Green Energy has Nothing to Do with Green… And Everything to Do with GreenBACKS.

Glenn Reynolds has the lastest exciting episode of Name that Party.   View the video.

Hat tip:  Allah Pundit, Hot Air.

More, Don Surber.

For reasons beyond the realm of understanding., the New York Daily News, has seen fit to publish a list of demands by the ajudicated defamer, who uses the moniker the Reverend Al Sharpton.   In the article Sharptoin issues “[Five] musts for Imus:”

First, he should squarely deal with the Rutgers fiasco, not just through a cosmetic meeting as before, but by coming to terms with the women he denigrated in a concrete way. One of the Rutgers women has filed a lawsuit, and rather than play legal games with her, he should settle that suit — and any other claims that the team members may make due to the psychological and public damage he did to them personally

The Reverend Sharpton has clearly put the cart before the horse   Before Sharpton has the right to issue any demand of Don Imus, there is the matter of the sixty-five thousand dollars whch Al owes Pagones for defamatory false accusations of rape.

An unrepentent defamer ihas no business demanding anybody apologize for anything.  All the more so that Imus has never been found libel for defamation in court.  Sharpton has.

Hat tips: Radio Equalizer; John Hawkins, Conservative Grapevine.

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Noted on the AP wire, via Forbes this morning:

JERUSALEM – An animal rights group on Wednesday criticized a program on a Hamas-run television station in which a man swings cats by their tails and throws stones at lions in a zoo to teach children not to abuse animals.

The segment on the children’s program “Tomorrow’s Pioneers” features one of the show’s characters, a man in a bee costume named Nahoul. It’s followed by a warning from the show’s young host that children should not imitate Nahoul’s behavior.

“They say this is supposed to be educational on how not to treat animals, but it is common knowledge that children will mimic the behavior they see,” said Martin Mersereau, spokesman for Norfolk, Va.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The station, Al-Aqsa TV, issued no immediate public statement on the criticism.

They are probably still laughing yet, is what the whole thing is.  And yes, I know that the sphere has been all over this one, previously.  What they haven’t been all over is the reaction of PETA…. the fools hadn’t opened their mouths, yet.

That Hamas has been abusing humans for years, apparently doesn’t bother PETA at all. IN PETA’s view where they cross the line is when they start abusing animals.

Priorities. They tell us quite a bit about the mentality of the people were dealing with.

LOS ANGELES —FOX  A man who died at the home of action star Ving Rhames most likely did not die from bites from Rhames’ dogs, county coroner’s officials said Friday.

Jacob Adams, 40, was living on Rhames’ Brentwood property as a caretaker for the actor’s dogs when he was bitten Aug. 3, police said.

The medical examiner who conducted Adams’ autopsy Aug. 7 said the bite abrasions and lacerations on the man’s body were most likely nonfatal, said Capt. Ed Winter of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

The dogs are back home.  Only trouble is, they still haven’t figured out  what did kill the guy.  (Shrug)

My reaction to Goodman-like complaining is: It’s 2007, you live in the United States. You have a pen, phone and Internet connection. Stop whining. It’s unattractive. If you want to have an impact, just work. That’s how the guys do it. That’s how we gals do it.

 Kathryn Jean Lopez, Town Hall.

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Hey, Billy, as regards Vista… I tend to concur.  But you apparently have forgotten the first rule of Microsoft operating systems.  Never use version one of anything they produce. By chance, do you remember Windows Millennium Edition?  Case in point.

Keep in mind, I do this stuff for a living, these days,so this is not an idle funny; I’m deadly serious.

To make matters even worse, Microsoft has decided that they’re not going to be supporting XP , very shortly, and in fact by early next year that contracts with manufacturing concerns will only let  them  sell PCs with Vista loaded on them.  No XP.

I suspect that at some point that situation is going to have to change.  The pressure from the manufacturers who are getting clobbered with support issues on an unstable operating system, which is precisely what Vista is,  will become far too loud to ignore.

Even absent the stability issues within Vista  many businesses are still going to be operating on the old OS.  That’s a simple fact of life.  Mostly, there is little or no advantage to most of these businesses to upgrade their operating systems at several hundred dollars a crack. It’s going to be interesting to see what files out of all of this.  My guess is we will see a version 1.1 out before that axe falls in the spring of 08.

For the meantime, I will continue running my combinations of NT, XP, and 2000, along with the two linux boxes I run.

I find myself amused by this Katie Hafner story in the New York Times today… And the impression that the story tries to leave his that’s the edits within Wikipedia we discussed here some day ago, were at its made by corporations.  Well, since the New York Times has appointed itself the replacement for World Worker Daily I guess this angle shouldn’t be a surprise.

That said, Betsy’s Page lays out the pattern of “corporate abuse” better than the new York times had the courage to:

I’ve been amused by the story of the uncovering of corporate members editing their company’s Wikipedia page using the new page, Wikiscanner.  There have been some embarrassing edits that you can check out from Wired’s posting of some of the most egregious edits including what someone at the ACLU put in about Pope Benedict XVI and molesting young boys and degrading women or how a person at the NEA edited criticism out about themselves.  Or some people at the New York Times making these edits.

And The New York Times Company is among those whose employees have made, among hundreds of innocuous changes, a handful of questionable edits. A change to the page on President Bush, for instance, repeated the word “jerk” 12 times. And in the entry for Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, the word “pianist” was changed to “penis.”

And there are enough examples to embarrass all sides of ideological debates such as revisions that Wal-Mart employees made on that page.  Or that someone at NRA made about the NRA.

Of course we could add as Hafner did not, that a goodly portion of the edits in question, were coming from computers within the New York Times network, and were made in support of (all together now) leftists.

There would seem to be something of a pattern developing here, however; we see the left attempting redirecting the blame away from itself for various events, by rewriting history as recorded on Wikipedia. Once caught at such tampering, The most liberal paper in the country, attempts redirecting the blame for such rewriting of history, at their most hated enemy; corporate America.  Gee, like, who couldn’t see that one coming?

An excellent article today in The Guardian, of all places.  The Lede:

The writer Andrew Anthony was a committed member of the liberal left – until the attacks of 11 September, 2001. A veteran of CND and Nicaraguan solidarity campaigns, he was astonished at the liberal left’s anti-American reaction. And so he began to question other basic assumptions about race, crime and terror – a political journey he charts here, in these exclusive extracts from his compelling new book

Some clips of the long article to give you a taste:

Drinking in the devastation, numbed and intoxicated by the scale of what had taken place, I struggled, like everyone else, to make sense of it all. And in my case, as with many people from the liberal-left side of the political spectrum, that job was made more difficult by the fact that the United States was the victim. From where I came from, the United States was always the culprit. There was Vietnam, Chile and the dreadful support for repressive and often debauched regimes right across Latin America, Africa and Asia. I was a veteran of CND anti-cruise missile marches in the 1980s. I had gone to Nicaragua to defend the Sandinista cause against American imperialism. America was the bad guy, right? America was always the bad guy.

Clearly some basic moral calculations needed to be performed. Which vision of the world represented more closely my own liberal outlook? The cosmopolitan city of New York, a multi-racial city of opportunity, a town where anyone on earth could arrive and thrive, exuberant, cultured, diverse, a place I had visited and loved for its liberty and energy and excitement? Or the people who attacked it, those arid minds who wanted to remove women from sight, kill homosexuals, banish music, destroy art, the demolishers of the Bamiyan Buddhas who aimed to terrorise everyone they could into submission to the will of their vengeful God? It was, as they say, a no-brainer, or should have been.

This stuff ought to be required reading at the Democratic National Convention.  Then again, since when does the truth have any sway with that organization… (Sigh) And liberal organizations and the rest of the world, as well.

I have stated several times that what we have been dealing with on the part of the left, is a self the trade, the likes of which the world has not yet seen.  Here it is in what ever the author describes as the most Liberal paper in Britain:

In the end I reached the conclusion that 11 September had already brutally confirmed: there were other forces, far more malign than America, that lay in wait in the world. But having faced up to the basic issue of comparative international threats, could I stop the political reassessment there? If I had been wrong about the relative danger of America, could I be wrong about all the other things I previously held to be true? I tried hard to suppress this thought, to ring-fence the global situation, grant it exceptional status and keep it in a separate part of my mind. I had too much vested in my image of myself as a ‘liberal’. I had bought into the idea, for instance, that all social ills stemmed from inequality and racism. I knew that crime was solely a function of poverty. That to be British was cause for shame, never pride. And to be white was to bear an unshakable burden of guilt. I held the view, or at least was unprepared to challenge it, that it was wrong to single out any culture for censure, except, of course, Western culture, which should be admonished at every opportunity. I was confident, too, that Israel was the source of most of the troubles in the Middle East. These were non-negotiables for any right-thinking decent person. I couldn’t question these received wisdoms without questioning my own identity. And I had grown too comfortable with seeing myself as one of the good guys, the well-meaning people, to want to do anything that upset that image. I viewed myself as understanding, and to maintain that self-perception it was imperative that I didn’t try to understand myself.

Personally, I wonder if the remainder of the left in the world has the courage to face that reality.  I doubt it. The reason that they don’t have that courage, is because they will find, like the author did, that will force them into a complete ground up recalculation of their world view and their self identity.  One that falls more into line with the reality of the situation, and not their fantasy.

He goes on to describe the situation that happened a couple of weeks after the July 7 bombings in London, where an individual was stabbed over a relatively minor incident on a London bus… and it goes directly to the heart of what I’ve been talking about with regards to individual responsibility versus government services… that after a while, individuals take on the idea that they shouldn’t do anything, it’s the government’s responsibility.

The murder took place just a few weeks after the 7 July bombings, when most commuters were still very nervous about travelling on public transport, still restively aware of potential danger. In those weeks there had been plenty of time to think about what to do in life-and-death moments, how to come together to combat murderous aggression. Certainly Whelan would have had opportunity to think about such matters, as his close friend Ciaran Cassidy had been murdered by one of the Islamist bombs on 7 July. There was also the 21 July failed bombing campaign, when all of the perpetrators were able to escape from packed tube trains. Some brave individuals gave chase, but the vast majority of passengers ran away.

Only a couple of passengers came to Whelan’s aid. Most left the bus, and a mere five bothered to give a statement to the police that evening. As Whelan bled to death, male onlookers refused to give up their jackets to cover the shivering and sweating man. Apparently they didn’t want to get blood on their clothes. Perhaps that was a job for the police and the emergency services as well. It had nothing to do with them.

Here again, some very basic challenges were drawn against the authors established leftist non-thought. With this experience, he came to the conclusion that I did years ago, that if the government is solely charged with the responsibility of everything, everything doesn’t get done.
The article is revealing depressing and heartening all look the same time.
I urge you to RTWT.

Over at RedState, we hear that Mike Deaver has passed away.

Apparently,  Mike was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last fall.  Frankly, I hadn’t even heard that, so was something of a surprise when I stumbled across the Red State posting.  He was 69.

Deaver is pictured here with Mr. Reagan.

I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to suggest that Mike Deaver was Ronald Reagan’s Karl Rove.  The Democrats certainly seemed to think so.  So did the mainstream media.  Consider this article from Time magazine, back in 1986.  

Perhaps it’s a measure  of how closely we get tight in the current events, to the exclusion of history, that I had never considered that comparison, previously. Certainly, Deaver was with Reagan through all that Rove went through with Bush. I think some might argue that Deaver was not the political genius Karl Rove is, but frankly, I think Rove gets entirely too much credit, from both his friends and his enemies.

The point of the comparison,  however, is the degree to which Deaver provided the Democrats with a lightning rod.  Indeed; I think Deaver where the Democrats
learned their “indirect attack” approach.  It’s not easy to attack a popular president, head on, and it’s usually suicidal, politically speaking. So, the preferred method becomes attacking the popular president’s aides.  It’s happening with Karl Rove, now, (and the fact that Rove no longer occupies an office in the White House as of the end of this month, that was standing) and it happened with Michael Deaver, (the fact that as of when the Time article  I linked above was written, he also was no longer operating from within the White House.)

The man too dumb to be president stuck his foot in his mouth yet again: 

WAVERLY, Iowa (AP) – Democrat Barack Obama said Saturday the country faces an “an urgent moral challenge” to reduce reliance on oil and needs a president willing to defy special interests in Washington that dictate energy policy.

Sounds nice but note the fine print:

Vice President Dick Cheney led the administration’s energy task force, which Obama said met once with environmentalists, once with renewable energy experts and 40 times with oil industry leaders.

Environmentalists have their own special interest groups and lobbyists, but Obama did not decry them.

Do you really want to let moonbat groups like Greenpeace establish our national energy policy?   Do you think it is wise to continue using food stuffs for motor fuel?  I do not not.

The Telegraph –The Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez has anointed himself president for life by proposing sweeping changes to the country’s constitution.

Setting out his plans for completing his socialist revolution in the oil-rich Latin American nation, he proposing radical constitutional reform which has at its centre indefinite re-election for himself.

There is a rather obvious solution to the problem: he’s only president for life. Thereby, the solution becomes infinitely easier.

John Hinderaker over at Powerline asks:

Is Bill Moyers the most contemptible man in American public life?

Perhaps, or perhaps not.  But if not, he is certainly emblematic for the always contemptible left.

After years of being fed the line that bio fuels were the fuel of the future, and very green, it turns out that that’s not the case.  No surprise to us, we’ve been saying it for quite some time.  But now the scientific community is beginning to wake up and smell the tofu burning:

NewScientist.com news service- It sounds counterintuitive, but burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel. So say scientists who have calculated the difference in net emissions between using land to produce biofuel and the alternative: fuelling cars with gasoline and replanting forests on the land instead.

They recommend governments steer away from biofuel and focus on reforestation and maximising the efficiency of fossil fuels instead.

The reason is that producing biofuel is not a “green process”. It requires tractors and fertilisers and land, all of which means burning fossil fuels to make “green” fuel.

Well, yes, but then again, we’ve been saying that here for quite some time.  I’ve yet to see an effective counter argument on that point.  But more, the article goes into what I labeled the law of unintended consequences:

What is more, environmentalists have expressed concerns that the growing political backing that biofuel is enjoying will mean forests will be chopped down to make room for biofuel crops such as maize and sugarcane. “When you do this, you immediately release between 100 and 200 tonnes of carbon [per hectare],” says Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust, UK, a conservation agency that seeks to preserve rainforests.

This correct is this is, I think they underestimate that aspect of the problem.

In any event, with the environmental argument for using biofuels thus negated , one wonders if we will come back to the solution that this blog has been advocating since its inception; domestic drilling, and increased refining capacity.  It’s an idea whose time has long since come.  Let’s get to it.

Update:(Bit) James Joyner notes the same story:

Andrew Samwick observes, “Putting energy reform in the hands of domestic agricultural producers seems like no better an idea than putting it in the hands of domestic petroleum producers.”

And this is in addition to the moral question of whether it’s a good idea to convert a cheap, efficient form of food (say, corn or soybeans) into an inefficient substitute for fossil fuels.

I respond:

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