Observations From the Back Row: 8-9-11

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“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!
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Word of the Day - Chimera, pronounced ki-meer-ah.  A horrible or unreal creature of the imagination; a vain or idle fancy: He is far different from the chimera your fears have made of him.

Talent of the Day - No One Like You - Sarah Brightman

Thought for the Day - Rachel Carson and the greenies all believe that "going back to nature" is the way everyone should live; to be at one with nature. In the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies Tarzan, Jane and Boy lived in the most malarial infested jungles in the world, and yet were never sick. That should be a solid indication that this was really fiction! And when they had English guests that came up with some malady they assured them that had “jungle medicine” that was better than modern medicine.  Another indicator that this was really fiction! In short….nature will care for us was the message. That really is fiction.

This has a romantic appeal to many, but in reality we must realize that nature isn't some warm and fuzzy being. It has no intellect or feelings, and there really isn’t (….watch it ….here it comes……) there really isn’t an Earth Goddess named Gaia. It is a biological machine that doesn't love us, hate us, care about us, or for that matter care about anything. But nature will most assuredly kill us if we aren't prepared to alter our environment to accommodate ourselves.

I have decided that Rachel Carson was an avid fan of the old Tarzan movies. They, like her philosoply expressed in her book, Silent Spring, were well written fiction.

Enlightened Activist Scientists Dim Society
Perhaps it's simply a consequence of modern society or an outworking of today's educational philosophy on professionals, but progressive activism is making its mark and taking its toll on the U.S. There are activist judges who impose their brand of "justice" on the rest of us, progressive congressmen who represent only themselves and limit our choices to their choices, and unelected czars who dominantly project their vision of the future on the citizenry's reality, so why not scientists who engage in the same kind of activism with their "science"? ……..

In general, environmental science, issues, and policy programs tend to be more qualitative and subject to hand-waving arguments, hyperbole, and unsupported extrapolations. In addition, these fields lend themselves more to science based on emotion rather than on reason……Meanwhile, we are assured by an elite group of mainly academic scientists, operating with lavish government funding, that weather disasters await us unless drastic and enormously expensive measures are taken to reset the future climate charts…….

Ultimately, activism in the name of science takes its expensive toll on society. Trillions of our dollars may soon be given away to the United Nations and others because of those who believe that, when it comes to the mysteries of nature, they are brilliant.

But, rather than brilliant, the science luminaries have only at best a dim enlightenment. And, unfortunately for the rest of us, we will likely see the global politicians wastefully use the money to continue the entrenchment of their own power and as usual will ignore the planet's needy as more cash will be diverted to address future climate chimeras.

It's Not the Banks or the Speculators Starving the Poor
I'm afraid that this all makes me rather angry. There are innumerable fools out there screaming that speculation, the banksters, the Vampire Squid, futures markets, are starving the poor by making food too expensive.

The true blame lies elsewhere:

A new report by the Committee on World Food Security found that using grains like corn and wheat to create bioethanol, often blended with gasoline to create transport fuel, has added 0.5 percentage points to the growth in world cereal demand, pushing it to 1.8% a year from 1.3%.

In vegetable oils, which are used to make biodiesel and dominate Europe’s market, growth has been even more pronounced. While their use for food slowed down between the 1990s and 2000s, from 4.4% to 3.3% a year, industrial use soared, so that in the decade to 2010 it grew from 11% to 24% of world use.

"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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