Observations From the Back Row: 4-29-11

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“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

The moral relativist, by definition, is bereft of moral clarity. The only thing immoral is to reckon there are things immoral. The only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth. No fixed right or wrong; no black or white; only shades of gray. - J. Matt Barber




Africans Tell the UN to Buzz Off This week’s UN Environment Program meeting on insecticide use will surely be enlivened by the Southern African Development Community’s recent decision to start producing DDT to combat malarial mosquitoes. Two weeks ago the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc of 15 African nations, said it would begin producing the insecticide DDT to combat malarial mosquitoes. This is a necessary reaction to damage caused by the illogical, misguided, and often untruthful campaign against DDT run by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). This disagreement is set to enliven the UNEP meeting on insecticide use this week in Geneva…..


My Take – I have known for some time that pesticide manufacturers and representatives of pesticide producers have been party to this. These actions from industry may not be illegal, but it is certainly amoral, and in my mind is a morally criminal practice. It is high time they were all exposed. There is one question I have rolling around in the back of my mind. Why now? These leaders have known the truth about this for years….so why now? I believe the answer is that the economic situation the EU nations find themselves in means that they are no longer in a financial position to aid these countries, nor hurt them. For years western countries in the EU have bribed and bullied these countries to accept their outrageous greenie demands. With the world economy in the state it is in, and especially the EU, that will no longer work. In short, if they can’t ante up thay can’t sit at the table, they can’t call the hand and they can’t be in the game.


Global Warming Hoax Weekly Round-Up, Apr. 28th 2011 Posted on April 28, 2011 Greens hate office supplies, the EPA makes ears bleed and in Antarctica, no one can hear you scream. (Daily Bayonet)


The environmentalists need to stop crying wolf A study released this week concludes that government “green-job” programs aren’t the yellow-brick road to happiness in Europe. “Green programs in Spain destroyed 2.2 jobs for every job created,” write Kenneth P. Green and Ben Eisen in their paper for the Winnipeg-based think-tank, Frontier Centre, “while the capital needed for one green job in Italy could create five new jobs in the general economy.”…….. Italy and Germany, if anything, fare worse. “As with Spain, corruption runs rampant through the renewable-energy sector,” write Green-Eisen. “In Italy, however, rather than having numerous individuals defrauding the government, the Mafia is involved.” As for Germany, utilities are required by law to purchase solar energy at 59 cents per kWh. Conventional electricity costs range from a high of 10 cents to a low of three. Federal subsidies for electricity have risen 300%, and household costs on average by 7.5%. That’s in a country where the Greens are political heavyweights. In the United Kingdom, “for every job created in renewable energy, 3.7 jobs are lost.”……. The wolf isn’t at the door — but there is a wolf. There’s a whole pack of them out there. They’re hungry and they’ve big teeth.


Will A Lizard Stop West Texas Oil? Species: After the harm done by the spotted owl and delta smelt, the listing of a tiny reptile as endangered may be the latest salvo in the war on domestic energy.  As Yogi Berra would say, it's deja vu all over again. If the dunes sagebrush lizard is listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an endangered species, another key part of the American economy will fall prey to the eco-extremist mantra that every little critter's well-being trumps that of the American people and economy.


Endangered species Buried in the continuing resolution funding the federal government for the remainder of 2011 is a rider that delists the gray wolf as an endangered species in Montana and Idaho……Among environmentalists - and particularly among endangered species advocates - there is outrage that Congress had the temerity to poke this small hole in the Endangered Species Act. How dare Congress inject politics into what is meant to be a purely scientific determination? And even worse, Congress overrode the order of a federal judge and then had the gall to insulate its action from further judicial review. According to an editorial in the New York Times on Friday, all of this constitutes inappropriate “meddling” by Congress…… From the moment Congress undertook to protect endangered species, the matter became political. Certainly, Congress intended that decisions under the Endangered Species Act be informed by science. No doubt, members of Congress are grateful that they can sometimes insulate themselves from controversial species protection decisions by pleading that the scientists, not the politicians, are to blame.


My Take - I love the cry of “It’s Politics” from the greenies and animal rights advocates. It is kind of a reverse accusation. Blame your opponent for what you have been doing right along, and who would not have been in existence if it wasn’t for politics. It has always been politics. As for the Congress “interfering”, this may not be enough. The ESA should be repealed. It was the Congress that finally stepped in to stop advocates suing over the snail darter.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax -

Of cabbages and kings,

And why the sea is boiling hot,

And whether pigs have wings."


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