A Pakistani Rambo in action–and looking good.

If the policeman in this photograph doesn’t score a Bollywood contract then there is something sadly amiss with Bollywood. I mean, Rambo for real!

Greenies the problem not the solution

 A nice article from Sp!ked (though we still think the exclamation mark in the title pretentious.

Why greens don’t want to ‘solve’ climate change

A really good article which explains why so many bleeding heart Greenies,  are actually the major problem in dealing with climate change.  This paragraph captures, I think the views of so many Greenies.  (This is an assumption on my part and I have no hard evidence to suggest that this is actually how many Greenies think, but hey we will make a leap of assumption and suggest that it sounds reasonable that this view will be held by a lot of Greenies, a big lot of Greenies, the majority in fact.

For many today, both green activists and leading politicians, climate change is a moral and political issue rather than simply a practical problem. They see the ‘issue of climate change’ as a means to changing people’s behaviour and expectations, rather than simply as a byproduct of industrialisation that ought to be tackled by technological know-how. They are resistant to geo-engineering solutions because putting an end to climate change would rob them of their raison d’être.

And I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong I think people who think like the above actually are. Climate change is a technical problem that will be solved by technical means and  humans will not have to reduce consumption in order to deal with global warming. The biggest problem to dealing with climate change is  those who see global warming as a moral problem. It isn’t a moral problem it is a technical problem and that is how it will be solved. And of course it can only be solved by technology because the Indians and Chinese are basically telling people in the west who are telling them, the Indians and Chinese, to reduce consumption, to basically get stuffed.

President Ahmadinejad is in love.

Pity poor President Ahmadinejad, a man with a great nagging emptiness in his life, a festering nagging emptiness of unrealized ambition.  A pain, a hurt; a grief that comes from knowing that he cannot have what in truth he was born to be–an American politician. Imagine him with a folksy southern accent, lambasting effete northern politicians. Imagine him as Governor of a southern state unapologetically supporting the death penalty. Imagine him threatening to blow Iran of the map if it dares defy him. Imagine him, building support in the Bible Belt. Imagine him as a star of talk back radio, of breakfast TV, and a star on the  Fox network.

Ahmadinejad knows that instead of being a short term,  buck carrying pseudo President for the Ayatollahs he could,  have made it big in the USA, and but for being born Iranian he could be exercising real  political power in a country that truly matters. How jealous of Bush must he be. Poor Ahmadinejad denied by fate from succeeding in a country he truly loves and admires–the USA.

But the world is full of men with thwarted ambitions; men such as President  Chavez a man who in his heart knows he was born to be a populist democratic party politician in the USA–a man who could have out-Deaned, Howard Dean; instead all there is for Chavez, is life as leader of a poor insignificant South American country–a life that is often nasty,  brutal and relatively short.

There is however,  hope for both Chavez and Ahmadinejad in that they may eventually both come to terms with their thwarted ambition– Colonel Moammar al-Ghadafi, being an example of a man  who eventually accepted that he would never ever become a  Hollywood box office smash hit comedian–despite the fact that his life to then had been one long audition for the role–and would instead have to accept that his life wouldn’t amount to much more then being President of Libya.

But Chavez and Ahmadinejad still want you to feel their pain and  in their obsessive attacks on the object of their passion, they reveal their hurt, they reveal their love, a love almost bordering on lust–a love that for both of them: truly cannot speak its name.

Thought for today: Get onto the nuclear power life boat!

Maybe many of today’s environmentalists who oppose global warming can be compared likened to say a  passengers on the Titanic who refuses  to get onto a lifeboat because the lifeboats is unsafe.  If global warming is as big a threat as environmentalists say then what choice do they have but to get on whatever lifeboats is being offered.  Refusal to get  onto the lifeboats of nuclear power can mean only one of two things. The first being that many of these environmentalists are lying about the threat posed by global warming;  and in which case one should just treat them like normal politicians and consider that they are just using the threat of global warming as a means to obtain power.

The second possible reason is  that their refusal to get on the lifeboats of nuclear power can mean is that these environmentalists are so corrupted by the religion of  anti-consumerism that they refuse to sacrifice the purity of their beliefs and refuse to accept the salvation being offered. Instead they would rather die than admit that they were wrong.

Despite the fact that global warming can be managed without sacrificing living standards—many religious environmentalists are so consumed with hatred of those who enjoy material things that they would rather let the planet burn then accept that indeed man can have his nuclear cake, drive his car, enjoy life at the mall and not have to pay an environmental price—in other words man has evolved to being able to have his cake and to also be able to eat it.

The rest of us not consumed with  the religious bigotry, prejudice and jealousy of those who enjoy high living standards will get on the lifeboat of nuclear power.  As for those who opposed using these lifeboats then the rest of us will just ignore them as being totally  irrelevant—which is exactly what the Chinese and Indians have done.

And a cry of we must change our thinking is of no help as you stand on the deck of the sinking Titanic. Say it suddenly comes on me in a flash that yes I should change my thinking, that one shouldn’t build luxurious cruisers, one shouldn’t have wanted to travel across the Atlantic, that one should have stayed at home and grown organic vegetables–as the ship slowly sinks below the waves, I am not sure that this change of thinking is going to help.

Get on the life boat or become irrelevant.

Gobal-warming Useful Idiots

Many people who say they are concerned about climate change are not being totally honest as I suspect they are just using the global warming problem to push their own values system onto other people. I actually don’t think that such people are seriously concerned about dealing with carbon emissions and global warming, what they are really concerned about is getting people to change their behavior.  They a taking a religious approach and it is no accident that bin Laden, many Marxist organizations and anarchist groups, find global warming such a convenient cover to push their extremists views on how people should behave.

Such people have no interest in dealing with global warming as a technical problem, which is why they shout no nuclear power, no global warming, no genetic plants and no technology.  What is a great pity is that a lot of ordinary non extremists have found themselves swept up by the extremism of such groups.  Lenin described people who supported the communist revolution without fully realizing the consequences of that revolution as ‘useful idiots’, I think that many of those who support Green political groups without fully realizing the consequences of the green agenda on the undeveloped world could also be described as ‘global warming useful idiots’.

Today’s global warming useful idiots, who oppose a technological approach to dealing with global warming, are like those who  supported the communist revolutions of the last century–in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cambodia–and inadvertently condemned millions of people in the third world to a life of poverty and early death. Today’s useful idiots are so wrapped up in their own world view, which is that  consumption and capitalism are inherently  bad that they don’t realize that global warming is really not a  moral consequences of human behavior all it is a fairly simple problem that can be solved using technology.

Those who oppose nuclear power, genetic modification, engineering and scientific solutions as a means of dealing with global warming, should at least have the decency to say why they consider these solution to be more dangerous then the actual global warming problem itself and they also must be reminded of some of the hyperbolic claims being made of the consequences of global warming. Further if they are not prepared to support technology then they must offer solutions that are practical.  If those who oppose using technology resort to the argument that people must change the way they behave, they must explain how they are going to get people to change their behavior. This is where the argument of getting people to change behavior begins to sound similar to the argument used by communists. In the end when people refused to change their behavior they were forced to change whether they liked it or not–millions died at the hands of Lenin, Stalin, Uncle Ho, Pol Pot and Mao. I think that ‘global warming useful idiots’ need to be reminded that this is where there current opposition to technology is going to lead, to people being forced to change their values to meet some green anti-capitalist agenda. 

Those of us who believe in capitalism in the western way of technological development, must not give these ‘global warming useful idiots’ an inch.  We must enlighten them, and let them know that their support for a nuclear free green agenda will cost people in the third world their lives.  We must also let those know that their support for getting people to change their values, will lead inevitably to people being forced to change their behaviour and will again cost people their lives. Let them know that an anti technology approach to dealing with global warming will end up killing real people, men women and children.  Don’t ever let these ‘global warming useful idiots’ ever be able to claim ignorance of what their so called moral position will cost the disadvantaged of this world–spare then no quarter and let then know that will  almost certainly end up with  the deaths of many people on their conscience. Let them know and keep on telling them, never ever give them a break because this is far too important an issue for everybody.  Global warming is important and is serious but more important is that we continue to seek technological solutions to the world’s problems and those who oppose technology and oppose nuclear energy–will have the blood of third world children on their hands.

Environmental suckers–Don’t follow the crowd

The proles have always been suckers for advertising now they are suckers for the false advertising put out by the environmentalists. Who almost have a religious fervor about promoting the environmentalist message. And this message is negative and that the  only way is to consumer less.This is a message for suckers, who if they follow it will condemn millions in the third world to a life of poverty and misery.

Those who believe environmentalist message  are just like those American proles being suckered by fervent creationsists. Who funnily enough also preach  a doomsday scenario; a scenario  for which there is little or no evidence. Those who are suckered into believing in creationism totally disregard the scientific message of evolution, because it is a message that they are closing their minds to. Just the same as those newly converted environmental true believers are being suckered into  closing your minds to science.

Environmentalists have their devil and it is the devil of nuclear energy is the work of the devil. And these environmental fundamentalists would rather allow millions to suffer,  so that they, the environmental movement can feel self righteous about consuming less. This is a fraud on the world’s poor and very similar to those in the church preaching poverty while enjoying riches, but this time it is done on a global scale.

The environmentalist crowd  refuse to answer such questions, as how are you going to keep 1.2 billion Chinese warm through a Chinese winter, without increasing carbon emissions? They refuse to answer because they know that the only answer at the moment, is nuclear power. The only other practical way to keep Chinese warm is coal, but that contributes to global warming. So if you don’t want nuclear power and you don’t want to increase carbon emissions, the only other choice is that the Chinese freeze. Well that might be acceptable to fundamentalist western environmentalists but it certainly isn’t acceptable to the Chinese.

Many environmentalists don’t even believe their own message otherwise they would realize there is no choice  in the short term except to use nuclear power, unless they do the world will get warmer, but whether that is a bad or good thing is still debatable. Remember polar bears have only been around for fifty thousand years and they only evolved as the world got cooler. But the environmentalists are too blind to see this. They are the same as creationists, they don’t think and they just blindly follow the crowd, with the same old chant less consumption, no nuclear power etc etc

Fundamentalist environmental crowd followers aren’t interesting in science, unless it supports what they already believe, and much environmental science is the same as creationist science, a fraud and not to be taken seriously because it draws the wrong conclusions from the data. There are alternatives, and it is possible to provide energy for the world’s needs and to ensure that everybody in the world can enjoy the same standard of living as currently being enjoyed by the west.

First in the short term the world will use nuclear power, India and China are doing exactly that and they don’t care what the west’s environmentalist crowd followers think. Then in the long term, say forty to fifty years out, they will use nuclear fission—read the following article:

Helium-3 and the new Moon race

16:00 BST – 02 Jan, 07

Could exploiting the Moon’s huge supply of helium-3 be a major driving force behind the Moonbase race going on between the USA, Europe, Russia and China? If so, why should you care? This is a story about the new space race, but it’s also about health, wealth, politics and power.

What is helium-3?

If you asked the Apollo astronauts who found it buried in the Moon’s dust, they’d have told you it was just another rare element they dug up during their busy visits to the lunar surface. If you ask the chemists, they will tell you helium-3 is an isotope of helium, meaning that it doesn’t have the normal number of four bits inside it to call it proper helium. In fact, it’s only got one neutron instead of the normal two. This means that the atom is balanced again if it can get another neutron from somewhere.

Enter the physicists who will tell you that when helium-3 finds that missing neutron from, say, smashing wildly into a deuterium atom, it will tear open the hydrogen to get at its neutron. As the two isotopes merge, they release lots and lots of energy. Eventually, the helium-3 becomes proper helium, leaving behind a spare proton and a terrific explosion. ‘So what?’ you may ask.

Isn’t this just like nuclear power?

Yes, but this is nuclear fusion, not the nuclear fission used in commercial nuclear power stations. The difference here is that the products of fusing helium-3 into helium are not deadly like those from splitting heavier elements into radioactive smaller ones. The only real issue is that although helium-3 is keen to be balanced, it still takes a lot of energy to force it to fuse with deuterium, a plentiful and stable hydrogen isotope found in our own oceans. The key is finding a cost-effective way of getting the energy for the helium-3 reactor.

Since before the Apollo programme, chemists and physicists have been wishing that helium-3 were easy to find on Earth. It’s rare here, because the Earth’s processes that make it don’t make very much of it. Also, the main source of helium-3 is the solar wind, a mostly lethal stream of particles and radiation pouring out of our Sun. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for those who wish to collect helium-3, the Earth’s magnetic field bounces away most of the solar wind.

Without a magnetic field, however, the Moon gets persistently pelted by the solar wind. Helium-3 lands on the lunar surface at a rate of 5kg per square kilometre per year. That may not seem like much, but if you consider the Sun’s been spewing this stuff over the thousands of kilometres of lunar surface for over 4.5 billion years…you can see how quickly it adds up.

It is estimated that there are trillions of tonnes of helium-3 in the first few feet of the Moon’s surface, with concentrations obviously in the older bits where the solar wind has had longer to rain on it. Hence a greater knowledge of the history of the Moon ultimately helps folks figure out where the best helium-3 deposits will be. But is it worth the hassle? Oh, very much yes.

Second Life

An interesting articles from the New York Times: Even in the Virtual World Stuff Matters.  Second Life is a virtual world, a world that doesn’t exist, you live it on line.  What is interesting is that in a world in which you can be anything you want, what people choose to be is consumerist and materialist. This probably is what we really are, so when you claim Big Business is corrupting us by persuading to buy things that we don’t really want, you have it wrong.  Big Business is providing us with exactly what we want.  There is no corruption, just our choice. And that is where the Greenies and other Utopian thinkers are getting it wrong. Most of us don’t want to live in a world where we have to grow our own food. We don’t want to live in a world where we do not have entertainment on tap. We want a world where we can come obtain status and where we can have comfort.  This is the way we behave even when we don’t have to and it is also why millions of people leave the third world and seek a new life in the west. They don’t have to (well some may have to if they want to eat) but they come and they keep on coming. Because this is what we humans are.  Do we have to be like this—no, but we want to be and in a world with no God, there is nothing wrong with being what you want to be, providing your being what you want to be  doesn’t prevent somebody else from also being what they want to be.  The Bin Ladens of this world  can be what they like but when they start making other people follow their live styles and especially if they forces people to do what they want by violence, then they will not be tolerated and this probably applies as much in the virtual world as the real world.

The Green Paradise Church

The point has been made by many other writers that the current environmental movement resembles nothing so much as the Medieval Catholic Church. Consider the following:

The consisted of true believers who could not even contemplate that somebody could not accept the message of Holy Mother Church the message was so clear and so obviously the truth. Such people who refused to believe in the message of the church must be cast out and excommunicated and if necessary killed. True believers had the faith and such faith did not need to be exposed to fact, argument or logic.

The Green Paradise Church also has its true believers, who argue that faith in the evil of global warming must now be accepted as a universal truth and anybody who opposes this is evil.

The Church had a heavenly paradise to which only the faithful could be admitted, a place where the lion shall lay down with the lamb and nobody will go hungry.

The NEPC also has its paradise, a place where needs will be met without industry, all animals will be at peace and man will not be dominant.

The Medieval Catholic Church, had its devil and his legions who must be shunned.

The Green Paradise Church certainly has its devil, George Bush and the oil industry, big business etc, the church etc, etc.

The Medieval Catholic Church had its hard core followers, the Benedictines, Franciscans etc.

The Green Paradise Church has its inner core, Green Peace and other activist organisations.

The Medieval Catholic Church in public preached that consumption was evil and that ordinary people should live pure and simple lives, this of course didn’t apply to Cardinals and Popes who could live in luxury.

The Green Paradise Church also believes that consumption is evil, in fact it spends more time attacking consumption then it does in looking for solutions to global warming. But of course consumption being evil doesn’t apply to the leaders of the movement, who like Al Gore, travel first class, live in huge houses and still continue to consumer.

The Medieval Catholic Church allowed people to buy indulgences which would compensate for their sins.

The Green Paradise Church allows people to buy carbon credits earned by poor Indians producing electricity on tread mills. Carbon credits allow you to lead a life of luxury but to not feel guilty by using carbon credits. Carbon credits filling exactly the same position as indulgences did during the middle ages.

The Medieval Catholic Church had its mad men its hermits who removed themselves from society, or spent a life time living on a pillar as an example to the multitude of living without luxury.

The Green Paradise Church also has its nutters, those who live only on organic food that they have grown themselves. Those who reject the modern world and wish to remove themselves from it.

The Medieval Catholic Church spent more time on attacking non believers then it did in trying to improve life for people here on earth.

The Green Paradise Church does exactly the same, it is prepared to allow millions of people to live in poverty provided they live in green poverty. They are not about saving the current world, which is why they oppose nuclear power, they are all about maintaining their own power base, which was exactly what the Medieval Catholic Church was all about.

The Medieval Catholic Church corrupted the young by getting them to blindly follow the faith. They opposed the teaching of anything that questioned the doctrine of holy mother church. They were particularly keen to ensure that the young were indoctrinated.

The Green Paradise Church does exactly the same, only one message is taught in primary schools, the message of the danger of global warming. And only one solution is taught, and that is to consume less.

The Medieval Catholic Church believed in Armageddon and the destruction of the earth. They portrayed such destruction in their churches and in their preaching.

The Green Paradise Church also believes in the destruction of the world where the seas will rise and the works of man will be swept away and only the righteous will be able to survive by returning to the true way and living simple lives.

Conclusion

The Green Paradise Church is remarkably similar to the Medieval Catholic Church. The Green Paradise Church has an simple core message, consumption is bad. It refuses to allow its core message to be questioned. It ignores differences of opinion and indeed considers those who hold a different opinion to be evil. Its members and supporters are hypocritical by refusing to support any options that allow ordinary people to maintain a decent living by looking at non carbon producing energy methods such as nuclear power. And just as the Medieval Catholic Church was prepared to let millions live in poverty for the sake of doctrinal purity so will the Green movement sacrifice the expectations and living standards of millions of people in China and India so that they the Green Church can maintain the doctrine of anti-consumption.

But just as the Medieval Catholic Church had to continue to wrestle with the fact that Armageddon stubbornly refused to turn up so do the Green Church have to deal with the fact that many of the disasters predicted have just not happened. They do the same as the Medieval Catholic Church did, they look for signs and portents, but still humans exist and still they consume and so like the inquisition of old the Green Church must get more and more radical. But sooner or later the intolerance of the Green Leaders becomes noticeable and slowly people reject their message, that consumption is bad, for a more sensible balanced approach that consumption is managed properly can be sustained. Nuclear Power will be supported by the majority just as soon as it becomes obvious that the Green alternative is to sit in the dark.

For India and China no choice but nuclear power

The Chinese President has just been in Australia and has refused, politely, to restrict China’s future development in order to reduce carbon emission and all I can say is Good on Him.  He knows that China’s only hope is to give its people a standard of living comparable to that enjoyed by western countries. However, he is prepared to talk about viable alternatives to coal fired energy which of course means nuclear power. India feels exactly the same way, which is why Australia is going to provide India with the uranium needed to run its nuclear power stations.
Both India and China’s leaders feel very strongly that the west has no right to impose carbon restrictions on their countries. Both of these countries also know that as leaders they have no choice but to follow the development pathway, their people demand nothing less. The three hundred million strong Indian middle class and the two hundred million strong Chinese Middle class, are incredibly materialistic people and they want material things. If their leaders won’t give it to them then they will find leaders who will.
Now Green Peace and other Green groups are trying to persuade China and India to use carbon neutral methods to produce cooking fuel and to produce power. In India western green groups have  introduced the treadmill a machine which uses human muscle power to produce electricity. I have never seen anything so condescending. Why on earth should India or China listen to a bunch of Western Greenies who are trying to turn the clock back on development and to get developing countries to give up on modern machinery and equipment.  In effect rich people can buy carbon credits in the west which are earned by people in India producing electricity using muscle power.  It is just the same as rich people in the middle ages buying indulgences for their sins, in this the sin is the sin of consumption. India and China will get more development and the price will probably be an increase in global warming, which to my mind is manageable.
Western highly developed countries can manage the effects of global warming. That is why the English floods killed very few people, whereas floods in China and India kill thousands.  Better to go for development and develop methods for mitigating the adverse effects of that development. If people in the west really cared about global warming then they would be supporting nuclear power, because nuclear power is the only way that China and India will be persuaded to reduce their carbon emissions. Otherwise the world gets warmer and we in the west can twitter on about solar panels, and wind farms, and it won’t mean squat.  The world will get warmer courtesy of China and India. Oh and if protesters think they have it hard in the West,they should try protesting against development in China, they will not get very far. In fact they may even get shot.  This is what happens in developing countries. Protesters are really only tolerated in societies that have already got development and a high standard of material well being.
If you care about global warming  you have no choice, it is nuclear power and only nuclear power.  All  arguments to the contrary will fall on deaf ears in both China and India. Nuclear Power or continued global warming, that is it, the only choice–there is no alternative.

The Dangers of relying on Gut Feelings

Gut feelings leads to African leaders advocating the treatment of Aids victims with Beetroot soup.  Gut feelings leads to people ascribing qualities to things that things do not possess. Gut feelings leads to people not putting food in the same bag as toilet paper.  Gut feelings leads to people killing Bears for their liver because they associate a Bear’s liver with strength and eating the liver will make them strong.  I could go on and on and on, about how gut feelings leads people to making wrong decision, coming to the wrong conclusion, because our minds and eyes deceive us.  It takes effort to think and most people would prefer to just go along with the crowd and rely on their gut feelings.  Hitler and Mussolini thrived on people’s gut feelings and those gut feelings put them into power. In Germany it was the German equivalent of the Daily Mail reader who got Hitler elected—and that is something worth reflecting on.  Daily Mail readers go with their gut and the paper plays on their prejudices.