The Countertop Chronicles

I posted about him playing with the Second Amendments the other night. Most of the press, and attention to him, focused on his role as the touring keyboardist for the Rolling Stones. Of course, he was pretty damn rocking long before that . . . coming on originally for the Brothers and Sister’s album taking the place (on piano) of the departed Duane Allman in the Allman Brothers. Here he is talking about how they came up with Jessica from that album

Of course, one could argue (one will argue) that from an American perspective, Jessica is really why Rock and Roll was invented.

Lyrics?? Who needs lyrics. This is the Allman Brothers were talking about!!!

Of course, there is a second part to this post . . . .and thats to quote this NY Times article on Chuck and how he incorporates hunting as an active part of the management of his land.

For Mr. Leavell, hunting is an integral part of responsible land stewardship. Voracious herds of deer need constant thinning, and hunters, like tree huggers, he points out, are important allies in the battle for land preservation.

Stick that in a hippy Vegan the next time they attack you for hunting.

I don’t blog about work, but just beat the stinking hippy tree huggers in a case that the NY Times and Washington Post editorial page weighed in on (which means, by implication, I beat them too!)

I’m goona eat a steak to celebrate!

Sure, gas is just hitting $4 a gallon here in Northern Virginia (actually, I filled up for $3.79 yesterday) but I’m not that worried. Even with an SUV. I suspect things will be tight this summer, as speculators run rampant (blame the press) but as with everything market related the laws of supply and demand will hold true again and you can bet that price will begin to creep down as American’s conserve less and can justify, economically, more efficient vehicles.

Me, I’m gonna keep driving my 1996 Grand Cherokee. One, its paid for. Two, it only has 110,000 miles on it. And three, I boosted its fuel efficiency 20% this week, going from a paltry 18.5 mpg to 24.5 mpg - or about $15 per fill up. Now thats real money (and will help buy me some eggs and milk)

How? Well, Glen linked to this story on Fuel Efficiency tips and I simply took the first it to heart. I set the on board display to show current mileage and knowing I got about 18.5 mpg with it generally tried to drive at a pace that stayed above that.

Here’s the top 4 tips I followed:

1. Track Your Mileage in Real Time
2. Only Brake When You Have to
3. Always Stay Alert on the Road
4. Drive Like You’re on a Bike

It wasn’t too hard. A couple of things - I never went over 60 miles per hour (that seemed to be the magic threshold where mileage really dropped off. Thats ok, 60 is plenty fast where I was driving. I suspect on the highway, if I got up to cruising speeds, it would handle it too). I also slowed down slowly, trying to conserve momentum, and when I was at a traffic light, I accelerated slowly. Thats it. I didn’t even resort to the old standby of putting the car in neutral to coast down big hills.

I’ll try that next week.

NPR is reporting

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren’t quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

Or it could be they’ve been Al Gore’s chamber pot all along.

Ya know, my office is literally at the bottom of Capitol Hill. About 3 hundred yards from the Capitol.

When I came in this morning, I looked in one of the trash bins next to the basement elevator (they always have interesting things in them, its where people clearing out offices throw big items away - desks, lamps, books, etc.). They were empty today, save for a broken CFL light.

Jed’s post at FreedomSight today got me thinking . . . . should I report this as a HAZMAT release?

Wouldn’t that be funny??? I bet it’d make national news.

Tried to leave this as a comment to Ravnwoods post on the certain rise in gas prices from the just passed
energy bill. Alas, his spam filter is keeping me out.

Not just higher, but significantly higher.

And don’t forget, the already quite expensive renewable energy share of your gas purchase will be increasing and rising even further in price (while jacking up the cost of food at the same time). All while providing a 1/3 decrease in efficiency (necessitating your use of even more energy)

Yep, Democrats really are the working man’s party.

Interestingly, if Democrats wanted to really help out us working slobs AND stick it to the gas companies they’d cut out the ethanol subsidies altogether.

There are two main ones:

A 54 cent/gallon import tariff that keeps brazilian ethanol off the market and destroys any hope of ree market mechanisms working (ie: forcing domestic ethanol companies and corn growers to become more efficient).

The second is a 51 cent a bushel (1.53/gallon) tax credit for BLENDING etjanol into gas. Now, who BLENDS gasoline for commercial sale?? That’s right, the gas companies!!

Instead of hitting them hard, the energy bill (once finalized) is going to increase taxes on consumers, artifically raise the price of corn (and food), and provide the gas companies a 55,807,000,000 subsidy (yes, you read that correct, a 55 billion dollar a year subsidy at its peak in 2022 - 1.53×36 billion gallons).

UPDATE added this to the obits category since its basically the death of common sense.

How About Rock Stars Against Live Earth?

Wouldn’t it be great if someone came up with a list of all those bands playing at Live Earth that Tipper Campaigned against?

The Filthy Fifteen

1 Prince “Darling Nikki” Sex/Masturbation
2 Sheena Easton “Sugar Walls” Sex
3 Judas Priest “Eat Me Alive” Sex
4 Vanity “Strap on Robbie Baby” Sex
5 Mötley Crüe “Bastard” Violence
6 AC/DC “Let Me Put My Love into You” Sex
7 Twisted Sister “We’re Not Gonna Take It” Violence
8 Madonna “Dress You Up” Sex
9 W.A.S.P. “Animal (F*** Like a Beast)” Sex/Language
10 Def Leppard “High ‘n’ Dry (Saturday Night)” Drug and Alcohol Use
11 Mercyful Fate “Into the Coven” Occult
12 Black Sabbath “Trashed” Drug and Alcohol Use
13 Mary Jane Girls “In My House” Sex
14 Venom “Possessed” Occult
15 Cyndi Lauper “She Bop” Sex/Masturbation

And those whom she would have??

This guy is all over this breaking story.

Seems Madonna was on Tipper’s Filthy Fifteen list.

I’ve also noted in a previous entry the irony of Al Gore and his current relationship with bands and music and that of his wife Tipper Gore and their involvement with the censorship of music via Tipper Gore’s PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) vehicle in the 80’s.

I would be curious to know if Madonna remembers that her song, “Dress You Up” was on the PMRC’s “Filthy Fifteen” list. The Filthy Fifteen was a list of fifteen songs that the PMRC found most objectionable. Maybe Madonna sees Live Earth“>Live Earth as more important than what went on with the PMRC.

Time must have healed some old wounds or maybe the bands and musicians have simply forgotten or don’t care about the PMRC and the Gores’ affiliation with it. Or it’s possible that the bands feel that spreading the word about climate change and global warming is more important and are willing to brush aside any hard feelings.

More here.

and Harry Reid (D-NV) was the Majority Leader, and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) ran the Energy Committee, and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) ran the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Apparently, at least according to Thomas Freidman and the NY Times, I was wrong.

Well, no, not exactly. He does acknowledge they run things, albeit only in the briefest of senses.

No question, it’s great news that the Democrat-led Senate finally stood up to the automakers

but then he says this . . .

and to the Michigan senators, and said, “No more — no more assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by the U.S. Congress. We’re passing the first bill since 1975 that mandates an increase in fuel economy.”

Those “Michigan Senators?” That would be Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin. Oh, by the way, they are both Democrats.

There are other things that make the Senate energy effort ugly. Senate Republicans killed a proposed national renewable electricity mandate that would have required utilities to produce 15 percent of their power from wind, solar, biomass and other clean-energy sources by 2020. Twenty-three states already have such mandates. No matter. Making it national was too much for the Republicans.

Yes, it was all the Republicans. The bill passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support, but its entirely the fault of the Republicans that a quixotic effort to generate more energy than a number of minor sources could ever generate failed. I guess by Freidman’s reasoning then, its all the Democrats fault that a truly greenhouse gas free energy source - Nuclear - was not included (not to mention that if it was, this provision would have passed).

And the Senate, thanks again to the Republicans, also squashed a Democratic proposal to boost taxes on oil and gas companies that would have raised some $32 billion for alternative fuel projects.

You got that? thanks to the Republicans we aren’t going to be forced to pay more (significantly more) for gasoline. How the heck did this paragraph get through the speakpolice at the Times.

An effort by Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota to legislate a national reporting (“carbon counter”) system to simply measure all sources of greenhouse gas emissions, which would enable a cap-and-trade system to work if we ever passed one, also got killed by Republicans.

Yes, the Republicans - the minority party - were able to kill this singlehandly without any fault lying on the part of Democrats. Here’s some inside baseball for you - Klobuchar (a freshman Democrat) is a nice enough lady but she has some of the most inept staff in the entire Senate. If the Democrats were serious about doing this, they would have had someone else (anyone else with a different staff) handle the details here.

So call your House member — especially the Republicans. If you don’t, some lobbyist will.

Yep. I hope Freidman wastes his time calling Republicans. I’ll be sitting in John Dingell’s office (that would be the Democrat Chair and the House Energy and Commerce Committee) except for the 2 evenings I am spending with him at dinner this week (not to mention having ate breakfast next to him and his wife this morning at McLean Family Restaurant).

There are lots of impressive resumes out there, but one who’s achievements I really aspire to is my buddy Myron Ebell. In trying to help someone get a new job, I opened up his bio and was once again impressed by all he’s achieved

Among numerous recognitions, Greenpeace featured Mr. Ebell and three of his CEI colleagues in “A Field Guide to Climate Criminals” distributed at the UN climate meeting in Montreal in December 2005. Rolling Stone magazine in its November 17, 2005 issue named Mr. Ebell one of six “Misleaders” on global warming in a special feature, along with President Bush, Senator James Inhofe, and Michael Crichton. In November 2004 as a result of a BBC Radio interview, seven members of the British House of Commons from all three major parties introduced a motion to censure Mr. Ebell “in the strongest possible terms.” In its May 22, 2004 special Issues and Answers issue, National Journal profiled Mr. Ebell as one of ten people who would lead the global warming debate during the next presidential administration. The Clean Air Trust in March 2001 named Mr. Ebell its “Villain of the Month” for his role in convincing the Bush Administration not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

I’ve been trying my darnedest to get that Clean Air Villain of the Month award. To have received all those others as well is just incredible.

Wouldn’t ya know it, just as were hit with lots of hot steamy air on the imminence of global warming and climate change we here in DC get a forecast for snow and freezing conditions tomorrow.

The president shows that he still has some balls.

When the White House suddenly and unexpectedly withdrew Sam Fox’s nomination to be ambassador to Belgium last week — just minutes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was set to vote against him — it was seen as a sign that President Bush might be reconciling himself to the realities of sharing power with a Democratic-controlled Congress.

Democrats, who had denounced Fox for his 2004 donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, applauded the White House for its graceful concession.

But it turns out that conceding gracefully was the last thing President Bush had in mind. He was just sick of going through the motions.

Yesterday, with the Senate on a one-week Easter break, the White House bypassed those balky Democrats and granted Fox a “recess appointment.” While depriving the multi-millionaire St. Louis businessman of a government salary, the appointment nevertheless lets him hold office for the rest of Bush’s term.

But it was another appointment that really gives me hope: Susan Dudley, one of the nation’s true superstars.

President Bush on Wednesday appointed as his top regulatory official a conservative academic who has written that markets do a better job of regulating than the government does and that it is more cost-effective for people who are sensitive to pollution to stay indoors on smoggy days than for government to order polluters to clean up their emissions.

If, like me, you’ve complained for Bush’s entire term about the rapidly expanding reach of government, then you ought to be, like me, jumping up and down and applauding Susan’s appointment. government growths

As director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget, Susan E. Dudley will have an opportunity to change or block all regulations proposed by government agencies

. . .

Although Dudley’s new job is more obscure than those to which Biggs and Fox were appointed, it also is potentially the most powerful. The budget office’s regulatory shop acts as a funnel for all regulations emanating throughout the government.

I had suggested over at the old South Knox Bubba page a few years ago in fairly civil terms, knowing a bit more than something about the energy industry, that the oh so popular but oh so not consistent with reality calls in the press - and on liberal blogs - concerning peak oil were mostly a lot of politically motivated hot air with little substance.

I was pretty roundly condemned as being a stooge for ExxonMobil and Bushitler and CheneyMcHalliburton. Some of the harshest words (I believe I was called a no nothing idiot - wish bubba would put the archives back up) came from a loony liberal wacko who goes, oh so cleverly, by the name factchecker (yet his fact checking is never anything more than press releases from enviro groups).

Just wondering what he’s harping now when even the NY Times is reporting what was common knowledge to any one who knew anything about the subject (but that many who had political agendas tried to shout over).

Within the last decade, technology advances have made it possible to unlock more oil from old fields, and, at the same time, higher oil prices have made it economical for companies to go after reserves that are harder to reach. With plenty of oil still left in familiar locations, forecasts that the world’s reserves are drying out have given way to predictions that more oil can be found than ever before.

In a wide-ranging study published in 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that ultimately recoverable resources of conventional oil totaled about 3.3 trillion barrels, of which a third has already been produced. More recently, Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consultant, estimated that the total base of recoverable oil was 4.8 trillion barrels. That higher estimate — which Cambridge Energy says is likely to grow — reflects how new technology can tap into more resources.

“It’s the fifth time to my count that we’ve gone through a period when it seemed the end of oil was near and people were talking about the exhaustion of resources,” said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of oil, who cited similar concerns in the 1880s, after both world wars and in the 1970s. “Back then we were going to fly off the oil mountain. Instead we had a boom and oil went to $10 instead of $100.

Here’s a clue - whenever any one side shrieks of coming, certain, doom and the need to do something political to change it (while at the same time keeping their head in the sand about the on going march of technological progress and its interplay with market economics) don’t believe em.

Sure, both sides have been guilty of this in the past - but here’s another little clue - on all the big issues that matter environmentalists tend to get these things wrong nearly every time.

Its 15 Friggin Degrees

Mark Nolan, meteorologist at WKYC Channel 3, Cleveland, Ohio.

“The term global warming’ strikes fear in the heart of people every time you say it, but it’s simply a rise in temperature over time, and it’s happened before,” said Nolan, meteorologist at WKYC Channel 3. “I’m not sure which is more arrogant for humans: to say we caused it or to say we’re going to fix it.”

Really.

Well, I shouldn’t be so hard on her. She’s not anymore of an idiot than all the others liberal flat-earth society pundits out there - and certainly not as worthy for ridicule as Nancy Pelosi or Al Gore or a host of others (trust me that their ridicule will arrive in due course). But still, she’s the one who caught my attention this morning.

The fact of global warming is “unequivocal.” The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.

Yes, unequivocal. So was the population bomb. And the idea that the earth was flat subjected Christopher Columbus to ridicule (though, it turns out this isn’t exactly true either - even though) though even that wasn’t near the fate that befalls modern researchers who might dare to cast doubt about the truth of the so called hokey stick or humananities impact on climate. No, those scientists are subjected to treatment more akin to that felt by Copernicus and Galileo when they dared to question the unequivocaly truth that the earth was the center of the universe.

And sure enough, Ellen Goodman the idiot goes right down that path, so blinded in her all knowing rightousness that she quickly falls victim to Goodwins Law.

I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

And of course, she takes this one step further and gets to the heart of her elitist Masshole issues:

The folks at the Pew Research Center clocking public attitudes show that global warming remains 20th on the annual list of 23 policy priorities. Below terrorism, of course, but also below tax cuts, crime, morality, and illegal immigration.

One reason is that while poles are melting and polar bears are swimming between ice floes, American politics has remained polarized. There are astonishing gaps between Republican science and Democratic science. Try these numbers: Only 23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it.

Notwithstanding that 99.999999% of people aren’t astrophysicists or meteorologists or even climatoligists (whatever that is), and therefore have no idea what their talking about on any of these matters is Ellen Goodman the idio actually saying that college educated Republicans are the only ones doing any critical thinking, questioning authority, and are therefore (based on traditional liberal values and complaints about authority) smarter and more astute? That certainly is the view she’s taken in the past.

Ritchie: Thoughts about social issues, in general?

Goodman: I think, like a lot of other people, it reinforced the bumper sticker of the period: Question Authority. You don’t have to go very far to reinforce that for a journalist. It was pretty clear that we were being lied to, and it was pretty clear that one of the jobs of journalists is not to let the lies through.

But back to her latest idiotic column.

Speaking of corruption of science, the American Enterprise Institute, which has gotten $1.6 million over the years from Exxon Mobil, offered $10,000 last summer to scientists who would counter the IPCC report.

Yes, big bad Exxon. They aren’t allowed a voice in D.C. In fact, in Ellen Goodman the idiots world, only “non partisan” trusts like the Thereasa Heinz Kerry’s Tide Foundation or the Pew Center should be able to finance researchers. And of course, when they are invovled, it doesn’t matter if they send millions to the likes of Michael Mann et al, even though a measly $10,000 to someone willing to undergo professional ex communication is immediatly a sign of being tainted, biased, and utterly unreliable.