worthy goal that should be pursued at every opportunity. They also advocate using more electrical power in lieu of fossil fuels, which sounds good on the surface; but they forget the fact that electrical power is generated in large part through the use of fossil fuels. They seem to think that putting outlets in the walls of their homes somehow magically causes electricity to exist.
They tout the use of so-called alternative bio-fuels...again, a worthy aspiration, until you delve into the economics and the unintended consequences of these fuels.
"Use Ethanal/bio-diesal/(choice of poisen here)" they cry. The fact is that if we converted our entire current years worth of corn/soybean production to such fuels, the resulting amount wouldn't keep an industerial nation like ours running for more than three months or so, and the environmental damage may even be higher than our current fuels today. And the demand of bio-fuels versus the need for food production pitts the different uses of the same agro-products against each other in an ever upward spiraling cost cycle.
Solar energy is simply too inefficient with todays technology to be even close to cost effective.
Wind Turbine technology holds promise, at least to limited local use, but it keeps running into the NIMBY attitude. Yes, use it, but don't put the turbines in MY backyard. Home use? A typical American home uses about 10,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year. Depending on the average wind speed, a 10 kilowatt turbine with a 20-foot rotor diameter could supply most of the electricity for a house. Such a system will likely cost around $40,000.
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), a person who is living in a windy area (about 10 mph average wind speed or better) — and is eligible for certain government rebates or tax credits — could expect a payback time of 15 years on their small wind system.
It's like you are prepaying your electricity bill for two decades.... but by the time you break even, it's time to replace the turbine. Just...NOT....practical.
Hydroelectric is the best of the current "clean" technologies, but just how many dams are you willing to erect, with the concurrent change in ecosystems? And don't forget that there are maintainence requirements attendant with such systems. Hoover Dam requires constant cleaning of it's water conduits to prevent build-up of marine flora and fauna that threaten it's viability as a power generator. Cost? Several millions of dollars annually. (gee Blanch, I don't know if I can pay the cleaning lady this month....LOL)
Nuclear energy is the best short term solution, but the political considerations attendant make it unviable at present, and the long term environmental costs will be large.
My favorite fuel, Hydrogen, is too costly to generate large scale (that problem of needing a fuel to produce a fuel again) and too unwieldy to ship/store at present, although I feel that future technology can overcome most if not all of those objections.
So, what can I suggest as my solutions? If I knew THAT; I'd be the next Rockefeller and Ford rolled into one. But Hubris leads me to what I think are some common sense stopgaps in the interim:
I. CONSERVE, CONSERVE, CONSERVE
2. Drill ANWAR/ Fla. Coast reserves
3. Relax the restrictions on new refineing facilities for petro-products and power generating plants, no matter the fuel used to run them.
4. Fund research into more cost effective ways of generating, transporting, and storing Hydrogen.
5. Fund further research into solar and wind technologies.
6. USE solar and wind technologies wherever economically feasable; streamline environmental policies and put the onus on so call "Green" to prove that the technology shouldn't be used in a particular area because of DIRE consequences, not just because "it would spoil my view" or "it's for the birds".
7. Explore/Open new areas of OUR continent to mining and drilling of gas,oil, and coal.
8. Require that all energy production restricting legislation be sunsetted after five years; requireing revisitation at that time as to efficacy/results.
Just my .02 worth, for what it's worth.
Posted by: Delftsman3 at
06:46 PM
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SHOULD be asked being the caveat; I'm positive that such hard ball/plain speaking questions WILL be asked. More likely, the candidates will be asked what their favorite ice cream flavor is.
As Neil Boortz has stated on numerous occasions: 'many of the "uninsured" are uninsured by choice (or by making poor choices)'.
WHY should the populace at large be responsible for the health care of any individual? There is no person in these United States that isn't treated for any medical condition if that treatment is needed; true, the cost in the aftermath of treatment can be steep, but that is still a responsibility of the individual if he/she wishes to remain an individual with free choices.
Look to the conditions of treatment of care in any country where Socialized Medicine has become the rule and you will find a drastic fall in not only the amount of treatment availible to the individual patient, but in the quality of treatment as well.
Posted by: Delftsman3 at
03:25 PM
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Let the Goracle and aqll of his acolytes rant and rave all they wish, it sems that the facts just seem to keep refuting their contentions at every turn. What blows my mind is the facility they Goracles have in taking ANY fact as a sure sign of the drastic climate change they espouse: wintger cold? Global warming, winter warm? global warming. Too much rain? global warming; too little rain? global warming. See a trend here?
Look behind the curtain of their proposals and it all boils down to ONE end conclusion: Progressive's KNOW BEST; they need total control over every aspect of life to 'save' us from a disaster of our own making, and any that balk at such overwhelming hubris are actively trying to kill all of us.
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February 19, 2008
"To my dear compatriots, who gave me the immense honor in recent days of electing me a member of parliament ... I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept -- I repeat not aspire to or accept -- the positions of President of Council of State and Commander in Chief," Castro said in the statement published on the Web site of the Communist Party's Granma newspaper.
I don't think too much will change too quickly in Cuba with the change of leadership from Fidel to his brother, Raul; they are, after all just the same in their views. The one bright hope is that Raul may not be as personally revered as his brother, and when the promises of a brighter new future under the Comunists continue to go unfullfilled, tghe populace may finally begin to wake up and push for REAL reform.
To say the least, the next year or two may prove to be really interesting....
I do find it sad however, that, at a time when the Cuban people might have a real chance to get rid of their Socialist overlords;.....WE in the U.S., however, seem hell bent on suborning ourselves under the grip of the same type of overlords. May G-D have mercy on us all.
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February 16, 2008
I've never been that big a fan of the psycho-babble crowd, but hey, when they support my contentions, then they are brilliant LOL.
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February 11, 2008
"Be vewy,vewy quiet, I'm huntin wabbit"
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February 06, 2008
Seems that the old Dynex wireless access point wouldn't play nice with the new tower, as it runs Vista as opposed to the old tower which ran XP....and the company didn't have any drivers to make it run on Vista...soo...off to the local rip-off joint Bestbuy to buy a new, compatible wireless access point....at three times the cost of the old one..oh well, that's life.....get it home, go through the steps to install the driver and hardware in the right places and get on the 'Net, right?
WRONG
Seems that the WAP couldn't find the router that was only 35 feet away in favor of someone else's wireless net..but at a signal strength that wouldn't allow access. (bad enough to be stealing piggybacking on someone else's net, but to not be able to get access too?!? )
Got a Geeksquad guy coming on Friday to try to get things straightened out (you'd think at the prices they charge, you wouldn't have to wait three days to get shorn of your hard-earned cash) I just hope that he can get things running as they should. Otherwise, we blew a lot of money for a fancy way to play Solitaire and Mah Jong, and the old stower had better versions of those in any case.
It really frosts my non-technological ass to pay good money and STILL not have a functioning piece of gear.
Gotta go, my 30 minutes on the Library computer is up.
Posted by: Delftsman3 at
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