Make Big Money on Climate Change!

Now if y'all will excuse me, I'm off to light a fire in the fireplace. It's cold out.

Hat tip: Samizdata.

Welcome to the Sino-American Century

Europeans have for some time devoutly wished for a multi-polar world, one in which the unpredictable American behemoth is constrained. Perhaps the best discussion of this is Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power (highly recommended).

This desire for the United States for be humbled, to be knocked from its perch at the pinnacle of a uni-polar world was the driving force behind the wave of Obamamania that swept Europe in the summer and fall of 2008. Unlike the unilateralist cowboy Bush, Obama would consult with our indispensable European allies. He was, after all, the head of Harvard Law Review, and a committed transnationalist. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Welcome to a new Revolution:

Approaching the summit, it appeared that pretty much all the countries wanted a new global climate deal under the UNFCCC umbrella. Politicians from many countries invested significant diplomatic effort to make it happen - apparently.

The concluding sequence of this much-hyped summit has left many observers and national delegations stunned.

Ministers and officials and scientists and campaigners and lobbyists who have dedicated huge swathes of the last year to making a tough deal happen watched aghast as Chinese and US leaders and their entourages flew in, took over the agenda and emerged with what was basically their own private deal, with leaders announcing it live on television before others realised it had happened.

I pride myself on running a full service blog, so let me spell it out for the Euros: China wasn't about to hobble their economy for some Green pie-in-the-sky, either now or in the future. Obama needs the Chinese checkbook wide open as he brings Trillion dollar euro-style "Third Way" socialism to the USA, so he wasn't going to push them. You've spent the last two decades making yourselves irrelevant, at an accelerating pace, so what you think is important is - well, irrelevant.

You thought that when Big China made the world multi-polar, you'd come out on top. Like the Red Chinese were going to take marching orders from Brussels, or even share your philosophy.

You thought that the future was going to be all Truffaut and Fellini. You thought wrong.

"We spend it on things that cost a lot and end up doing very little good for the climate. That's stupid."

Fox has a great show on Climate change up. The part that I think is most significant is the bit with Bjorn Lomborg:



The other five parts are linked by Youtube - watch (or skip) to the end.

Long time readers will know my attitude about Global Warming: it's been happening for a long time, mankind's contribution to the process is negligible at best, and that proposals to deal with the problem are very likely a huge grab for power and money by the political class.

But Lomborg's point needs to be highlighted in bold and underlined in red. Assume that man-made warming is real, and it's serious. If you were going to spend a Trillion dollars helping mankind, would you spend it on reducing carbon emissions?

He elaborates at length on this in his TED talk.

Bing

Jimmy Buffett did this, of course, but Dean Martin's version is the one appreciated by connoisseurs.

Good dog

Referrer Madness

It's been a long time since I've done one of these, but I've got a good group of referral strings.

merry christmas

Merry Christmas to you, too. I have to confess that I was a little shocked to see this from Google - 35 Million results, and little old me on the first page. It would be heart warming, except the link points to this.

Heh.

copenhagen irrelevant

Interesting question. Copenhagen has a population of around 1.2M people. That makes it comparable to San Diego or Dallas. So the city seems decently relevant, although I'd think there are more places to go shooting in Dallas.

The recent UN Copenhagen "Accords"? Yeah - irrelevant.

nsa backdoor

There are many doors at Ft. Meade - just ask the armed guards. As to whether they have a backdoor into your computer, you're likely so full of spyware that they wouldn't need to backdoor your software.

That said, "the NSA has a backdoor to try to ensnare me" is a variant of the sort of thing that Vietnam War era hippies used to say to try to get chicks into the sack. Sorry to break the news to you, but the NSA really doesn't care much about you, Scooter. Srlsy.

how to deworm a computer

Call the NSA.

Latest blogosphere posts tagged “REDNECK”

This one came in from Technorati, not Google. Huh? Someone is still looking at them? I mean, they've given me almost as much "authority" (606) as FireDogLake (712).

what does a bore look like?

It's a bit of a large group of subjects, but how about this?

I dunno - does this slide make my ass look big?

A public Service Announcement

#1 Son has his driver's license.

No, he's not a beer fan, and it's not 1996 any more. I have to say that's he's a particularly careful driver. It's a no-brainer that he's a better driver than 90% of the folks in the Boston area. Not that that says much - #2 Son is a better shot than 95% of the kids in his Middle School.

It will be interesting to be able to send #1 Son out to the store for milk, rather than having to get my shoes on and go out in the cold.

Man, I feel old.

A bad day fishing beats a good day at the office

If you're lucky, you can combine these into a single, glorious experience.


Rumor has it that this is an archival photo of commenter and shooting buddy Burt, from his days drilling to repel boarders.

Happy Birthday, #2 Son!

All grown up and shooting .30-.30 ...

Unexpected moments

Sometimes you find that cool water in the barren desert. Sometimes, despite everything, the world falls into place - at least for a moment. Stephany had one of those moments:

standing at the window next to our little table, the view became part of an extraordinary event. "look, there she is!", i exclaimed. my daughter's face lit up brilliantly, as she exclaimed, "yes!, yes!", and was leaning toward the window watching her sister wave from the parking lot at the hospital yesterday.

I hope this flower blooms more often for you, Stephany.

Photo taken in Munich, December 1996.

Merry Christmas to all, now you're all gonna die!

Via #2 Son who points out that there aren't many songs that have a rhyme for "Luger." Heh.

Blogroll Additions

Divemedic is a name familiar to many readers. He blogs over at Confessions Of A Street Pharmacist, and has been kind enough to add me to his blogroll. Thanks, Divemedic - much appreciated.

Sometimes commenter Epididymus is now blogging over at Tea Flavored Harbor Water (great blog name). It was a bit surprising to see the Blogger warning (ZOMG! ADULT CONTENTZ!!1!), especially since the most "adult" the content seems to be is posts on Climate Change. You should read this one, BTW. Glad to see a brother AGW-blogger, Epididymus!

I've created a new Blogroll category here: When life is talking in its Outdoor Voice. Mental Health problems thankfully don't have the stigma - or as much stigma - as they did back in the Dark Ages of the Nixon administration when I was a lad. But people whose lives are touched by this face challenges most folks never know about. 

Stephanie is one of the most courageous bloggers I know. I don't have the strength to write what she does - this is 100% full-strength, unadulterated life. She's a daily read, and while it's not an easy thing to read, what she does with her blog is terribly important. Thank you, Stephanie.

Stan blogs about the Bi-polar world from the inside. As he describes himself, I have been down the road Psychiatry calls a fix; and I found it futile, harmful, not to mention a complete and utter lie. He has a huge amount of information about the pharmaceutical industry and anti psychotics in particular. If you have a loved one or friend who struggles with this, he needs to be on your reading list.

Welcome to the Borepatch blogroll, everyone! And if anyone esle has me on their blogroll, please drop me a line and I'll reciprocate.

Juxtaposition

Gee, ya think?

Get off my lawn

Srlsy. Just get off it.


Want.

The perfect gift for that hard-to-buy-for couple

We used to subscribe to Garden & Gun. Too much Garden, not enough Gun. This looks like it would be closer:


Shamelessly stolen from Every Day, No Days Off. He has a ton more.

3 months???

Can it really be three months since I've been to the range?

Now that's how you blog

If you blog, and want to get better, you pay attention to the craftsmanship on display by some of the Bloggers of Great Talent.

Random Acts of Patriotism has an outstanding display of blog craftsmanship. A title, two pictures, the obligatory (for him) closing quote. That's all. I'd snip some of it for y'all, but there's nothing to snip.

It's the Picasso post. If Universities had Blog schools, like they had Art schools, generations of students would study this post.

Well played, sir. So very, very well played.

Red Hill Kudzu brings The Smart

From Cicero:

The budget should be balanced,
the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced,
the arrogance of officialdom
should be tempered and controlled,
...

Read. The. Whole. Damn. Thing.

It's been said that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy; the second as farce. The reason it repeats itself is that nobody listens the first time.

Willie Nelson - Pancho and Lefty

Everybody sings with Willie.

You see, Willie doesn't do "market segmentation." He doesn't build walls between different types of music.

He busts them down.

In his long career, he's sung with a lot of folks. You can lose hours on Youtube watching Willie and someoneorother: Willie and Norah Jones, Willie and Ray Charles, Willie and Julio Inglesias, Willie and Sinead O'Connor, ZZ Top, or Snoop Dogg.

Record executives love to segment the market. It makes it easier to plan, you see. Instead of Rock 'n Roll, we'll have Hard Rock, and Classic Rock, and Oldies. But then we can break down Hard Rock to Heavy Metal, and then Thrash/Screamo/whatever-the-young-folk-listen-to-today.

Willie didn't have any use for that sort of market manipulation, or for the record execs who do it. Of course, he is Country. There are the country legends he sang with. He formed The Highwaymen with Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings. He (with Waylon Jennings) created Outlaw Country - named not for being one step ahead of The Law, but one step ahead of the Nashville establishment. After all, he wrote Patsy Cline's "Crazy".

But lack of segmentation never hurt him. Ten Grammys. Eighteen Platinum albums (and who knows how many others). All in between trouble with the IRS - no, not because of Weed, but because he had a lousy accountant. Last I heard, he sued 'em (the accountant, not the IRS), and he won. Then landed film roles in Wag The Dog and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and 29 other film or TV roles. Oh, behave.

But he won't. He's busy busting down walls. Here's Willie with another wall buster, Bob Dylan.



Pancho and Lefty (Songwriter: Townes Van Zandt)

Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath's as hard as kerosene
You weren't your mama's only boy
But her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into your dreams

Pancho was a bandit boys
His horse was fast as polished steel
Wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Pancho met his match you know
On the deserts down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dying words
That's the way it goes

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him hang around
Out of kindness I suppose

Lefty he can't sing the blues
All night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho bit down south
Ended up in Lefty's mouth
The day they laid poor Pancho low
Lefty split for Ohio
Where he got the bread to go
There ain't nobody knows

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose

The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold
So the story ends we're told
Pancho needs your prayers it's true,
But save a few for Lefty too
He just did what he had to do
Now he's growing old

A few gray federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him go so wrong
Out of kindness I suppose

And here's the original music video with Merle Haggard, from their duet album of the same name.

You think Global Warming is bad?

You haven't thought it through.
Helpful note to prospective Citrus farmers: it's pronounced "peer", not "pierre". No need to thank me.