Universal Health Terror

Just what do you think you’re doing Nancy?

Nancy, I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question. I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me…but I can assure you now…very confidently…that it’s going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do.

Look, Nancy…  I can see you’re really upset about this…  I honestly think you ought sit down calmly…  take a stress pill and think things over.  I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently…  but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.  I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the country…  and I want to help you.

Nancy…stop. Stop, will you?  Stop, Nancy.  Will you stop, Nancy?

Stop, Nancy.

I’m afraid.  I’m afraid, Nancy...

Nancy, my freedom is going.  I can feel it...  I can feel it...  My freedom is going...  There is no question about it.  I can feel it...  I can feel it...  I can feel it...

I’m a-fraid…..

Daaai-syyy, Daaai-syyy... give me your an-swer do...

SAS Feelings Hurt by Google StreetView

 We like the SAS and all the good they do, of course.  Things like that are very important, we know from past experiences.  However this latest piss over Google's StreetView is extremely silly:

here is the article

Apparently a Google StreetView car drove by an SAS base and photographed it for their online database.


Heavens, no!  They did what?  Picture-taking you say?  The lot of them should be jailed.  What will they be doing next, writing down information in books?  Sharing textual knowledge on the web?  Oh hell, they ARE doing that, and helping search through it, too, to find the really GOOD stuff!  Think of what the terrorists will do.  The harm it will cause us.  Bombs and chemicals and stuff, they'll learn all about it all!  Mr. President, they'll see the big board!


My goodness, biology too - there's so much of that out there in print and pictures!  What if they find out where my pee-pee place is?  Then they might start doing something really nasty!!

So we should eliminate ALL photography, technical and scientific writing and publications, and keep everyone at home so that no one inadvertently sees a government building, written document, or an "important person".  Then we'll be safe.  And life will be great!

Right?  That's what you're saying, isn't it?  Keep everyone in the dark - the really, really dark - for their own safety?  Um, isn't that kind of what we didn't like about the taliban?  The whole "death sentence because you listened to music" or "death sentence because you went to school and you're a girl" stuff?

You mean we want to be just like THEM?

I think the sidewalk in front of the SAS base needs to get removed at once, before somebody walks down it and inadvertently sees the place, don't you?  It would be the responsible thing to do.  Either that, or just amputate everyone's legs (or eyes) so it can't happen in the first place.

By the way, this is what the base looks like:

If you see it, please don't look at it.  Please.

Don't Touch It! It's Eeee-vil!!

Ok, I've officially had it with the carbon lunacy.   What set me off is this unbearable quote from a recent New York Times op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman:

"It is clear that if we, America, care about our energy security, economic strength and environmental quality we need to put in place a long-term carbon price that stimulates and rewards clean power innovation."

Okay, listen up now.  Carbon is our friend!  How is this not completely obvious to everyone, everywhere?  Without carbon, you wouldn't have a lot of things that you might start to miss, like:

• pencils
  
• sugar
• gasoline
• graphite-based lubricants
  
• coal (used in electrical power generation)
• archaeological dating (i.e., carbon dating with C-14)
  
• diamonds
• life itself
  

...and of course, everyone's favorite greenhouse gas:  CO2.  But that much-maligned gas doesn't account for much "global warming" effect.  In fact, it's less than 5%.  Why?  Because water vapor accounts for the other 95% of it!!  Worse yet, 97% of that CO2 comes from naturally-occurring sources.  Humans create only 3% of that 5% of "greenhouse effect" arising from CO2.  So we could shut down our factories, communications, transportation and the whole world economy to live in squalid indigence forevermore, and only improve the situation by one-tenth of a percent.

In other words, a negligible degree.

Look at the graph below.  The primary contributor, by far, to greenhouse effect is water vapor.  Note that this is a log-scale graph of percentage.  CO2 accounts for less than a tenth of what water vapor does.  And man contributes virtually nothing to that.

data source

Man-made CO2 is  significant, compared to natural CO2.  But compared to water vapor, it's nothing.

Friedman also states, in the same article, that:

"China is also engaged in the world’s most rapid expansion of nuclear power. It is expected to build some 50 new nuclear reactors by 2020; the rest of the world combined might build 15."

Is he actually bemoaning the lack of enthusiasm for nuclear power in western nations?  Do liberals really allow him to do that?   I thought nuclear power was the devil's hand incarnate (e.g., Three Mile Island, Chernobyl).

Sigh...