Green and Problems of Democracy: Part III

By Rich Kozlovich

As I read the daily news I keep finding myself in a state of incredulous semi amused outrage. Sounds contradictory doesn’t it. Well there is a reason for it. People are nuts!

In Ohio we had protestors running around the Ohio State Capitol building demanding that the legislature defeat Issue 5. This dealt with collective bargaining for public employees. One person carried a sign saying, “Tea Partiers, Get a Job!” I thought that was particularly humorous because it wasn’t the Tea Partiers who were there; seemingly because they were at their jobs. I wondered if he ever connected the dots on that tiny bit of basic logic?  Then again, it did require him to be capable of a certain basic level of logical thinking, so, probably not! After all, if he had, he wouldn’t have written anything so fundamentally stupid.

They were claiming they were being stripped of their “rights”, yet a woman from the Farm Bureau was spit on as she struggled through this crowd to get into the Capitol. That was an exception in my opinion, because they weren’t particularly unruly, but the general mood made anyone there not part of their "mob" cautious. They were blocking the entrances, shouting speeches on the steps with megaphones and demonstrating with a challenging surly attitude. In short; they were a mob, a mostly controlled mob, but none the less, a mob stirred up by the unions.

Do we call this democracy in action? 

I remain fascinated at people’s thinking. Today I read the headline, “Arkansas mayor 'pistol whipped' following dispute with council”.  Apparently the mayor of Gould, Arkansas was confronted by a council member over a dispute regarding an ordinance passed by a newly elected city council that forbid ……get this …..”Forbid”.............anyone from holding public or private meetings to discuss city matters within the city limits.   Apparently an attempt to silence any opposing group including one known as the Gould Citizens Advisory Council.  

How do so many decide to ignore Constitutional protections because of their elected positions?

While engaging in this heated argument people pulled up in a car “like gangsters” and pistol whipped Mayor Earnest Nash, who said, “I really did think I was going to die…”. He went on to say that this was the “culmination of months of abuse aimed at him and his family”.

Do we call this democracy in action? 

In the Arizona town of Quartzsite, AZ some residents are referring to their town as a “police state” because of the “authoritarian rule” being exercised by the town council and the chief of police.  Apparently on June 28 city resident Jennifer ‘Jade’ Jones had the floor at a town meeting expressing her disagreement with recent tax increases for water and sewage in the community. She was not allowed to continue speaking as a councilman “demanded she vacate the building or be escorted out by police”, above the objections of the mayor, he saying, "Officer, that woman has the floor. You're violating my rules of order here. Sergeant, I have control of the meeting."   As this thing escalated council declared a “state of emergency”, without the mayor’s approval or input.  In fact, some sort of secret decision was made to quit paying the mayor, and police officers were wrongly fired. 

As it turns out,  they ousted the mayor, ended the pay of officers who wouldn’t go along, and has forbidden anyone, including the mayor, from looking at payroll records, and the police chief has ordered his deputies to cite political opponents for traffic violations.

Do we call this is democracy in action?

Finally the state of Arizona decided to intervene because this has made international headlines.   I have to ask; what if there had been no publicity? Here we have out of control town officials and rogue cops trampling the constitutional rights of American citizens……their neighbors! Do people really get away with this stuff? I’m sure they do, but why would they think they could in the first place?

They do because there is such a lack of respect for the Constitution, which outlines the rights of the citizenry and the limitations of government, by those in government.  This is rampant throughout the political spectrum, including the courts. In point of fact, the courts have largely been responsible for that lack of respect; especially the Supreme Court of the United States, finding rights and privileges that have never been inscribed in the Constitution, nor were these new “rights” intended to be inscribed therein.

Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch, released a book sometime back called, “Whores, Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment”, outlining just how intellectually corrupt the federal judiciary actually is. As you read the information you quickly come to realize that most of them are nothing more than political hacks with a vile ideological concept of what is Constitutional.

“But why shouldn’t the Constitution be treated like an ancient grandfather, a nice old guy whose utterances, in a half-hearted effort to be respectful, we acknowledge in the same tone we’d use with a toddler and then promptly ignore?

Because it is the Constitution that clearly establishes the bounds of what the federal government can and cannot do, that’s why! And because when we ignore the Constitution we get exactly the sort of government that is confounding government, that is capricious, often incoherent, and is ultimately an existential threat to freedom because government officials can claim power without bounds.”

Green is just one more way in which democracy as we know it is being threatened.   Land usage can be stripped from its rightful owners because some bird, or a plant, or an amoeba that lives there has been determined to be endangered. Whole industries can be destroyed because the activists and their allies in government decide that an owl needs millions of acres of untouched land in order to survive. Humanity can be decimated because they have decided that some pesticide is detrimental to the environment; which started with DDT and they have attacked every life saving pesticide that has ever come on the market ever since, including rodenticides, and the media is in collusion with them.

Because the green movement uses our own values against us there is no activity as insidious or as dangerous as the green movement in undermining the Constitution and the rights of people all over the world. These are universal rights; which is what the founders clearly believed because it was their determination that these were "inalienable rights" that were not bestowed on humanity by man, nor by any document; but by their Creator. That document, the Constitution of the United States, merely explains those rights.

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague." -  Marcus Tullius Cicero 

 Cicero really didn't say that, but does it really matter, the thoughts are valid nonetheless.

American Council on Science and Health, 2011: Week 36

The presence of linked articles here are merely a way of showing what is going on, whether I agree or disagree with the positions presented. Rich Kozlovich

AGING

Low-tech tests still more apt to predict Alzheimer’s
Biomarkers detectable in spinal fluid and blood, magnetic resonance imaging, and tests of cognition (memory) are all means of assessing whether a person will develop Alzheimer's disease. But for now, says a study in the Archives of General Psychiatry, the latter test - requiring nothing more technical than a paper-based test and a pen - is the most accurate means of predicting the disease.

Heart disease comes with age — not menopause
A study just published in BMJ disputes the long-held belief that the onset of menopause is linked to an increased rate of heart disease in women.

CANCER

Lumpectomy as good as mastectomy in younger women
Two new studies have discredited the common belief that mastectomy should be the standard treatment for breast cancer in women under 40.

HEART

Heart disease comes with age — not menopause
A study just published in BMJ disputes the long-held belief that the onset of menopause is linked to an increased rate of heart disease in women.

INFECTIONS

Hospital washes hands of infections
A Cleveland hospital has reduced its incidence of bloodstream infections to one-third of what it used to be - and the radical improvement has nothing to do with antibiotics.

OBESIETY

Bariatric surgery helps heart health among heaviest
Bariatric surgery has become one of the most effective treatments for severely obese patients.

Sugar-coating a complex problem
In one month, it will become increasingly difficult to find a sugar-sweetened beverage in any city-owned building in Boston.

More loss from Weight Watchers equals a health gain
A recent UK study has compared the results of following standard weight loss guidelines to those achieved by the commercial weight loss program Weight Watchers and found that people were much more likely to drop kilos - or pounds, in our country - in the latter program.

PAIN RELIEF

Some relief for arthritic hands
A prescription-grade formula of an otherwise common over-the-counter remedy holds the possibility of some relief for those who suffer from osteoarthritis of the hand, reports a new study in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism.

A plausible reason for pregnant women to avoid NSAIDS
Another substance for expectant mothers to be wary of may well be the common painkillers known as NSAIDS - non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

SCARES AND CONSEQUENCES

The scientific research that BPA bans ignore
In the current issue of The American, science writer Jon Entine takes a look at the comprehensive list of scientific institutions world-wide that have found no cause for concern about bisphenol A (BPA), and asks why politicians are nevertheless imposing bans on the substance.

STROKE

Stents for stroke prevention found ineffective
The medical community had high hopes for a device that would prevent strokes using a mechanism similar to that used to prevent heart attacks - but the study was abruptly halted as the number of strokes in patients with the device continued to rise.

TOBACCO

Jersey’s smuggled cigarettes offer a taxing lesson
About 40 percent of cigarettes in New Jersey are smuggled into the state, according to a recent state Treasury Department report.

More adults smoking less
The number of adults smoking 10 or more cigarettes a day has declined slightly, but more adults now smoke one to nine cigarettes daily, according to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

If there is a health scare today, the American Council on Science and Health will most likely have the answer by tomorrow; and for members it will appear in your e-mail. No effort on your part, except to read the answer. All that the ACSH is interested in are the facts and they are prepared to follow them wherever they lead. Who can ask for more?  Please Donate Now!

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Observations From the Back Row: 8-10-11

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“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Everthing we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!

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Quote of the Day

Ecology is sometimes called “the subversive science”. This is too generous because Ecology should not be grouped with the sciences at all – it is a religion. - William Kay

Valberg challenges EPA air quality science in House hearing

Check out Dr. Peter Valberg’s testimony at today’s House hearing on EPA regulatory overreach.

My Take - This has been an issue for some time. Where does EPA get these numbers?  They make them up!  Junkscience says “Show the bodies!” They make these broad predictions the same way they determine what chemicals, including pesticides, are suitable. First they guess. Then they create theoretical scenarios that have no basis in evidence and then call this mystical knowledge "risk assumptions". Then they lie. Then they turn their lies into law.

So then, why do you think we have bedbugs?

Stuff You Won't See on the News

Banned Books Week Is Just Hype

Ann Coulter: Amanda Knox: The New Mumia!
A case against the case against Walmart
Soaking the Rich Is Not Fair

"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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Logical Fallacy of the Week: Fallacy of Necessity, Week 7

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Fallacy of Necessity

A fallacy of necessity (fellacia necessitas) is a fallacy in the logic of a syllogism whereby a degree of unwarranted necessity is placed in the conclusion.

Example:

a) Bachelors are necessarily unmarried.
b) John is a bachelor.
Therefore, c) John cannot marry.

The condition a) appears to be a tautology and therefore true. The condition b) is a statement of fact about John which makes him subject to a); that is, b) declares John a bachelor, and a) states that all bachelors are unmarried.

Because c) presumes b) will always be the case, it is a fallacy of necessity. John, of course, is always free to stop being a bachelor, simply by getting married; if he does so, b) is no longer true and thus not subject to the tautology a). In this case, c) has unwarranted necessity by assuming, incorrectly, that John cannot stop being a bachelor.

Formally speaking, this type of argument equivocates between the de dicto necessity of a) and the de re necessity of c). The argument is only valid if both a) and c) are construed de re. This, however, would undermine the argument, as a) is only a tautology de dicto--indeed, interpreted de re, it is false. 

Go to the site to see the links.  RK

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Observations From the Back Row: 8-8-11

...

“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Everthing we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!

______________________________________

The climate just turned cold for non-physicists

Question: What could a climate scientist bring to the debate among physicists over the interaction of cosmic rays with the Earth’s atmosphere?

Answer: the coffee.

Physicists have long maintained that the question of climate change was properly within the realm of physics rather than that of those glorified weathermen who call themselves “climatologists.” Last week we got confirmation of that. It came in the form of a study by physicists in Switzerland.

Models only touch on the complexity of the climate -- so inevitably get it wrong

The claims of those who worry about human damage to the climate become ever more strident despite, or perhaps because of, the real world data rapidly diverging from that which they anticipated……They ask us to believe many impossible things:

Report finds that taxpayer dollars support the ‘Big Green’ agenda

Lawsuits against a power-hungry government agency like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are inevitable. The lawsuits come from all sides and all entities. For example, citizens and states might sue the EPA for overregulation of an industry that could lead to lost jobs and revenues. Green groups might sue the EPA because they feel it hasn’t done enough to over-regulate businesses or to expand enforcement of current environmental laws.

But it is important to note that in many cases the EPA and Treasury Department are required to award attorney’s fees to those plaintiffs that successfully dispute the EPA. And because the Justice Department is what defends the EPA in court cases, your tax dollars are what are used to pay the opposing sides’ attorneys……What was discovered is jaw-dropping. The GAO report found that in addition to attorney’s fees awarded, the Justice Department spent at least $43 million in taxpayer dollars defending EPA in court from 1998 to 2010. That doesn’t include the fact that Treasury paid about $14.2 million from fiscal year 2003 through 2010 and the EPA paid approximately $1.4 million from fiscal year 2006 through 2010……The three primary beneficiaries from 1998 to 2010 were: Sierra Club, Earthjustice and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Total amounts these organizations received from all attorney fees paid to EPA litigants combined was at least 41 percent of the total payouts. Earthjustice alone received 32 percent, as indicated by this report.

Go figure that the primary beneficiaries of statutes set to protect citizens and private industries would instead be awarded to environmental groups that want nothing more than to extend the power and grasp of the federal government’s EPA. Even more striking was the payout to all environmental groups (ENGOs), which in total was 82 percent.

“This fund has turned into nothing more than a taxpayer slush fund designed to pay environmental attorneys whose sole function is to further the scope and power of environmental laws, which kill industries and those jobs vital to America,” says Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government (ALG).....

If organizations like NRDC, which had a reported $181,427,464 in net assets in 2009, want to sue the EPA, it should do so with its own funds, not those of the taxpayer. It makes little sense to reward environmental groups with taxpayer money to file lawsuits directed at putting taxpayers out of work.

Besides, in this administration these environmental groups and the EPA have too much power as it is.

Where the Jobs Aren’t

With the economy stagnating and unemployment high, where are the jobs of the future going to come from? A few years ago, it seemed as though the Green Economy could be a big part of the answer. (NYT)

Enough with the green jobs

President Obama arguably spurred the development of the Tea Party, helped hand the Republicans the House majority and, best of all, put an end, we hope, to the green-jobs fetish…..Politicians are not particularly well-equipped to identify market trends or spot investment opportunities. They are, however, very adept at rewarding politically connected friends and using taxpayer money to in essence reimburse their donors (and then some) for the generosity shown in helping the pols get elected. You dress it all up with high-minded phrases (“a 21st-century economy,” “green jobs,” “private-public partnerships”), and it sells like hot cakes. I mean who wants a 19th-century economy? And goodness knows we don’t want dingy jobs, we want bright green ones (with that little recycling logo on every product).

My Take – I would like for someone to name one politician, one bureaucrat or one government agency that picked Microsoft to be a winner. There is a reason for that. They don’t have a clue about economics or what works or doesn’t work. Why would we think that people who went to college and then into government…or never ever had a real job could do anything right involving economics?

Obama's Jobs Speech is D.O.A.

By Alan Caruba

Not only is President Obama’s forthcoming “jobs” speech a self-inflicted embarrassment when he was told he could not deliver it to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday—the first time any President was refused the day and time of his choosing—but it is essentially D.O.A.; dead on arrival……Obama has also become well known for his advocacy of “green jobs” and, one day after Wayne Crews was lamenting the regulation explosion, Stephen Moore was writing in The Wall Street Journal that “President Obama is expected to seek another $250 billion or so in new stimulus funds next week, with plenty of money for clean energy and the creation of so-called green jobs.”

Stuff You Won’t See on the News

Eliminate the minimum wage prop to big business:

"Walmart has pushed for a higher minimum wage. But Walmart already pays above minimum wage, so raising it would barely affect them. But it would impose costs on various Walmart competitors. So Walmart gets to advocate for what looks like social justice, while hobbling its competition."

My Take - Those of us who really believe in capitalism have to come to an understanding that there is capitalism and then there is big business….and there is a difference. The bigger the company the more they like regulations and taxes. Why? Because it prevents smaller companies from getting bigger. Who was the greatest pusher of the tobacco deal with the states Attorneys General some years back? Big tobacco! Why?

What most of us don’t realize that there are actually a lot of tobacco companies out there and not just the big three or four of which we are all aware. The deal they struck kept the small companies small and the penalties the bigger companies had to pay became de-facto “un-voted on“ excise taxes because they could be passed on to the consumer. This has been a practice since the Whiskey Tax of 1790, (this link doesn't tell the whole story, but it supplies useful information and is worth reading. This event is pivotal to everything we deal with today. This is foundational information for understanding the issues of overreaching government) which was a favorite of Alexander Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury who wanted support for the new government and new Constitution (1789) by business, and was a big advocate of military enforcement. Sort of ironic isn't it. Through taxation he wanted to destroy the rights of some in order to defend the document that said their rights should not be abridged. Regulations and taxation has been a Constitutional bypass mechanism from the beginning. We do need to get that!

Gibson Guitars proves the environmental police state that wants your wood products and guns

The recent US government raid of Gibson Guitars' Tennessee manufacturing facility is now receiving widespread media coverage, thanks to a flood of reports that have appeared across the web in recent weeks, including here at NaturalNews. But beyond simply the raid itself is the reality of the new environmental police state that appears to be taking over, where personal wood products of all kinds -- whether they be furniture, hand tools, or even guns made with rare wood stocks -- are now threatened with arbitrary confiscation……You see, Gibson's import of rosewood and ebony from India was not illegal under either US or Indian law. FWS merely decided to interpret Indian law in its own illogical way, and invoke the Lacey Act as justification for its illegal raid. And if the agency gets away with doing this to Gibson, they will surely do it again to others…………..The American police state truly is growing at an unprecedented rate, which is evidenced by the unveiling of this new environmental police force that is eager to confiscate personal property in the name of enforcing (fictitious) laws. If it is not stopped now, it will continue to grow until not a shred of freedom remains.

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The Growth of Knowledge

By John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.), writing from Brisbane, Australia.

The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement -- Karl Popper

(Editor's Note:  This appeared on Dr. Ray's blog linked below.   I would like to thank him for giving me permission to reproduce his works.  RK)

GREENIE WATCH is in favor of things that ARE good for the environment. That the usual Greenie causes are good for the environment is however disputed. During my research career as a social scientist, I was appalled at how much writing in my field was scientifically lacking -- and I often said so in detail in the many academic journal articles I had published in that field. I eventually gave up social science research, however, because no data ever seemed to change the views of its practitioners. I hoped that such obtuseness was confined to the social scientists but now that I have shifted my attention to health related science and climate related science, I find the same impermeability to facts and logic, hence GREENIE WATCH. I may add that I did not come to either health or environmental research entirely without credentials. I had several academic papers published in both fields during my social science research career.

Since my academic background is in the social sciences, it is reasonable to ask what a social scientist is doing talking about global warming. My view is that my expertise is the most relevant of all. It seems clear to me from what you will see on this blog that belief in global warming is very poorly explained by history, chemistry, physics or statistics.

Warmism is prophecy, not science. Science cannot foretell the future. Science can make very accurate predictions based on known regularities in nature (e.g. predicting the orbits of the inner planets) but Warmism is the exact opposite of that. It predicts a DEPARTURE from the known regularities of nature. If we go by the regularities of nature, we are on the brink of an ice age.

And from a philosophy of science viewpoint, far from being "the science", Warmism is not even an attempt at a factual statement, let alone being science. It is not a meaningful statement about the world. Why? Because it is unfalsifiable -- making it a religious, not a scientific statement. To be a scientific statement, there would have to be some conceivable event that disproved it -- but there appears to be none. ANY event is hailed by Warmists as proving their contentions. Only if Warmists were able to specify some fact or event that would disprove their theory would it have any claim to being a scientific statement. So the explanation for Warmist beliefs has to be primarily a psychological and political one -- which makes it my field

And, after all, Al Gore's academic qualifications are in social science also -- albeit very pissant qualifications.

Climate is the sum of weather. So if you cannot forecast the weather a month in advance, you will not be able to forecast the climate 50 years in advance. And official meteorologists such as Britain's Met Office and Australia's BOM, are very poor forecasters of weather. The Met office has in fact given up on making seasonal forecasts because they have so often got such forecasts embarrassingly wrong. Their global-warming-powered "models" just did not deliver

A strange Green/Left conceit: They seem to think that no-one should spend money opposing them and that conservative donors must not support the election campaigns of Congressmen they agree with. 

After three exceptionally cold winters in the Northern hemisphere, the Warmists are chanting: "Warming causes cold". Even if we give that a pass for logic, it still inspires the question: "Well, what are we worried about"? Cold is not going to melt the icecaps is it?"

It's a central (but unproven) assumption of the Warmist "models" that clouds cause warming. Odd that it seems to cool the temperature down when clouds pass overhead!

To make out that the essentially trivial warming of the last 150 years poses some sort of threat, Warmists postulate positive feedbacks that might cut in to make the warming accelerate in the near future. Amid their theories about feedbacks, however, they ignore the one feedback that is no theory: The reaction of plants to CO2. Plants gobble up CO2 and the more CO2 there is the more plants will flourish and hence gobble up yet more CO2. And the increasing crop yields of recent years show that plant life is already flourishing more. The recent rise in CO2 will therefore soon be gobbled up and will no longer be around to bother anyone. Plants provide a huge NEGATIVE feedback in response to increases in atmospheric CO2.

The True Story of Standard Oil

By Rich Kozlovich

For many years I have been aware that the traditional stories about John D. Rockefeller and the breakup of Standard Oil of New Jersey were misleading and in point of fact largely false. This has always been a story that fascinated me for a number of reasons. But the one that we need to do is understand this whole "monopoly busting" historical account correctly; which has much deeper implications than most seem to realize. We have learned the propaganda, not the reality of these central planning schemes that Teddy Roosevelt gave impetus to when he became president on 1901. Utilizing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act he became the ultimate "Trust Buster"; yet he was a failed investor and economically incompetent at worst and at best unqualified to tell the nation how it's businesses should be run.

I have no delusions about Rockefeller. He did things in his life that I consider contemptible, but this Standard Oil story is one that really needs to be told truthfully, because the true story is the one that every entrepreneur, every politician, every economics major, every bureaucrat, every attorney, every law school student, every judge and every kid in the nation needs to learn and understand.

I hate installments. I want to read the whole story at once; therefore I have waited to post these links until all five parts were published. Please take the time to read and think about what is actually being said, why it is being said, and since this information has been available for so long; why did it take this long to do it and why do people still quote those who have painted an entirely false picture of this major character and company in American history.

I can say clearly that he was a man of vision. He had great business skills, but it was his ability to see farther, deeper and wider than everyone else (and his ability to surround himself with like minded people) that created this dynamo of industry. Famous pest controller Chuck Steinmetz once told me; “There are only two things you need to be successful in business; brains and guts and you can hire brains". In Rockefeller’s case he had both. But without vision neither would have mattered.

“But Standard’s most important asset was Rockefeller, followed by his close associates. Rockefeller’s ambition for the expansion of the business was only growing, and he talked with Henry Flagler morning, noon, and night about possibilities and plans. Reflecting on the company nearly fifty years later, Rockefeller recalled: “We had vision. We saw the vast possibilities of the oil industry, stood at the center of it, and brought our knowledge and imagination and business experience to bear in a dozen, in twenty, in thirty directions.’ ”

The Supreme Court ruling against Standard Oil is the direct result of Progressives in Congress passing complicated irrational laws that deprive Constitutional rights to its citizens. Just because we don't like the outcome doesn’t mean that it should be illegal. This “terrible” monopoly did wonders for the economic health of the nation. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court’s decision against Standard Oil was a gigantic leap toward judicial fiat and the evisceration of the Constitution. The Constitutional rights of the citizenry were all now in jeopardy. In short the courts could now make laws and the Congress could ignore the Constitution. Yet they never claimed that Standard hurt the nation's economy or made the poor suffer. The price of oil stayed very low and stable all during those years, which hadn’t been the case before Rockefeller took control; and this allowed the nation’s manufacturers to properly plan and grow accordingly.

From this start we have ended up with all of these “outcome” based laws and rulings that demand equal outcome regarding economics, race, gender and sexual preferences. They feel that they now have the right to “fix” the outcome of anything they don’t like. It is my opinion that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was one of the worst acts of aggression against this nation’s citizenry by their own government, and the Supreme Court ruling was one of the most outrageous justifications of unending power grabbing by a government that came to rule through regulations forced on the nation by activist courts. Is this fixable? I don’t know, but I do know one thing; we are facing the consequences of epidemic and rampant regulation by an incompetent bloated government. There is nothing like a good epidemic to get things started.

Vindicating Capitalism: The Real History of the Standard Oil Company (Part I: The Fallacious Textbook Story)

Vindicating Capitalism: The Real History of the Standard Oil Company (Part II: The Phenom)

Vindicating Capitalism: The Real History of the Standard Oil Company (Part III: The Missing Context of Standard’s Rise to Supremacy)

The Real History of the Standard Oil Company (Part IV: Pioneering in Big Business)

Capitalism Vindicated: The Real History of Standard Oil (Part V: Lessons)

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Observations From the Back Row: 9-6-11

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“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!
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Thought For The Day

By Rich Kozlovich

Recently I linked an article about the efforts of activists in and out of government who want to stop the construction of a pipeline from Canada that would carry a substantial amount of crude oil into the country. Normal people would consider this to be a good thing. But of course that explains why the activists are against it claiming it will cause the potential demise of some beetle. One of the statements used by the bureaucrats at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was that their decision was "based on science and not of policy".

Three things! First, they admitted that they didn’t really know what was causing this particular beetle’s slow demise. Second; their statement that this decision was based on science and not on policy makes me wonder why they would say that because how can policy be based on something else; and if so what that something else might be. Third; this statement reminded me of something Margaret Thatcher one said:

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”

So if this decision was really based on science they shouldn’t have had to tell anyone; it should have been obvious. If it isn’t, then shouting it from the roof tops won’t help explain the stench of bad policy based on ideology.

Re-examine assumptions behind desal project

Part 1 of this piece Sunday compared the cost of the Regional Desalination Project with the cost, in current dollars, of the New Los Padres Dam that was planned, but not built, 20 years ago.  The estimated construction cost for the desal project is $197 million more than for the dam, and annual operations and maintenance costs would be $8 million greater for the desal project. Under these circumstances, why in the world would we want to build the Regional Desalination Project?   That decision was based on the assumption that the dam could never be approved because of its adverse impact on the steelhead trout and California red-legged frog, threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. The dam would increase water flow below the dam, but it would block the steelhead migration to and from the steelhead spawning area above.

Kangaroo rat might detour San Bernardino street

A furry little roadblock may stall the city's plans to extend State Street. And the 1.5-mile project to link the 210 Freeway to Fifth Street on the Westside could cost millions more because the federally protected San Bernardino kangaroo rat has been spotted in the area. "We could be really high (in) mitigation costs, depending on how much habitat we're impacting," City Engineer Robert Eisenbeisz said. The city has $2 million - mostly through Measure I funding, a half-cent sales tax passed by county voters in 1989 - allocated for environmental and design work, but the project may balloon to $40 million, with as much as $18 million going toward mitigating damage to the kangaroo rats' habitat. At the same time, Eisenbeisz said mitigation work could cost as little as $3 million to $5 million.

Feds help rescue endangered butterfly species

Money will protect Yamhill County habitat for Fender's blue. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is coming to the rescue of the Fender’s Blue butterfly, an endangered species once thought to be extinct. The federal agency, which administers the Endangered Species Act, provided two grants totaling $767,000 to protect the butterfly’s habitat in Yamhill County. One grant provides $500,000 to acquire a permanent conservation easement on 284.6 acres of habitat in the Mount Richmond Conservation Opportunity Area, to benefit the Fender’s blue butterfly and the flower where it spends much of its life, the Kincaid’s lupine. The easement also will protect the Nelson’s checkermallow.

My Take - If the easement is 1/2 million dollars how much would the land sell for?   How much will it sell for after this easement.  Of course this merely allows for that amount to be spent, it doesn't mean anyone will actually get that kind of money.  Please follow the link on conservation easements.  You have all the obligations and no privileges, and in this case even if you sell it the new owners are stuck with it; which can really make it difficult to sell.  Of course you can just give it to the government if you prefer; I'm sure that is what they prefer.  There are some who seek to preserve their property after they are gone so they agree to such things, but these things aren't really as voluntary as it sounds in many cases.  It has been pointed out that in many cases this has merely been a way of depriving people of their rights. 

State-Based Environmental Programs: A Better Way Than EPA

By Dr. Jy Lehr

Federal and state legislators have recently been focusing on eliminating duplication of government programs that could be combined or eliminated to save billions of taxpayer dollars. Yet the elimination of one colossal duplication could save billions of dollars but has not been mentioned: Essentially all of the work done by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is duplicated and in fact done far better by the collective wisdom of our 50 state environmental protection agencies….. EPA has become a wholly owned subsidiary of environmental advocacy groups and serves primarily as an obstacle course for economic growth…. Today these research laboratories too often do the bidding of overaggressive regulators merely seeking to cherry pick data to support their predisposition to regulate…..

It has become quite apparent that EPA is no longer acting for the benefit of society in general. It was a great idea in 1971, but the agency bears no resemblance to that fine organization of long ago. The current Congress is looking to make changes. This is a good place to start.

Electric motor made from a single molecule

The butyl methyl sulphide molecule whips round an axis defined by its single sulphur atom. Researchers have created the smallest electric motor ever devised. The motor, made from a single molecule just a billionth of a metre across, is reported in Nature Nanotechnology. The minuscule motor could have applications in both nanotechnology and in medicine, where tiny amounts of work can be put to efficient use. Tiny rotors based on single molecules have been shown before, but this is the first that can be individually driven by an electric current.

My Take - The Luddite greenies are against nano-technology. 

"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."

###

Organic Versus Reality

by Rich Kozlovich

For many years I have been saying that I don’t personally care if someone wants to ‘go green’ or eat only 'organic' foods or lead ‘all natural’ lives or not. Those are decisions every person should be allowed to make on their own. I do have a serious distaste for those who have gone that direction and then insist that everyone else have to live that way also. I resent it when they spout idiotic rhetoric about how organic farming produces as much food as modern farming techniques produces and that these foods are better for you and tastes better to boot. All of this is not only non-scientific it is mysticism with a sprinkling of science to give it credibility.

I absolutely knew from very early on that this was all demagogic lies and I didn’t need studies to tell me so. How? Mondern concepts of "organic" has failed he test of history. Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. I grew up on a small farm and I have always had gardens whenever I could. On our farm my grandfather utilized everything. We had milk cows, pigs, chickens and the end result to having all of those animals is …..manure! Now that is good stuff, and we used it. However manure as a fertilizer has some serious health problems that must be accepted as factual. We know that there is a very real risk of contamination by dangerous E. coli, salmonella and citrobacter bacteria; which is one of the reasons they used to cook vegetables to death in the old days.

Furthermore, “The energy needed to grow organic tomatoes is 1.9 times that of conventional methods”……Organic milk requires 80 per cent more land to produce than conventional milk and creates 20 per cent more carbon dioxide, it says. The use of manure to fertilise land can lead to acidification of soil and the pollution of water courses. Organic chickens require 25 per cent more energy to rear and produce more carbon dioxide than conventional battery or barn hens”, according to the Manchester Business School in a study for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in England.

Just because my grandfather utilized ‘organic’ methods, didn’t mean that he eschewed modern agriculture. He also used synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. This was a man who grew up in Eastern Europe utilizing organic methods. Why? Because that was all that was available! He didn’t abandon what was worth keeping; but it didn’t mean that he was unwilling to enhance his farming practices and his productivity with modern techniques and chemistry.

There are a number of things that I have observed about all of this in my life. First, I have tried all the things they talk about. I have for many years maintained a total mulch garden. It does wonders for my vegetables, helps keep down pests and provides nutrients to the plants and keeps the soil cooler in the really hot days of summer. However, I still have needed to use pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. I tried going without synthetic fertilizers, but I have only gotten the best results when I used fertilizers. High yield production requires high levels of nutrients (balanced nutrition) that cannot be provided by “natural” means alone.

When I read about these poor foolish people who insist on buying “organic” because it “tastes so much better”, I just can’t help but laugh and shake my head. Taste is affected by four things; adequate nutrition, adequate water, maturity and variety! Some varieties of vegetables simply taste better than other varieties. And make no mistake about this; ripe tastes better than not so ripe…..Duh! Organic doesn’t have a thing to do with it. In any blind taste tests they would not be able to tell the difference, except that those vegetables grown with modern techniques might taste better because they are grown in better conditions with more nutrients, which look better and have less blemishes.   And as for healthier because they don’t use pesticides; that is an absolute fallacy! They use a lot of pesticides such as sulfur, copper, pyrethrum and rotenone.

There are three things we can glean from reality versus ideology regarding ‘organic’ farming. One, ‘organic’ farming has been practiced for thousands of years. Two; if it was so great why did anyone look to improve it? Three, why did farmers who had no option except ‘organic’ farming abandon it as soon as modern techniques became available?

The greenies claim that ‘organically’ grown foods are healthier for us and are kinder to the environment. Those are the two big selling points. Both are false. In an article entitled, “Intensive farming is found to be better than organic methods for protecting the environment” by Mark Henderson he states that:

 "ORGANIC farming can be less effective at protecting wildlife than intensive methods, according to research that undermines its claim to be the most environmentally friendly form of agriculture. Farming systems such as organic that seek to share land between crops and wildlife inflict greater damage on biodiversity than conventional approaches that maximise crop yields, a major study has revealed. Such "land-sharing" methods typically deliver lower yields than intensive farming and they require much more land to produce the same amount of food."

If more land is needed to produce that same amount of food that modern techniques can produce this means that more wilderness areas must be destroyed. How is this friendly to wildlife? He goes on to say that:

“The research, conducted in Ghana and India, found that most species of birds and trees, common or rare, would have higher populations if farms were kept as small as possible and managed to produce maximum yields.”

This demand for ‘organic’ farming practices coupled with the demand for ‘biodiversity enhancement’ practices is in reality, cognitive dissonance.

He quotes Ben Phalan, the man who led a Ghanaian study on this issue saying:

 “frequently what we see is lower yields, and benefits for wildlife that are not that great". Phalan went on to say that; "It sells the message that you can do both conservation and food production together, that they can co-exist. But our research would suggest that this is probably optimistic and might be wishful thinking”.

The final result for the world returning to 'organic' farming practices would be worldwide famine. Many tens of milliions would starve to death and hundreds of millions would be undernourished.

The final argument they rely on is almost mystical. Just believe! Articles of faith that people want to believe in can't be overcome. Whether its 'Going Green', or 'All Organic', or 'All Natural'; it is little more than psudeo-paganism. The ancient Druids would be very comfortable with the modern environmental movement. They too worshiped nature and were willing to practice human sacrifice.

Observations From the Back Row: 9-5-11

...

“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!

______________________________________

Thought for the day!
by Rich Kozlovich

I have a lot of questions today. I have noticed that after a heavy rainfall water fills the low indentations in the surrounding landscape. I don't think that it is unreasonable to believe that this happens everywhere else in the world when it rains on a regular basis or if huge amounts of rain falls at once. We call them mud puddles!

I don't think that it is unreasonable to believe that everywhere else in the world these temporarily water filled indentations are called mud puddles also. For some reason those who go on and on about the temporary life that springs up in these mud puddles call them vernal pools. Why?

They claim that the temporary life in these vernal pools has species that need to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. I found this to be a bit confusing.  If their existence is based on the temporary "flooding" of their particular indent in the land; and they are going to disappear as soon as the sun dries out their own personal mud puddle; why then are they considered endangered? I would think that the presumption should be that they are supposed to cease to exist when that happens.

Shouldn’t they?

What if a drought should occur? Are we expected to carry water out in buckets and fill all of the indentations in the surrounding protected areas? If not, then how are they being protected? If we are not doing that, then the presumption must be that they aren’t really being protected at all!

Right?

If that is the case, then why bother claiming that they need to be protected in the first place, and from what? No rain! So, if adequate rainfall is the criteria for their survival; why should we believe that building a pipeline will prevent the rain from falling? Unless of course we are expected to believe that the rain will still fall, but building this pipeline will eliminate all the indentations in the topography that the rainwater would fill up in the protected area that the pipeline would intersect.

OK….so let me see if I understand this correctly. This pipeline needs to be stopped in order to protect this shrimp, because we are expected to believe that this pipeline will either stop the rain from falling or will eliminate the indentations in the topography so that the rain that might fall anyway cannot now fill the mud puddles …oops… vernal pools, therefore preventing their survival. Does that make any sense?

It would seem to me that it is of no particular importance if these shrimp die out or not because I would be willing to bet there are a whole bunch of other kinds of fairy shrimp out there to take their place. Extinction is the rule, not the exception; and since most of these people seem to be Darwinian evolutionists I wonder why they are rejecting their own beliefs regarding the survival of the fittest?

And in point of fact; doesn't it seem reasonable that they would be in favor of the extinction of these biologically incompetent species? Right?

It couldn't be that they have another agenda? Could it?

Quote of the Day

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement believes that "phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health". Deep Environmental Politics: The Role of Radical Environmentalism in Crafting American Environmental Policy" by Phillip F. Cramer, Praeger 1998, page 11.

 (Editor's Note: You just gotta go to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement site. Then I wish someone would please explain to me how these people can be considered rational or sane. RK)

$35M for Mice, Fairy Shrimp, Mussels, and Beetles

The Obama administration is spending $35 million to buy 30,000 acres of private property across the U.S. this year to make permanent homes for mice, fairy shrimp, mussels, prairie bushes and beetles. Those are just some of the 70 critters and plants to benefit from the land purchases in a dozen states as part of the government’s habitat conservation plans for endangered species. “The federal government already owns more land than Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Poland combined,” said Rob Gordon, senior adviser for strategic outreach at The Heritage Foundation.

“We don’t need more for critters like the fairy shrimp that can thrive in fragile ecosystems like roadside ditches. We need less,” Gordon said. The federal government owns more than 600 million acres of land. The Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the habitat for endangered species, already controls 93 million acres. That’s more than the National Park Service, which oversees 79 million acres. The San Diego fairy shrimp, as well as the Arroyo toad, coastal California gnatcatcher and Southwestern willow flycatcher, will benefit from one California habitat that spans 600 acres and costs $6 million. The fairy shrimp, crustaceans in the same taxonomic order as “sea monkeys,” are less than an inch in size and live in vernal pools that spring up after a heavy rainfall. Critics call the pools mud puddles……The vernal pool tadpole shrimp, along with the California red-legged frog and San Joaquin kit fox, will benefit from $4.4 million to buy 1,800 acres for habitat and wildlife corridors.

Stuff You Won't See on the News

How the Left Conquered Wikipedia, Part II: Coddling Progressives

Welcome to Citizendium, the alernative to Wikipedia

(Ed. Note: I happen to know that this stuff about Wikipedia is true from a personal experience expressed to me by someone who is featured there. He told me that he attempted to change the fallacious information a number of times. No matter how many times he changed it the same person who placed the information there in the first place kept putting it back, and if I remember this correctly he couldn't get satisfaction from the Wikipedia people. However, it is my personal view that Citizendium is difficult to use, especially as compared to Wikipedia. They have a long way to go if they are to compete.)

Creation theory may be wrong; collider hasn't found 'God particle'

GENEVA — Creation is at the center of religion, and it is also at the center of a search, not for God, but for the "God particle."  In April rumors began that the $10-billion Large Hadron Collider near Geneva had found what it was built, in part, to find: the elusive Higgs boson, nicknamed the "God particle." It would have been a huge scientific breakthrough, but it looks now that the God particle may not exist after all.  "The Higgs really is the Holy Grail of particle physics and that's why this is so important," Phillip F. Schewe, a spokesman for the American Institute of Physics, told Associated Press back in April.  The particle is the missing puzzle piece in the Standard Theory of particle physics. It would help explain why matter has mass. "It has been dubbed the 'God particle,'" AFP reported, "because it is thought to be everywhere, but it has also proved agonizingly hard to find."...... Reuters reported that the collider has been creating "billions of miniature versions of the Big Bang." But so far, there has been no sign of the God particle that would have explained how mass and energy were connected to matter in the original Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

Kaku explained the importance of the God particle this way in a radio interview, "If we don't find the Higgs boson we are in deep trouble. We are in deep doo-doo. The reason is that the subatomic particles in the Standard Model are the basis, the foundation of everything we know about the Big Bang, everything we know about the universe, cosmic rays (and) black holes. So if that theory is wrong, then we are really in trouble. It means we have to throw out what is called the Standard Model — and even string theory would be in danger because string theory also has a Higgs boson. Steve Hawking, my colleague, said, "Well, if we don't find the Higgs boson things would be very interesting.' No. It will be a disaster if we don't find Higgs boson, because basically the entire edifice of modern physics depends upon it.".....But although the results are not positive, some are still holding to their faith in the God particle's existence. "It's never too early to think about it, but it is too early to worry," Nobel Prize-winner Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told New Scientist.

MASS

This article is about the scientific concept. For the substance of which all physical obects consist, see Matter. For Other uses, see Mass (disambiguation).

In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:

inertial mass

active gravitational mass

passive gravitational mass

Mass must be distinguished from matter in physics, because matter is a poorly-defined concept, and although all types of agreed-upon matter exhibit mass, it is also the case that many types of energy which are not matter—such as potential energy, kinetic energy, and trapped electromagnetic radiation (photons)—also exhibit mass. Thus, all matter has the property of mass, but not all mass is associated with identifiable matter...... There is more.  Follow the link. RK

MATTER

This article is about the concept in the physical sciences. For other uses, see Matter (disambiguation).

Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume. However, different fields use the term in different and sometimes incompatible ways; there is no single agreed scientific meaning of the word "matter".........There is more.  Follow the link.  RK

ENERGY

This article is about the scalar physical quantity. For other uses, see Energy (disambiguation)."Energetic" redirects here. For other uses, see Energetic (disambiguation).  "Re-energized" redirects here. For the 2000 house album, see Re-Energized.

In physics, energy (Greek: ἐνέργεια energeia "activity, operation" is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems. Since work is defined as a force acting through a distance (a length of space), energy is always equivalent to the ability to exert pulls or pushes against the basic forces of nature, along a path of a certain length.......There is more.  Follow the link.   RK

"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."

American Council on Science and Health, 2011: Week 35

The presence of linked articles here are merely a way of showing what is going on, whether I agree or disagree with the positions presented. Rich Kozlovich

FEATURED ARTICLE

GM foods and pesticides pose no danger to health
In one of his most pompous and slanted columns yet, The New York Times' Mark Bittman alleges that the U.S. government is in cahoots with large agricultural biotech companies that sacrifice the environment for profits.

DIET

FDA weighing down efforts to fight obesity
In the past year, the FDA has rejected three weight-loss drugs over safety concerns.

One potato, two potatoes — no potatoes?
We say potato, but the National School Lunch Program is saying potat-no.

The trickier math of weight loss
Losing weight may not be as simple as just cutting a prescribed number of calories, finds a new study published in The Lancet.

Paper presents a worse-case obesity scenario
In a special series on obesity, The Lancet has published four papers, the first of which warns that nearly half of all U.S. men and women will be obese by 2030.

Gout: A weighty problem
That the prevalence of obesity is rising in the U.S. is no secret. However, few people may realize that, among the other obesity-related diseases more commonly cited, such excess body weight puts them at risk for gout.

FACTS AND FALLACIES

Don’t take this news with a grain of salt
What's in a name? Well, when it comes to marketing, most people believe that what's called "sea salt" is healthier than table salt and also packs less sodium.

HEART AND STROKES

Preventive heart meds: Cheap and under-used
Cardiovascular disease affects more than 100 million people worldwide, yet the inexpensive drugs that could lower the risk for recurrence of these life-threatening illnesses are not getting to the majority of patients who need them.

Eat chocolate — because you like it, not for health!
The media are suddenly abuzz with the latest on the putative health benefits of one of our favorite "foods": a study just published in BMJ reports that chocolate may improve cardiovascular health.

Over-screening and under-treating osteoporosis
A new study in the journal Menopause suggests that too many women are being unnecessarily screened for osteoporosis.

New blood-thinning drug offers greater benefits
The findings of a recent worldwide trial show that the new anticoagulant drug apixaban was 21 percent more effective at preventing strokes in patients with atrial fibrilliation than warfarin (Coumadin), the current standard of care.

Precaution warranted against post-C-section clots
C-sections account for nearly one-third of U.S. births, and though the procedure is common enough, many may not know that the operation significantly increases a new mother's risk of blood clots.

HORMONES

Why it’s not hip to halt hormone replacement therapy
A new study in the journal Menopause shows that the benefits of hormone replacement therapy aren't just hypothetical.

Patching up hormone replacement therapy
As we've reported several times, estrogen replacement therapy - either with or without progesterone - is currently the most effective means of treating menopausal symptoms.

REGULATIONS

FDA opines on its new food safety powers
"Large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness have recently focused attention on the ability of the U.S. food safety system to protect the public health," writes Michael R. Taylor, the Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA.

TOBACCO

Smokers ill-informed about harm reduction
While the FDA is in the process of assessing how it will regulate modified risk tobacco products, a new study in Harm Reduction Journal reports that smokers remain largely misinformed about the relative safety of these products compared to cigarettes.

Smoke and mirrors behind FDA report on e-cigarettes
An FDA-authored analysis of electronic cigarette contents has just appeared in the Journal of Liquid Chromatography and Related Technologies.

If there is a health scare today, the American Council on Science and Health will most likely have the answer by tomorrow; and for members it will appear in your e-mail. No effort on your part, except to read the answer. All that the ACSH is interested in are the facts and they are prepared to follow them wherever they lead. Who can ask for more?  Please Donate Now!

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Logical Fallacy of the Week: Conjunction Fallacy, Week 6

...

Conjunction Fallacy

The conjunction fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.

The most often-cited example of this fallacy originated with Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman:[1]
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which is more probable?

Linda is a bank teller.
Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

85% of those asked chose option 2. However the probability of two events occurring together (in "conjunction") is always less than or equal to the probability of either one occurring alone…..For example, even choosing a very low probability of Linda being a bank teller, say Pr(Linda is a bank teller) = 0.05 and a high probability that she would be a feminist, say Pr(Linda is a feminist) = 0.95, then, assuming independence, Pr (Linda is a bank teller and Linda is a feminist) = 0.05 × 0.95 or 0.0475, lower than Pr (Linda is a bank teller)……


###

Observations From the Back Row: 9-2-11

...

“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!

______________________________________

Job-Creating Keystone Pipeline Affects Endangered Beetle, Says State Dep't

In its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would create thousands of jobs and transport 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to Oklahoma and Texas, a State Department official said its investigation found “no significant impact to most resources” along the path of the 1,700-mile project. But the State Department also said the pipeline could adversely affect the American Burying Beetle, an endangered species.....the latest results from the Canadian Energy Research Institute that shows the combined benefits of all present and proposed oil importation projects from Canada could result in 600,000 jobs and generate $775 billion in U.S. Gross Domestic Product between now and 2035.....In 1991, Fish and Wildlife produced an 81-page “recovery plan” to “reduce the immediacy of the threat of extinction of the American Burying Beetle” and to “improve its status from endangered to threatened."... Fish and Wildlife Web site discusses the results of current surveys about the beetle, including the lack of definitive information on the insect’s habitat and decline......“Data is lacking pertaining to American Burying Beetle reproductive habitat requirements, but species experts assume that they are more restrictive in selecting their reproductive habitat than feeding habitat.”.... The cause for the decline of this species is not clearly understood.”

My Take - Please see, More Coprolite Anyone,. RK

Gore urges Obama to block pipeline for ‘dirtiest source of fuel on the planet’

Former Vice President Gore called on President Obama late Wednesday to reject a pending permit application for a controversial pipeline project, calling the oil that it would carry “the dirtiest fuel on the planet.” “The answer to our climate, energy and economic challenges does not lie in burning more dirty fossil fuels — instead, we must continue to press for much more rapid development of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and cuts in the pollution that causes global warming,” Gore, a vocal climate activist, wrote on his blog Wednesday night.

My Take – Well, the last two days I have outlined how Daryl Hannah and Dr. James Hansen are against the pipeline. Now we finally have the definitive answer as to whether this line should or should not be built. The High Priest of the Church of the Warming Globe has taken a public stand; one we can be thankful for. He is against building this pipeline.

Well that absolutely settles it for me. What more evidence could anyone possibly want to become convinced that this pipeline should be built? If Al’s against it then it must be a good thing. Thanks Al!

"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."

###

More Coprolite Anyone?

By Rich Kozlovich

Yesterday I linked an article about Daryl Hannah being arrested for protesting the Keystone XL pipeline delivering crude oil from Canada. Now we find that the radicals on the government’s payroll in the State Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Oceans have taken up this issue because of some endangered beetle, apparently as a way of stopping this pipeline. But take hope…..they have an 81 page ‘recovery plan’ for this beetle.

Interestingly, the cause of this beetle’s decline isn't clearly understood, and yet they could still come up with an 81 page ‘recovery plan’. How can anyone possibly develop a ‘recovery’ plan without that basic piece of information? For all they know their ‘plan’ could kill the rest off if they don’t know what is causing the decline in the first place.

That’s just like medieval doctors telling everyone how to cure the Black Death when they didn’t have a clue as to what it was or how it was contracted. I bet they had whole books on the subject. And they have the chutspah to claim that this decision is a "scientific" decision and not a "policy" decision. 

George Washington’s doctors decided he had a serious case of quinsy, which means “to strangle a dog” in Greek. They used really creative verbiage in those days, and did so probably because they didn’t have clue about what they were talking about.  But they needed to sound like they really knew what they were talking about.

Their treatments included burning the back of his neck, bleeding him of five pints of blood (the average person only has about 10 pints), and feeding him some kind of mercury compound as a purgative. 

And all of this was for a serious sore throat, but whether this was serious and life threatening or not, would any of this voodoo medicine helped? No, and in fact, I think it is perfectly reasonable to believe that every bit of this witch doctoring hastened his demise at the age of 67!

Allegedly he even asked them to bleed him the last time and thanked them for their efforts. Why? Because they were "educated professionals". “Eventually Washington ordered his doctors to cease their barbarisms and let him go in peace”. Among his final words were; “Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go” At this point he was probably in so much misery he couldn’t wait to go.

When you don’t know what you are dealing with how can you come up with an 81 page recovery plan?   And if you don’t know what you are dealing with how do you know that you aren’t making the problem worse and hastening their demise?   And is it reasonable that all economic activity should be stopped until they do know what they are talking about? All this for a beetle!

At this point I think it is resonable to question the "science" versus "policy" aspect of this decision.  At this point I think it would be interesting to recap the Word of the Day from August 26. Coprolite - Fossilized excrement.

I Think These Are Worth Another Look!

By Rich Kozlovich

At the end of May I blew out my right knee and a week before surgery I blew out the left one. Getting old is really the pits. At any rate, I had the first surgery two weeks ago Friday and went back to work the following Tuesday and have been working every day since then. Maybe, just maybe, that may have been a mistake. I am taking five days off for some R&R and so now I have some time to start working on my book. I intend to rework all of my articles that I have written over the years into chapters; so I’m going back over everything and lo and behold, (here it comes now, get ready) I still have the same views I did then. Of course being right well over 95% of the time makes that easy. Especially if all that you are concerned with are the facts and you prepared to follow them no matter where they may lead. The other 5% or less was holding on to the mistaken belief that I could go back to work so early.

As chairman of the Editorial Review for our state association’s newsletter I am always so impressed with Michelle, the professional writer we hired to write some of the articles and to organize and correct the rest. I am always so impressed with her work, especially her ability to do interviews. That kind of talent shouldn't be wasted so I am always looking for ways to utilize this wonderful ability. I am more of a bomb thrower and sorely lacking in that skill so I really appreciate it all the more. That is the difference between a professional writer and someone who is winging it like me. The only thing that I can say is that I wrote what I felt, and said it the way I talk; with authority, passion and humor. I read a great deal and I used to believe that this gave me the ability to say things in a logical order that is compelling; even if I am the one saying it. The reality is that there are a great many well read people that are….well….idiots. As one author said in his book. Ideology makes smart people dumb.

I started with posts going back to 2007 and I actually thought they were pretty well done for a bugman. I have worked hard to go passed passion to be as good a writer as I can. However, I have struggled with every dotted ‘I’ and every crossed ‘t’ in writing these articles; and thank goodness for spell check. The more you do it the better you become so I have reworked some of these older articles. But I didn't have to change the thought content at all. My views on these matters are rock hard and my personality is not prone to following the latest philosophical flavor of the day. Heterodoxy isn't for the faint of heart, but someone has to be the rock in the current. I have been fortunate to be surrounded by a number of prominent pest control people in Ohio that are as rock hard in their views as I and are willing to say so. The current doesn't move so fast when there are more rocks.

Here are some of the articles I have been working on. I hope you enjoy them.

Through The Looking Glass
By Rich Kozlovich
Published Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Heisenberg’s uncertainty Theory – The more closely you study the subject the less clearly defined it becomes. May I be so bold as to entertain the thought that this certainly would apply to those who attempt to define Integrated Pest Management (IPM) or Green for the structural pest control industry? Here is the reality we are faced with; we have agreed to use these terms without agreeing on what they mean. I hear the statement often; “we all know what IPM is or; we all know what Green means”. Really? The reality is that there is “no universally accepted definition of the IPM and Green phenomena; there is no consensus as to their range, their ideological origins, or the modalities of action which characterize them.”*

What Does It Mean To Be Green, Part IV
By Rich Kozlovich
Published Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Everyone who knows me knows what my position is regarding our industry going green. However, I have found that there are misconceptions as to what I think going green really means. First off, being green has nothing to do with whichever products or techniques are being used to control pests.

Some months ago I bought a steamer to use on bed bug jobs. As I was walking out with the steamer an industry friend, who knows me very well, said, “Rich, what is happening here? Is this IPM?” (IPM stands for Integrated Pest Management for those outside of pest control) I responded by saying, “No, it’s pest control”. Although he knew the answer and agrees with me, he just had to bust my chops….

What Does It Mean To Be Green, Part III
By Rich Kozlovich
Published Sunday, April 6, 2008

Since I have been publishing Green Notes as a weekly E-Newsletter I have gotten some feedback from readers who have been appreciative and supportive and a number of them have sent me updates on issues and articles worth linking. There also have been some new acquaintances…… who have been….let us say…..not as supportive. But that is what Green Notes is all about; forcing dialogue about issues facing our industry. Green issues in particular. It really comes down to what it means to be green and why we would want to be green. We have to ask; what is this overwhelming need to change what and who we are?

What Does It Mean To Be Green, Part II
By Rich Kozlovich
Published Monday, March 24, 2008

Many years ago I was watching a television show dealing with how seriously peer pressure impacts children, in this case teenage children. They demonstrated a study using a classroom as the lab for this experiment in human nature. Two sentences appeared on the blackboard, sentence “A” and sentence “B”. The class was asked; “Which sentence was the longest?” I don’t actually remember which sentence was the longest, but for this commentary let’s say that sentence “B” was actually the longest. This test was structured in such a way that only a small number of the kids in each group was unaware as to what was going on and could vote which- ever way they saw fit. All the rest were in on it and their job was to vote for sentence “A” as being the longest when in reality it was the shortest. Now the question! How many of the test students voted along with the crowd for sentence “A” as being the longest, ignoring the obvious truth that sentence “B” was in reality longer? It appears that 93% of the test subjects chose to go along with the crowd rather that have the courage and integrity to stand up for the evidence of their own eyes. Going along to get along!

Rising Up or Laying Down
By Rich Kozlovich
Published Friday, February 22, 2008

Recently at RISE’s annual Industry Grassroots Breakfast Karen Reardon, director of communications and grassroots, announced that RISE was going to attempt to increase its “army of industry advocates” by 600, increasing the membership to 1000 by 2009.

To work to develop a grassroots movement nationwide in support of the nation’s pesticide applicators is a work to be applauded. However, I find it most distressing when someone in a position of responsibility, such as RISE President, Mr. Allen James, states that “We’re being left behind in the green sustainability movement,” “In fact, we’re being looked at as the demon in this one.”

What Does It Mean To Be Green?
By Rich Kozlovich
Published on Friday, December 14, 2007

Mike Potter once said that the greatest challenge of the 21st century for the pest control industry will be the control of bedbugs. While controlling bedbugs may be our greatest pest control challenge, the real challenge for the pesticide application, manufacturing and distribution industries will be to define what it means to be “green”.

The people in pest control have a rational concern for the environment. We are trained to do good things for people while not harming the environment. Furthermore we actually believe that we do good things for people while not harming the environment, and we do. We believe that we are part of that thin gray line that is the first line of defense in the war for public health, and we are. We are the “hunters” that keep the tribe healthy. However, being concerned about the environment along with good health and being green are two entirely different things.