Category Archives: Science

Goodbye, Blue Monday

Goodbye, Blue Monday!

Thanks as always to Pirate’s Cove, The Daley Gator, The Other McCain, Whores and Ale, Flappr and Bacon Time for the Rule Five links.  If you aren’t checking these sites daily – you should be!

A good bit from the Washington Examiner on electric vehicles and environmentalism in general; go read.  Excerpt:

Scientific American reported last month that even if every person were simply handed the cash to replace all existing gas-guzzlers with EVs, such a thing would still be impossible. For it would require three times as much lithium as the entire world produces each year just to maintain the fleet.

And that’s assuming that everyone is given a more generous timeline of 2050 to make the conversion. In the next 27 years, not only would massive new sources of lithium have to be found, but there would likely be huge environmental problems from mining it all. Lithium mining is a dirty job, one reason there is only one lithium mine in the entire United States. Environmentalists constantly resist the expansion of domestic mining, such that most lithium mining is done in countries with lax environmental protections, such as Argentina and China.

In other words, this whole business of inducing or even forcing everyone into electric vehicles just isn’t going to happen — not in 2035, not in 2050, and maybe not even in 2082.

So where does this leave the radical environmental Left? The answer has to do with the true nature of its movement.

The true nature of the movement, of course, being control.  Forcing a radical ideology on the “incorrect” among us, who mostly just want to be left alone to do our own damn thing and not be bothered.  As I’ve stated plenty of times, Alaska is full of just such people, ourselves included, who live where we want to live and if we have to drive thirty miles to a WalMart or a grocery store, that’s our business and nobody else’s.  But these people want to prevent that.

Here’s the onion:

There is already a way to eliminate global warming — simply adopt nuclear power everywhere. The technology already exists, and its negative externalities are still obviously preferable to the end of the world, if that’s really what humanity is facing from global warming.

Environmentalists’ rejection of nuclear power, which is the only viable option for decarbonizing the world’s energy economy and the only one worth considering, therefore evinces the more sinister motives behind all of their activism. The point is not to save the planet but to end capitalism. Their ideology is not about the survival of species but the lowering of human living standards. This is why they don’t want you heating your home or cooking your meals with natural gas. It is why they want to make it impossible for you to eat meat or travel in airplanes. It is why they keep trying to force the issue of eating bugs, even though no one wants to do it. It is why they wanted to maximize pandemic restrictions, even after the pandemic ended two years ago — because for the first time they were forcing people to stay home and consume fewer resources. It is why, when they describe an ideal future, it is one in which you “own nothing” and are “happy.”

I’ll vote “none of the above,” thanks.  We own a couple of acres of land, a house and some outbuildings, and we’re trying to buy adjacent lots that will take us up to about five acres.  And that’s how we’re going to live.  If anyone wants to make us give it up and live in some high-rise where we can walk to pick up our rationed bug-meal, well, they’d better come a’shooting, because we aren’t leaving.  The Davos gang can fuck right off.

Build reactors!

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

I got a chuckle out of this:

Meet Ace Biden.

The Original Lying Dogfaced Pony Soldier now has a new title. Ace Biden – fighter pilot legend equal to Pappy Boyington and Chuck Yeager. It’s a well-known fact in the Air Force that a Chinese Spy Balloon is worth five fixed-wing aircraft. God’s truth. It’s a fact, man.

Cartoon at link.

Reminds me of someone else:

Ace Rimmer, from the great BBC comedy series Red Dwarf, was a parody.  We can’t even say that about the President any more.  He’s gone well beyond parody.  Joe Biden always was a legend in his own mind, and now his mind is going.  It’s downright embarrassing at this point.

Well, it’s been an eventful week, lots of ground to cover, so…

On To the Links!

Bigfoot may be bears.

When looking for causes, you always watch for a common theme.

Fuck off, slavers!

The mistake is letting Biden speak in the first place.

Actual headline from Iceland ReviewPolice Called Out to Investigate Sound of Resident Pounding Pork.

How much is that worth in pieces of silver?  Also, how the ever-loving hell does Biden(‘s handlers) have any authority to offer any part of Ukraine to Russia?

Gotta love the guy.

I have no problem with ugly people wearing masks.

A bit of good news.

The earliest fossilized brain.  As opposed to the fossilized brain that sits in the Imperial Mansion.

Auto insurance costs are another inflation marker.  Honestly, this isn’t one that would have occurred to me; as Mrs. Animal and I are in our late fifties and early sixties, respectively, with stainless driving records and living in rural Alaska, our auto insurance cost is pretty damn low.  Two of our kids live in a small town in Iowa, and there’s still isn’t terrible, but our youngest two live in a suburb of Denver and now that I think on it one of them mentioned to her Mom that their car insurance had gone up noticeably.

I love Japan.

Scientists grow human mini-guts inside mice.  Now if they could only grow some in the RNC.

Speaking of:  Ted Cruz on guts, and President Biden(‘s handlers) lack of them.

Don’t mess with Texas.

Dems have lost hope for Heels-Up Harris.  What, just now?

The U.S. military is literally out of ammo.

Someone broke ChatGPT!  It reminds me of the old Star Trek bit where Captain Kirk talked the androids into shutting down.

Talk about henpecked.

This Week’s Idiots:

David Frum is an idiot.

The Hill’s Brent Budowsky is an idiot.

Salon’s Chauncey DeVega is an idiot.

AOC beclowns herself again.

Ilhan Omar likewise beclowns herself.

Paul Krugman (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a cheap partisan hack, and an idiot.

USAToday’s Anna Kaufman is an idiot.

The New Yorker’s Amy Sorkin is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Hayes Brown (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

The New Yorker’s Amy Sorkin is an idiot.

Well, the White House is staffed with morons, so…

Robert Reich (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a sawed-off little runt, and an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

From 1972 to 1979 the Grateful Dead counted among their number Donna Jean Godchaux, their only female member.  Reviews of her singing voice when in support of the guys in the band were mixed, but she had a wonderful voice on her own.

The best example of her work I can find was on the 1977 album Terrapin Station, in which she had the lead vocals role in the great song Sunrise.

But hey, don’t take my word for it – listen for yourself.  Enjoy!

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

This gave me a chuckle.  The business environment in California (see yesterday’s post) has gotten so bad that Jerry Garcia’s Grateful Dead cannabis brand is pulling out of California.  Relevant statement from the story:

Eli Melrod, the CEO and co-founder of Solful dispensary chain, said the brand’s exit from California was a sign that it’s a struggle for even good cannabis brands to make money in the state.

Hell, it’s a struggle for anyone to make money in California!  The state Assembly has been working like hell to make it as difficult as possible to make money in California, and now it’s gotten to the point where you can’t even make a profit selling dope.  This is just rich.

Now then…

On To the Links!

We should be debating every damn penny of government spending.

Things aren’t looking good for China.

The Pelosi Act.  Seriously, read this one; the name really is priceless.

You asked for it, asshole, so suck it up and deal.

Have some answers to questions you never asked.

House GOP opens up the amendment process.  This is a good thing.

War with China in 2025?

I love a happy ending.

Dems  never saw a spending idea they didn’t like.

Dr. Victor Davis Hanson to the Left:  “You’re The Man now.”

Are you really against fossil fuels?

Fuck around and find out!

Consumers are getting skittish.

To be fair, they thought this in 2016, too.

Self-awareness rating:  Zero.

Bawk bawk.

This Week’s Idiots:

MSNBC’s Hayes Brown (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

Robert Reich (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a sawed-off runt, and an idiot.

Idiots gonna idiot.

Paul Krugman (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a cheap partisan hack, and an idiot.

Salon’s Heather Digby Parton is an idiot.

Race hustler Dr. Umar Johnson is an idiot.

Salon’s Matthew Rozsa is an idiot.  (I’m sensing a pattern here.)

Van Jones is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

The early Eighties were the glory days of girl bands, and in those years there were few better examples of that genre than the Go-Go’s.  They are, in fact, still around – in 2020 through 2022 they were on a reunion tour, although they are obviously a little longer in the tooth than they were in their heyday (but then, who among us ain’t?)

One of their better known tunes is the 1981 song Our Lips are Sealed, from the album Beauty and the Beat. The video here is typical of the time, just pretty girls doing pretty things with sun and water.  Enjoy!

Rule Five Davos Friday

Issues & Insights gives us a Davos wrap-up profiling two of the most insufferable, pompous pricks on the planet.  Excerpts, with my comments, follow:

John Kerry, former senator, former secretary of state, and now chief climate alarmist for the Biden administration, said in so many words Tuesday during his World Economic Forum rant that it’s too late to save the planet from global warming. Yet he claimed climate programs still need more “money, money, money, money, money, money, money.” The only reason he’s not the worst person in the world is because he has so much competition at Davos.

What Kerry actually said was that he is “not convinced we’re going to get there in time to do what the scientists said, which is avoid the worst consequences of the crisis,” meaning that he doubts that the global temperature will stay under the cap of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial temperature set by scientists (though it is actually a random figure with no scientific support).

Of course the cap of 1.5 degrees is arbitrary; it’s also rather arrogant to assume that we humans, who have been around for about 300,000 years (3 million or so if you count the totality of genus Homo) should know what the planet’s ‘correct’ temperature is.  Throughout most of the planet’s 4.55 billion year history it has been warmer than it is now.  As recently as the Miocene earth had little or no in the way of polar icecaps.  And these assholes want you to eat bugs – I’m not kidding about that – for 1.5 degrees.

Yet he continues to crusade for a cause that hopes to strip Westerners of both their wealth – yes, according to the United Press International, he said “money” seven times – and freedom to move about.

With absolutely zero self-awareness, the man who flies in private jets, has multiple homes (which most of us would consider mansions) and more cars than most families, and up until a few years ago owned a yacht, preached about “the way we live,” and thundered against “the incredible sort of destructive process of growth the way we interpret it.” He called it “robber-baron growth.”

John Kerry can fuck right off.  This insufferable prick jets around the world lecturing other people on their carbon footprint, and clearly has no intention of giving up his own Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous.

But his luxurious lifestyle and those of the other wealthy men and women fighting global warming must be OK, because he assured members of his fawning audience that they are all special, “a select group of human beings” who “are able to sit in a room and come together and, uh, actually talk about saving the planet.”

Yes, and we all are just plebs who need to be forced into line, for our own good.

No less nauseating was the performance of another failed presidential candidate, Al Gore, the mother of the global warming cult. He came off like the crazy uncle that the family tries to keep away from the outside world. Author and columnist Michael Walsh said that Gore is a man who appears to need help. During his tirade, Gore gesticulated “wildly, his face reddening, his voice rising,” said Walsh. “The former vice president of the United States became a man in the deadly grip of a panicked, violent, superstitious reaction to … the weather.”

The video of Gore confirms that Walsh was not exaggerating. Gore is a man whose pot is cracked. Once just a hypocrite, he’s now an all-out headbanger.

Now Al Gore is more than just an insufferable prick – although he is that.  He is unhinged, and has been since losing the 2000 Presidential election by the skin of his teeth.  Although he hasn’t been unhinged enough to prevent him amassing a fortune from preaching climate terror.

This kind of thinking, this kind of activism, this kind of condescending prickery, is precisely why I’ve been preaching for liberty all these years.  Forget making government act more the way we want it to – the only way to handle this kind of thinking is to strip government of the power to make these kinds of decisions.  As Barry Goldwater famously said, “I have no interest in making government more efficient; I mean to make it smaller.”  Make it smaller and weaker, move most governance to as local as it can be, devolve power to the states, devolve state powers to counties or cities as much as possible, cut, cut, cut, make people responsible for the consequences of their own decisions and actions.

Then let people like John Kerry and Al Gore blather all they want.  They have First Amendment rights too, after all.  But if there is no government with the ability to implement their tyranny, we can rest a little bit more easily.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

We’re a month past the winter solstice now, and you can see the sun beginning its long march north.  We’re still seeing some long nights right now, as the sun is rising today at 9:41AM and setting at 4:44PM – but on the day of the solstice it rose at 10:14AM and set at 3:41PM, so we’ve already gained back well over an hour.

Sunshine!

Best of all, the sun is higher in the sky.  One of the first signs of returning spring here is when the afternoon sunshine actually hits our driveway in front of the house, which as you can see here, it did last Saturday.  Spring is on the way!

Don’t get me wrong, I do love Alaska winters.  But by this time of year I’m always ready for spring to come along.

And so…

On To the Links!

Yeah, the Big Guy is losing it.

This headline is a massive understatement.

How dinosaurs fought.

Bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.

Never.  Apologize.

Tucker nails it.

Seriously, fuck these guys.

Yeah, pouring billions of dollars into a corrupt European shithole is in our best interest.

Rare blonde moose sighted here in Alaska.

Michael Shellenberger nails it again.

Bill Maher dishes out some sense.  The guy’s a liberal, but he’s not a proggie nutbag, and he has been hammering the far left pretty hard.

AntiProfa tried, but Atlanta ain’t having it.

Haw haw haw!

When you’ve lost MSNBC…

New discovery sheds some light on modern bird development.  This is cool stuff.

Who’s next?  Someone equally stupid and useless, no doubt.

This Week’s Idiots:

Rolling Stone’s Kara Voght is an idiot.

CNN’s Julian Zelizer is an idiot.

The Palm Beach Post’s Frank Cerabino is an idiot.

The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel is an idiot.

The Nation’s Joan Walsh is an idiot.  (I’m sensing a pattern.)

Reason’s Billy Binion is an idiot.  Alec Baldwin had that gun in his hands.  He was responsible for knowing the status of that gun.  He is responsible for Halyna Hutchins’ death.

Juan Williams (Repeat Offender Alert) continues to beclown himself.

CNN’s Paul LeBlanc is an idiot.

NY Magazine’s Jonathan Chait (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

Bill Gates can fuck right off.

California is run by idiots.

MSNBC’s Steve Benen is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

I liked Little Feat a lot back in the day.  (Still do.)  A while back I presented in a Wednesday post my favorite of their tunes, Representing the Mambo.  But they did a lot of good tunes; here’s a song one of you True Believers mentioned at that time.  This is from the 1973 album Dixie Chicken – here is Fat Man in the Bathtub.  Enjoy.

Animal’s Daily Living on the Moon News

I found this yesterday and found it interesting, but while the author makes a good case for people living on Luna long-term, he leaves out one critical item.  Excerpt:

The people working on the moon will have to figure out how to make a biosphere. Could be inside an artificial construction on the lunar surface. But that will not be very large. A much more promising approach, again in the next decades, will be to use a giant lava tube. These are huge, natural caves, relics of ancient volcanic activity. A giant lava tube is large enough to house an entire city. You can imagine air proofing that and developing a local atmosphere inside that, which would be a great place to live and certainly do new things on the moon. Things you would never do on Earth. 

That is my most optimistic scenario for having large numbers of people. By no means millions, but maybe thousands of people living and working on the moon. One has to be optimistic that the international community will recognize that cooperation is the only way to go in the future, and establish lunar law that will control both real estate and also, I imagine, crime activity, if people start disputing territories. I’m hoping we have a legal framework. Right now, we seem very far away from this, but it’s got to happen. We have maybe one or two decades before the moon becomes a competitive place and exploration heats up.

The biosphere issue is, of course, the biggest problem that needs to be solved for people to live on Luna long-term.  And being underground is probably the best place to solve it; although I’ll be delighted to never give up my fresh air and wide-open spaces.  But here’s what this article misses:

Gravity.

The Moon’s gravity is about 0.166G – about 16.6% what it is on Earth at sea level.  That has huge implications for anyone living and working on the Moon for more than a few days.  It will lead to muscle wasting, loss of bone density, and a host of other physical issues.  Astronauts in the International Space Station, in free fall, have to follow a vigorous exercise schedule and still come to Earth weakened and exhausted.  And with the greater transit time to Luna, one would presume that if someone goes there, they will be there for a matter of years, if not for keeps.

If you’re talking about people starting families and actually establishing a society on the Moon, that’s a whole different problem; at the moment we have very little idea what effects low-G will have on gestating a child.

I honestly think that at some point there will be a permanent human presence on Luna.  But there are a bunch of technical issues that have to be solved first.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

2023.  Did ya ever think?

Sunday morning, Mrs. Animal and I were musing about this new year of 2023 and how much the world has changed in our lifetimes.  I’m of the last cohort of Baby Boomers (b. 1961) and Mrs. A is from the first cohort of GenX (b. 1966).  And, yes, in our time the Information Revolution has swept the world.  If you had taken aside eighteen-year-old me in 1979 and told me the following:

New Years Eve 1979

“Listen, kid.  When you are sixty, every American home will have at least one computer in it, and it will be connected to a global network that will allow you to socialize, pay your bills, play games, work, and find information on almost anything.  The world will be at your fingertips.  Oh, and you’ll be able to shop, too, and have your purchases delivered to your door – sometimes, depending on where you live, on the same day.  But wait!  There’s more!  Everyone will also carry a small device on their person, which will not only allow you to make calls the way your home phone does, but also to send messages by text and conduct all of the same things that computer does.”

I would have laughed in your face.  But if you had also told me the following:

“Oh, and the country will have as President a senile incompetent, with a cackling imbecile as Vice President.  The Imperial government will be using the Constitution as asswipe, and there have been multiple rounds of riots and ‘occupations’ of portions of major cities that could only be classed as insurrections.  Oh, and most of our major cities have become crime-ridden shitholes that are effectively unlivable to civilized people.”

Well, that part wouldn’t have come as much of a surprise.  1979 was, after all, during the Carter years.

And so…

On To the Links!

Get woke, go broke applies to comic books, too.

There’s a reason we call them SouthWorst.

Speaking of the worst…

Exercise is now a sign of white supremacy. 

Your tax dollars at work.  What an obscene fucking waste.

Why did you stop going to the movies?  Well, I’ll only speak for Mrs. Animal and myself, but when you have to drive 40 miles to get to a theater, it takes something pretty great to make the effort worthwhile – and there just hasn’t been anything that great for a while.

His motivation is still in question.

Colonel Schlichter’s 2023 predictions.

Dogs can smell when people are stressed.  If you’ve ever had a dog, this comes as no surprise.

The correct answer is “who gives a shit.”

Joe Biden Should Be Terrified About What’s Coming in 2023. Here’s Why.  My prediction:  Nothing.  Will.  Happen.

Diversity of skin tone, but no diversity of opinion – that is not allowed.

This Week’s Idiots:

If that cheap partisan hack Krugman (Repeat Offender Alert) says inflation may be breaking, we’re well and truly fucked.

MSNBC’s Hayes Brown (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.  And he’s an idiot twice this week!

The LA Times’ John Blumenthal is an idiot.

The Nation’s Jeet Heer (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

California keeps passing stupid laws.

MSNBC’s Jordan Rubin is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

While Frank Zappa had a long and varied career, being as he was one of the most innovative and talented musicians of a generation, some of his best work was done in the early Seventies when he had the gifted backing of Flo and Eddie (Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan).  Some of the best of their combined work was on the 1971 album Just Another Band from LA.

It took me a while to pick just one song from this great album.  Finally I decided on Call Any Vegetable (language warning)!  This tune shows off not only Flo and Eddie’s hilarious vocals, but also Zappa’s genius guitar work and the fantastic backup band.  Here it is, then; enjoy.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

Slow news week this week, so links are sparse.  Congress isn’t in session and so can’t hurt us any more.  Most folks are (rightly) more concerned with family and friends than making headlines – although the Imperial Mansion did manage to put out a cringe-worthy, awkwardly staged moment.

Why the hell anyone thinks these kinds of things are good ideas is utterly beyond me.

Now then…

On To the Links!
WTF, Japan. Seriously.

This lends a whole new meaning to the term “explosive diarrhea.”

No shit, Sherlock.

Yeah, no thanks.  As long as there are moose, snowshoe hares and grouse in the woods, salmon and trout in the rivers, I’m not eating any lab-grown meat.

No, more taxes are never a good idea.  Fuck off.

I don’t understand most of this, but it sounds cool.

Queen Nancy delivers address while visibly sloshed.  How the hell do these people keep getting elected?  Wait, wait, I know – it’s San Francisco.  They have a long history of idiotic voting patterns.

The eight most annoying people of 2022.

Let’s be honest – they can, but they won’t.

This is beginning to look like a pattern.

I love a  happy ending.

2022’s political losers.

This Week’s Idiots:

The Hill’s Caroline Nagy is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Michael Cohen is an idiot.

Whoopi Goldberg is an idiot.

Idiot leftist of the year.

Salon’s Paul Rosenberg is an idiot.

The LA Times’ Nicholas Goldberg is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

When I was a kid in the Seventies, one of the high points of my week was on the occasional Friday night when I was able to stay up late enough to watch Johnny Carson.  Johnny wasn’t like today’s typical run of late-night talk show hosts; he had class.  He always had a wide variety of guests on, and while politics rarely entered the discussions, when it did Johnny was always pretty even-handed, as he made fun of both sides.

I stumbled across this clip a while back and, after cudgeling the old brain around some, I’m pretty sure I saw it on the air.  Here, from 1974, are some great moments Johnny shared with two show business immortals:  Jack Benny and Mel Blanc.  Enjoy.

Rule Five War on Cars Friday

As documented in this latest on the topic from Issues & Insights, the Elite’s war on cars continues.  Excerpts, with my comments, follow:

No human invention has expanded liberty like the automobile. That’s one of the reasons that the Western ruling class wants to end private ownership of cars. The other reason is just as insidious.

The main theater in the war on cars being waged by the elites is in California – of course. There, Gov. Gavin Newsom, with the support of the unelected state Air Resources Board, has outlawed the sale of new cars that run on fossil fuel. Beginning in 2035, all new automobile sales in the state will have to be powered by batteries.

This is unsustainable for a number of reasons, including the likelihood that there will not be enough energy for all the charging that will be needed, particularly as the state makes a foolish transition to an all-renewables electric grid. EVs are expensive, as well, out of the reach of many.

Yeah, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is sure a bitch.

Here’s the thing about ever-more-loony California; all these screwy ideas won’t work, the people in the energy sector know they won’t work, and if the California state government continues to push them, it will eventually become apparent to whoever is left in that state that these policies won’t work.  When that time comes, there are going to be some red faces in Sacramento; or at least, there would be, if those people were in the slightest capable of embarrassment.

But let’s get real; none of this is about energy, or climate, or anything of the sort.

Outside of California, the World Economic Forum has suggested the world shift from “ownership to usership” of vehicles as a way to “to reduce demand for critical metals.” The WEF wants to impose on the world a “mindset” that is “needed to redesign cities to reduce private vehicles and other usages.” Media “fact-checkers” gaslight us with claims that the WEF is not “explicitly” advocating “for an end to car ownership,” with “explicitly” being used as a weasel word. The WEF’s objective is clear to any open-minded person.

Further evidence that the elites are at war with automobiles includes:

  • One British city’s effort to use traffic filters, in which “private cars will not be allowed through” unless the drivers have the proper permit, “to reduce unnecessary journeys by private vehicles and make walking, cycling, public and shared transport the natural first choice.”
  • A warning to drivers in Ireland that “they will be forced off the roads.”
  • Agitators in the UK who want to limit car ownership to one per family.
  • A Spanish town that “stopped cars crossing the city and got rid of street parking.”
  • And a screed in the New York Times, which is unfortunately still influential, written by a couple of professors who describe cars as “tightly sprung debt traps,” “turbo-boosted engines of inequality,” and “in general” vehicles for “accelerating the forces that drive apart haves and have-nots.”

Take a look at that last bullet point, from the once-reputable New York Times.

There’s an apocryphal quote attributed to the Duke of Wellington, who reportedly opposed passenger railways as they “…would promote unrest by allowing the lower orders to move to freely about.”  That’s precisely the kind of elitist go-fuck-yourself-ism that the New York Times is arguing here.

I&I concludes:

The elites’ crusade against the automobile is also motivated by the same reason they’re waging a war on food. They are convinced Earth is running out of resources and they want to hoard as much as they are able for themselves. The most efficient method to guarantee that their bellies remain always full, and the tanks of their jets, yachts, limousines, and luxury cars are filled with fossil fuels, is to restrict consumption by those “common people” who make up the middle and lower classes.

I’m not so sure about that.  Some of these people, sure, are probably interested in hoarding resources.  But I think that for the most part, it’s just condescending elitism; they know better than you do what’s good for you, and are willing to use force to get you to comply.  One doesn’t have to be allowed to live in, say, rural Alaska, as they please, which requires a big gas or Diesel vehicle and involves a thirty-minute drive to the grocery store.  One could be required to live instead in an apartment building in a major city where one can walk everywhere.

But the elites, of course, will keep their motorcades, and mansions, and private jets.  You can bet on it.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!
Dec 16, 2022

The Great Alaska Snowmageddon of 2022 is over, but on the heels of that we have enjoyed clear skies and below-zero temps for the past week.  Saturday morning we awoke to -19 at our house out here in the sticks (it was a balmy -17 over at the airport).  Yesterday morning?  -26.

I’m OK with that.  You don’t have to plow subzero cold.  And we have plenty of good, warm, high-quality cold-weather clothing.  Incidentally, I really recommend Duluth Trading for this kind of stuff.  Also, full disclaimer, I receive nothing for these recommendations; I only recommend stuff I use personally because I like it, and for no other reason.

We have a few more days of Arctic lows to look forward to.  By Saturday, though, we should be seeing some clouds move through, and temps should be moving back more into the usual teens and twenties.  Maybe a few flurries.  Back to a normal Alaska winter!

Now then…

On To the Links!

Now that’s an Alaska way to go.

Good.  They need it.

DeSantis 2024?

You were never a slave, you asshole, so shut the fuck up.

The Russians are laughing at us.

I love a happy ending.

This has to be a joke.

Probably not.

Top ten dinosaur discoveries (dinocoveries?) of 2022.  I’m still just as crazy about dinosaurs as I was when I was a little kid.  Neat thing is that now my three-year-old grandson Bubba is also a dinosaur nut.

What doesn’t kill him, makes him stronger.

Judge slaps Gavin “Hair Gel” Newsom down.

This is a big win for Kari Lake, but as to whether anything comes of it, well, that remains to be seen.

Now they’re photoshopping old Joe.  Also, old Joe indulges in a little stolen valor.

From Master Resource:  Energy and Environmental Review, Dec 19, 2022.

The difference between science and scientism.

This Week’s Idiots:

Vanity Fair’s Abigail Tracy is an idiot.

Financial Times’ Jemima Kelly is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones is an idiot.

Sabine Hossenfelder is an idiot.  Talk about fission and maybe you’ll begin to make sense.  Then again, maybe not.

The Nation’s Jumaane Williams is an idiot.  Why do these assholes always think the problem is “messaging” and not their horrible policies?

Joe Biden just can’t stop lying.

CNN’s Kara Alaimo is an idiot.

Paul Krugman (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a cheap partisan hack, and an idiot.

Amanda Marcotte (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

David Frum is an idiot.

The Nation’s Ross Barkan is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

Readers of these virtual pages should know by now that I’m a big fan of Bob Dylan, America’s Songwriter.   I couldn’t possibly pick my favorite Dylan tune, or even my top ten favorites, but one tune I always enjoy was his 1971 song Watching the River Flow.  This song first appeared in a studio recording on the 1971 album Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II, and has appeared on a few compilation albums since then.  It’s a fun song, a rollicking romp that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Here, then:  Listen and enjoy.