Category: Bureaucracy

Oh Dear

Bureaucracy, Eco-Crap, Lies and Untruths, Watermelons

We’re always being told how bad Eeeevil Oil is for us, for the environment and of course for the pore likkel beasties in the fields.

First off, we have to stop using oil-powered vehicles and start using Duracell-powered cars and trucks (lol) instead.  Except that it turns out that electric cars are worse for the environment than gasoline-powered ones (see here for the !SCIENCE!).

So if Teslas and Priuses are doubleplusungood after all, then we need to start using “sustainable” eco-fuels like corn-based ethanol because sustainable.  (Even Formula 1 is moving towards using ethanol-only fuel in the next couple of years, the idiots.)

Sounds good, right?  Errrr, nazzo fast, Guido.  Add this little snippet to the “Solution Is Worse Than The Problem” category:

The US biofuel program is probably killing endangered species and harming the environment in a way that negates its benefits, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is largely ignoring those problems, a new federal lawsuit charges.

The suit alleges the EPA failed to consider impacts on endangered species, as is required by law, when it set new rules that will expand biofuel use nationwide during the next three years, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which brought the litigation.

Not that we need any further proof that the EPA is to the environment as cancer cells are to the human body, but I digress.

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set minimum levels of biofuel usage for the transportation sector. The new rule approved by the agency calls for about 15bn gallons (57bn liters) of conventional corn ethanol for each of the next three years, plus an increase from 5.9bn gallons to 7.3bn gallons of advanced biofuels during the same time period. 

About 40% of all corn grown in the US is used for ethanol production, and nearly half is used as animal feed.

While the fuels are designed to decarbonize the transportation sector, their production eliminates wetlands and prairie land that act as carbon sinks, Hartl noted. The EPA in 2018 estimated that up to 7m acres (2.8m hectares) of land had been converted to grow corn for ethanol fuel. 

Ethanol production also pollutes water. Regulations around pesticides and fertilizers used in corn grown for ethanol fuel are much looser, which means much higher levels of dangerous chemicals run into surface and groundwaters. The pollution probably plays a significant role in dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico after pesticides flow down the Mississippi River, Hartl said. 

Read the rest to see how the EPA is ducking and diving to avoid doing anything that might actually, you know, alleviate the problem.

One by one, every single alternative proposed by the Greens (and their lickspittles in academia and the media) is proving to be a complete fiasco:  wind- and solar power generation instead of nuclear, electric vehicles (EV) instead of internal combustion engines, and now biofuels instead of gasoline.

But Oh No! we have to preserve the Gaia Cult — even if it kills us (and Gaia).

Fucking bastards.

This, I Love

Bureaucracy, Gummint

It’s not often I chortle just be reading a headline, but this one got me, oh yes it did:

And here’s the story:

Highway chiefs are hunting a phantom pothole filler after an enraged motorist poured concrete into a huge crater that closed the road for months. The work was carried out in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, as the mystery volunteer decided to patch up the road which has been shut since April.

But Cornwall Highways said the work was done ‘without consent’.

Colin Martin, Cornwall councillor for Lostwithiel and Lanreath, said: ‘The latest is that the road has been closed again and will remain closed until it is ‘properly’ repaired by Cormac, but they say this could be weeks away as all available teams have been diverted to filling smaller potholes on roads which are still open.

Here’s the pic of the vengeful road re-closing:

I’m just waiting for the metal screens to “disappear”… not that I would want anything like that to happen, of course.

I love it when officialdom gets a busted nose for their inefficiency.  And I love it more when they get upset about it.

Here’s the background to all this:

So now you know.

Ending Stupidity

Bureaucracy, Gummint, Plagues and Poxes

…and about time, too:

It appears the Biden Administration has ceded to increasing calls for an onerous COVID vaccine mandate to end for international air travelers, along with federal workers and contractors.

Stuff doesn’t seem to have worked, caused possibly thousands of unnecessary deaths all by itself, and was the basis for so much governmental overreach and, in some cases, outright thuggery.

Good riddance, and don’t bother doing it again, no matter how scary the poxes and plagues look.  We’re not going to be panicked, or bullied, next time.

Mission Creepy

Bureaucracy, Gummint

As if we don’t have enough government tentacles encroaching onto every aspect of our private lives, we now have this bullshit:

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, “Let me make clear, the United States and the allies, our support for Ukraine will be lasting and is unconditional. We stand with Ukraine and want to support Ukraine.”

Ummm since when did foreign policy fall under the purview of the Treasury Department?

Or is it all just One Big Gummint now (don’t answer that, or I’ll be forced to buy another 1,000-round case of AK ammo).

Bureaucrats And Politicians

Bureaucracy, Government Thugs

I see that The Greatest Living Englishman will be back for a third season of Clarkson’s Farm, and I couldn’t be happier.

Having just binge-watched Season Two (on Amazon Prime), however, I must say that I now understand why Brits aren’t allowed to own AK-47s — because after watching the show-behind-the-show (Jeremy’s clashes with Parliament, the West Oxfordshire Council, and the local village council) which explains in excruciating detail how Britain’s farmers are being fucked six ways to Sunday by all the above, all I wanted to do was reach for mine and do a little hunting.

And not badgers, although they too need to be exterminated.  Badgers spread bovine TB, but they’re protected ergo you can’t kill them, so if you’re a cattle farmer, you are essentially powerless and you’re going to go out of business.

Time after time, Jeremy’s attempts to make his farm at least marginally profitable are thwarted by bureaucracy — good grief, just his struggle to “register” newborn calves with their unique ID codes (quoi?) had me climbing out of my seat in frustration.  But then there’s this:

Council:  All the farm store’s customers’ cars are parking on the roadside verges and causing traffic problems.
Clarkson:  Can I put in a gravel parking lot on my own land to accommodate them and end the problem?
Council:  No.

And then:

Clarkson:  Can I build a small restaurant (using an existing building) that will provide jobs for locals and help the local farmers, all of whom are going to go bankrupt because of government-created problems?
Council:  No.
Clarkson:  Why not?
Council:  Because you don’t have a parking lot to hold the customers’ cars.

If you haven’t watched the series yet, you should — if not at home (because you don’t have Doubleplusgood-Bezos), then at a friend’s- or family member’s house.  Apart from the frustrated hatred the show engenders, it’s also wonderfully funny, in a way that only Clarkson can create.

Just lock the guns away first, or a new TV might be in your future.