Open Threads

If you want a good example of the hysteria the enviro-left can whip up regarding nuclear energy, go check out the comments to this post in which someone was evil enough to suggest that maybe we consider a second look at nuclear energy. He didn’t propose building plants. He didn’t propose putting one in anyone’s back yard. He suggested re-considering nuclear power. Some snippets:

Species extinction and ecosystem destruction are far more important issues than global warming, but anthropocentric humans who’ve created this problem (including, unfortunately, many environmentalists), are willing to sacrifice the rest of the planet in an attempt to save our destructive way of life. We should forget global warming and concern ourselves with the root causes of ecological and environmental problems. If we don’t, we’ll destroy so many other species and ecosystems that we’ll become extinct, anyway.

I confess, I am guity. Any discussions I have regarding human energy consumption are anthropocentric.

It’s truly shocking that the Grist — which I usually enjoy — would give a single pixel in support of nuclear energy. It’s worse than shocking — it’s irresponsible.

Discussion and reasoned debate are shocking. The parties on both sides of this issue seem to have dug in, fortified positions. For a critique of the Bush Energy policy, head here.

This is, to many, not a debate on energy, but a debate on the American system:

Uncontrolled growth is defined as cancer, and that’s what capitalism advocates. You’re right, I don’t like the current American system, I like the one that was here 500 years ago before the European invaders murdered the indigenous people, stole their land, and destroyed it to enrich themselves with material things.

There are ways that we can change human behavior, but we are never going to change human nature, and attempts to massively overhaul the way of life we have grown accustomedto are doomed to fail. Even our ‘green’ technologies drain enormous energy resources- check out the network effect of energy consumption and the internet. Every time you access a website, an ftp, etc., anywhere, you aren’t just consuming the energy produced by your machine.

There has to be a middle ground- we aren’t going to move back into caves and hunter gatherer societies, and no matter how many times those on the hard left claim that is not what they want, it is, in its essence, what they are proposing. They should be as marginalized in this debate as those who think we can drill our way out of this mess.

*** Update ***

One more time, I can not re-iterate enough that nuclear energy is not the same technology it once was- read this on pebble-bed nuclear power plants in China and read this on waste disposal by Toren Smith. Of Course, it is not helpful when the jackasses at the DOE and US Geological survey lie out their asses and fabricate data for the computer modeling of Yucca Mountain.

Nuclear EnergyPost + Comments (16)

Pat Robertson is on This Week with George Stephanalphabet, and he said something that I will get to in a moment, but which immediately reminded me of this statement:

Does anyone else find it odd that rightwing Christians are more feared in this country than are the extremist adherents of the Islam that ideologically fueled the 9/11 attacks and continue to fuel Al Quaeda in Iraq?

No one I am aware of is more afraid of right-wing Christians than radical Islamists. No one I know is calling for bombing campaigns on the Moral Majority. No one I know is proposing invading Colorado Springs or Richmond. I think it is even a stretch that people are afraid, when really what I am is disgusted. This is nothing more than an absurd strawman, and we all know it.

Now, to be fair, Baldilocks makes a very good point in the same post:

During the last two presidential campaigns the Democrat candidates campaigned openly in churches and no one turned a hair (well almost no one). Senator John Kerry and the former vice-president himself worked their nauseating black-preacher shtick a few times while black church parisioners clapped and smiled. (In all fairness, however, I did notice that some of those smiles looked forced.)

But religious

Robertson on This WeekPost + Comments (29)

Has there been any serious research into why human beings love pets so much? It seems to me that certain cultures are more in love with pets than others, as well. Part of me simply thinks it fulfills a human need to love and be loved unconditionally, which would explain why one of the signs of sociopaths is cruelty to animals at an earlier age, but that doesn’t explain the cultural divergences.

Just curious.

People and Their PetsPost + Comments (6)

Not much to say today, but I would appreciate it if someone would explain to me what ‘non-genital’ sex is.

Have I been missing out on something all these years?

Beats Me…Post + Comments (26)

Donald Sensing has a decent remembrance up that you will want to see.

Oklahoma CityPost + Comments (1)

The Pope has died, but his legacy will live forever.

The PopePost + Comments (7)