I’m sorry, but anyone who calls Hillary Bitch Clinton the Drunken Grandma Of Death deserves a read — and the topic is extremely relevant, with all sorts of ecoskeptical goodness thrown in.
Hie thee hence.
Category: Lies and Untruths
Oh Dear
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.
Pants, Pants, Burning Bright
Here’s one who should go close to the head of the line when it comes time for visiting the Great Tree:
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed that he doesn’t know how many assets his agency had on the ground on January 6—or whether there were any at all.
I’m old enough to remember when it was a crime or something to lie under oath. “Perjamas”? “Purgeworthy”?
Whatever, this asshole should hang third from left.
Life Lesson
…well, not for me, nor for most of my Readers, but this story reminds us why we should never believe what the fucking government tells us:
Michael Shellenberger’s Public today released a blockbuster story, “First Person Sickened By COVID-19 Was Chinese Scientist Who Oversaw “Gain Of Function” Research That Created Virus,” which generously credits Racket. The story cites three government officials in naming scientist Ben Hu, who was in charge of “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as the “patient zero” of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is a major story, contradicting early official explanations pointing to zoonotic cross-species “spillover” at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, colloquially known as the Wuhan wet market. The mystery bat or pangolin suspected of transmitting the disease to humans at that market was never found. The Public story for the first time asserts the source of contamination: a Wuhan Institute scientist fell ill after exposure to a virus engineered at his place of work.
The implications of this are enormous and represent a major problem for the federal health bureaucracy, several intelligence agencies, and the news media, to say nothing of politicians in both parties (but particularly those on the Democratic side) who’ve deflected public interest from the Wuhan Institute and gain-of-function research. The secrets of both the pandemic’s origin and the reason for America’s at-best-sluggish investigation of same have become the mother of all political footballs, and today’s news is likely to be just the first in a series of loud surprises.
So all that bullshit about “markets” and “bats” was just that: weapons-grade
My trust in government was always on the low side, having grown up in a totalitarian society.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that our own American government is, if anything, worse than that.
Trust nobody — and most especially, don’t trust anything the government tells you, when the likely outcome is that they can increase their control over us, with our consent.
Like I said: a life lesson.
We Knew That
And now we know:
Too bad that all this has come at a time when I can’t afford to buy the lovely stuff… but I guess I can always cut something from the budget (like a Netflix subscription) to get more meat.
And yes, I know I can’t afford the gas to get to the supermarket, either. Which is why my apartment is walking distance from not one but two of them.
And now, if you’ll excuse me…
Crap Statistics
Via Reader Mike L. comes this nanny article telling us how youngins are drinking themselves to death:
An estimated 1 in 5 deaths of people ages 20 to 49 were attributable to excessive alcohol use in the United States, according to the study published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open. For people ages 20 to 64, drinking-related deaths accounted for 1 in 8, the study said. The percentage of deaths attributed to alcohol use varied state by state, but nationally it’s a leading cause of preventable death, said lead study author Dr. Marissa Esser, lwho leads the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s alcohol program.
Researchers took national and state mortality data from 2015 to 2019 and looked at deaths either fully or partially attributable to excessive drinking. Those causes of death included vehicle accidents, alcohol poisoning and other health impacts, such as liver disease, Esser said. The data showed that the deaths fully attributable to alcohol have risen in the past decade, Esser added.
Umm yeah. Notice how when you add the 50-64 age group’s numbers, the incidence drops from 1 on 5 to 1 in 8 — which should your clue right there that the BULLSHIT STATISTICS bell is clanging loudly.
Ever wondered why beer company commercials tend to show young people drinking at picnics, beach parties, watching the game on TV and so on, and not old farts like me huddling over a pint in a dark pub?
It’s because the 20-49 age group accounts for most booze sales (from memory, it’s about 70% although that’s an old number). Also, youngins (especially young men) are most likely to do stupid stuff, especially when drunk (“Hold my beer!”) and so it’s small wonder that the death rate is high. Remembering my own misspent youth and narrow escapes, I’m amazed it isn’t higher.
Also from the article is another little snippet which makes me reach for the gin bottle:
“I’m not surprised at the numbers,” said David Jernigan, a professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University. “This is a conservative estimate.”
Health law and -policy? Allow me to bring in a guest speaker for comment:
It’s all neo-prohibitionism, masquerading (as always) under the mantle of caring.
Fuck off, the lot of you.