Slowly but gradually, Europe is awakening to a green energy crisis, an economic and political debacle that is entirely self-inflicted.

http://www.thegwpf.org/benny-p…

Indeed the problems are self-inflected but far from the way the article would have you believe.

EU members states have spent about €600 billion ($882bn) on renewable energy projects since 2005, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Germany’s green energy transition alone may cost consumers up to €1 trillion by 2030, the German government recently warned.

These hundreds of billions are being paid by ordinary families and small and medium-sized businesses in what is undoubtedly one of the biggest wealth transfers from poor to rich in modern European history. Rising energy bills are dampening consumers’ spending, a poisonous development for a Continent struggling with a severe economic and financial crisis.

The German Association of Energy Consumers estimates that up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they couldn’t pay the country’s rising electricity bills

The folly is not in going green but in taking the high-priced rich man’s route that guarantees continued enslavement to fossil fuels, most notably solar and wind.

For many weeks in December and January, Germany’s 1.1 million solar power systems generated almost no electricity. During much of those overcast winter months, solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity. To prevent blackouts, grid operators had to import nuclear energy from France and the Czech Republic and power up an old oil-fired power plant in Austria.

The answer is plain enough for the few that will listen – like some of the poorest countries on the planet.

Baseload renewables, primarily geothermal and biomass, are cheaper than the foppery of sometime power, far more potent and plentiful than fossil fuels.

We will learn or we may not survive.

Best,  Terry

The insurance industry has come under fire previously for using other non-driving-related tools to predict risk – most notably, credit scores. In fact, in 2012, three members of Congress – Reps. Hansen Clarke (D., Mich.), John Conyers Jr. (D., Mich.) and Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.) -proposed the Ban the Use of Credit Scores in Auto Insurance Act.

“There is an urgent need for the federal government to protect consumers from powerful auto insurance companies whose rate-setting policies are immoral, illogical, and unnecessary,” said Rep. Conyers at the time the legislation was proposed. (Like similar proposed bills in several state legislatures, the act didn’t receive the requisite support to make into law.)

http://www.marketwatch.com/sto…

Of course there was no support.  Romney isn’t the only one who doesn’t give a damn about working class folks – you know, the vast majority of the population.

So what is wrong with charging more to higher risk drivers?

The trouble is the lumping of people into boxes that don’t fit.  Kurt Vonnegutt’s hilarious grouping of people with the same birthday points out the problem.  

Another way of looking at it would be higher rates for people with darker skins.  Well why shouldn’t the Obamas and Conyers pay more? 🙂

Women used to be charged more for the identical item of clothing as men when it was bought in the women’s section.  I suspect that got fixed when word got around.

Don’t really know if it was fixed.  Obama and Larry Summers can tell you that women just are no good at financial matters like men are. [Yes, this is snark.  Why do so many nitwits not get that on the internet?]

Best,  Terry

 

Multiple sources tell CNN that another heated moment came when Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado asked about rumors that Larry Summers is being considered to head the Federal Reserve, and told the president it is a bad idea.

Sources said the president got defensive and clearly upset, saying that he is sick of the Washington game and liberal press like the Huffington Post going off on Summers as not liberal enough.

The president reminded the room of Democratic lawmakers that Summers was a key part of his economic team as they tried to turn the economy around in 2009. He also made clear that he has made no decision for the Fed chief, but noted that top choices, including Summers and Janet Yellen, are so similar in qualifications you “have to slice the salami” pretty thin to see the differences.

http://politicalticker.blogs.c…

Just like slicing night and day.

I have read nothing but skimpy reports and opinion pieces about Janet Yellen but I am reasonably confident she is not dismissive of women overall like the ugly clod Summers, who has never been right about anything.

Imagine, just imagine, if instead of handing trillions to bankers and a bit of strained sympathy to their victims, the U.S. had given the crooks jail sentences [like Reagan did incidentally] and aided the victims.

Would we not be better off?

Best,  Terry  

Temple Grandin, the autistic professor, said non-visual learners could not possibly think like cows, as she could, and therefore were horribly handicapped in seeing the real world. Temple built her success largely on methods and means of handling livestock humanely and productively.

On the other hand visual learners were unable to receive the mysterious signals that normal people communicated to each other through some incomprehensible mechanism and had to rely on extensive learned memory banks to have any clue to a mysterious, illogical world of emotion.

Humpty Dumpty had it right, Alice.

   “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

   “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

– Through the Looking Glass

A table set up on a sidewalk had copies of the Bill of Rights that passersby were asked to read.

“Propaganda by Karl Marx,” was the typical judgment.

In an earlier day, a tract condemning “rampant heterosexualism” found nearly unanimous agreement. I suspect us bent “straights” have made progress of a kind along with the none-bents but I know of no tests.

I somehow doubt cows think much like an Einstein or a Temple Grandin. Even they know a warmth of emotion prohibited to autistics but they also have a logic that escapes the herd of true believers fired up by words that somehow have an opposite meaning from their original intent – words like capitalism, socialism, democracy, race and – worst of all – the words of founders of the major religions of the day.

Best,  Terry

Two previous studies reported that the correlation between height and any type of cancer was stronger among women who had never smoked

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201…

Smoke, smoke that cigarette. 🙂

You just can’t make up the crazy results of demographic studies.

One genetic mutation that is most assuredly associated with higher cancer rates though not necessarily low intelligence is blue eyes.  That is independent of blonde hair and light skin which are also rumored to be associated with low intelligence but are implicated in greater cancer rates.

Nevermind that many genes besides the legendary blue oncogene are involved in the blue eye cancer biomarker and blond hair may come from a bottle rather than any genes.  Most doctors and pop science writers don’t bother much with details.  Only research scientists are willing to endure the boredom of such trivia.

As a matter of practical advice, mosquitoes as well as men prefer blondes and dogs.  When picnicking or fishing that knowledge should prove helpful in selecting companionship though not necessarily for the companion.

Best,  Terry

When the wannabe cop, George Zimmerman, shot an unarmed teenager through the heart for having too much skin pigmentation, a racist jury of skin pigment-challenged women decided it was a good and just thing to do because they heard the large man with the gun screaming for help.

Betcha a jury of non-skin-pigment-challenged men would have heard the unarmed teenager as the one screaming for help from the heavier stalker with the gun.

There was, as usual, lots of ignorant, untruthful testimony in the trial but how could anyone top the imaginary African-American DNA the pathologist claimed was found?

It is not hard to differentiate biology from culture though both contribute to the individual. A racist cannot do so because he or she is blinded by color they claim, like sociologists, to be unable to see.

When Jesse Owens caused a stir in the 1936 Olympics by outrunning Der Fuehrer’s Supermen, learned scholars wrote in scientific journals that Jesse had the advantage of the negroid foot.

But Jesse had a caucasoid foot when someone bothered looking at Jesse’s foot rather than his face.

So then wasn’t Jesse a caucasian with the same disadvantage, if such it be, as the German supermen?

If there were a God, would He not save us from this hateful color bigotry?

The pathologist was undoubtedly relying on continental ancestry but that does not exactly fit continents nor does it comport with skin pigmentation.

Caucasian and Negroid arose from physical anthropologist’s attempt to differentiate sub-species of Homo sapiens before DNA.

Continental ancestry based on DNA groupings includes the South Asian sub-continent for “European” ancestry while the “African” ancestry in popular and also misleading popular misconception includes only sub-Saharan Africa in broad categorization.

There is no DNA for culture and bigotry that twists both to accommodate popular prejudices.  

Best,  Terry  

Chuck Todd is one of the kinda liberals on MSNBC who opines abortion doesn’t really matter in “presidential politics.”  Nate Silver is the flawless sabermetrician who carries the message beyond and above and says it probably doesn’t matter well below.

They are both full of it.

The abortion wars are about far more than abortion and extend far beyond the bedroom to cancer.  Life expectancy is falling for some southern women probably because of the closure of health clinics for women.

Of course gays and transexuals figure into the mix but things get messier and messier the more you look.

But hey, looky here:

Virginia Republican Suffers Abortion Backlash From Donors

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/…

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving fellow though the Democrat is no prize.

The polls are essentially tied but money talks very loud.  

Women are the majority.  Wish you would show it – particularly in New Jersey but one step at a time I guess.

Best,  Terry

Climate scientist James Hansen has said that it is “game over” for the climate if the Keystone XL pipeline is allowed to be built as it would lock us into unsustainable use of the dirty tar sands crude for the foreseeable future. And climate activist and author Bill McKibben has written about Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math which states that we must leave the oil industries massive oil reserves in the ground if we are to have a chance at mitigating climate change.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Then why don’t these worthies do something about it?  Are they on Exxon’s or the Koch Brothers’ payroll?  [ A small bit of snark.  I am sure they are not paid by the dirties but they surely work in their interests though they would deny it.]

Today mountains of solid waste are disposed of, at best, in landfills while they could be used to convert coal and natural gas plants to biomass burning plants with little modification.  Natural gas may be dirtier than even coal for reasons that have been elucidated many times.

Years ago a car burning cow manure made a continental run.  In that case the manure was converted to methane with anaerobic digestion but it is not necessary for vehicles to make any conversions to liquid or gaseous fuels with today’s technology derived from ancient times.  Instead money is being wasted on electric vehicles with limited use and further pollution of the planet.

Biomass, whether from waste, forest slash and kindling for forest fires or even – the worst option – agriculture devoted to growth of biomass only, is fought tooth and nail by purported environmentalists like the above gentlemen.

Then again, the most potent and cheapest of all energy sources put together – Mother Earth herself – has an even harder time with the nitwit “environmentalists.”

Filling a summer news hole with news on earthquakes

The never ending story of scientific studies proving that geothermal activities cause earthquakes continue and it seems the recent wave of articles is simply another run at the same topic in this case likely to fill a news hole over the summer period.

http://thinkgeoenergy.com/arch…

Surely but it’s hard to top word that increased tapping of the vast geothermal potential of California’s Salton Sea area may start the San Andreas fault in motion with ginormous consequences beyond anything ever imagined.

Geothermal plants trigger small quakes near San Andreas fault

Geothermal plants on the Salton Sea cause tremors, study finds, but it isn’t clear if they could touch off a major quake on the San Andreas fault.

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo…

It’s not as if the Dirty Bunch, blasting away underground with abandon and pouring poisonous chemicals into the breech giving a whole new meaning to fire water for people with water wells, was the real threat drilling for water is.

The geothermal folks at the link above speculate the oil and gas drillers may have paid for the harum-scarum.

No need.  It is impossible to plumb the depths of human stupidity.

Best,  Terry  

Ex-Pentagon official has ‘heavy heart’ over US teen’s inadvertent killing by drone

http://investigations.nbcnews….

That’s so sweet.  I hadn’t heard before that the son of the American father in Yemen was a collateral casualty.

Either way it’s just tough luck:

In the op-ed, Nasser Al-Awlaki  said he planned to petition a federal court to hold U.S. officials responsible for the drone strike.

“My grandson was killed by his own government,” he wrote. “The Obama administration must answer for its actions and be hold accountable.”  (The Justice Department has previously asserted that the families of victims of drone strikes don’t have standing to sue in the U.S. courts and Johnson did not address that issue in his remarks. A Justice spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. )

More than you get from Zimmerman I guess – at least until he faces new charges.

More than 8 schoolkids and a goatherd of the same age in Afghanistan who were rousted out of bed, handcuffed and executed by firearms got but then they weren’t Americans and weren’t killed by a drone.

Always need to keep distinctions in mind when killing kids.

Best,  Terry

Zimmerman Juror: Self-Defense Laws Should Be Changed After Trayvon Martin  Killing

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Yes, this is the sweetie pie juror whose book will never be written but surprisingly she does have a case that the law the jurors were instructed in omitted a crucial first aggressor clause.  I have little doubt that a juror who thinks a man with a gun was screaming for help instead of the teenager he was about to shoot through the heart would have come to the same conclusion had she known the law as it is but was suppressed by the judge.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Well you can read about it at the link or elsewhere but I wonder if even Jimmy Carter cares.  After all it wasn’t one of his kind of kid that was killed.  Racist America divides people by skin color that is often completely imaginary.

As a believer in jury nullification it is most unlikely I would ever get on a jury for a case like this but I had never ever thought all that much about jurist nullification before.

Best,  Terry

Good gawd almighty.  Has Nate Silver never had a date?

In Public Opinion on Abortion, Few Absolutes

–

Abortion opponents have cited polls showing that a majority considers life to begin at conception

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n…

I don’t believe it’s possible to get more inane than this.

Even the most backward should know that conception usually begins with a date.  Some omit even that preliminary.

There is a near absolute that is available on few other issues.

To summarize simply:

Abortion is bad for thee but not for me.

How come a genuine genius doesn’t know?

Nate should get out and about a little more.

Best,  Terry

How Smart Dust Could Spy On Your Brain

Intelligent dust particles embedded in the brain could form an entirely new form of brain-machine interface, say engineers.

–

Today, Dongjin Seo and pals at the University of California Berkeley reveal an entirely new way to study and interact with the brain. Their idea is to sprinkle electronic sensors the size of dust particles into the cortex and to interrogate them remotely using ultrasound. The ultrasound also powers this so-called neural dust.

http://www.technologyreview.co…

That ultrasound is a big hangup [not to mention the sprinkling] but what would you expect from spies?

Photons [light, people] is where it’s at.

But imagine lighting up the dark recesses of Dick Cheney’s mind.  

Some things, like nuclear annihilation and reading Dick Cheney’s mind, are just too horrible to contemplate.

Welcome to our Brave New World.

Best,  Terry