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March 2013
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"… there is no weakness without its admirer, so be not discomfited because your ways displease some, for they will not fail to be pleasing to others; nor let their approval of them make you vain, for still others will condemn them."  Gracian #101

George Rebane

Britain’s biggest coal fired power plant is being forced by EU green standards and British government fines to convert to burning wood chips.  But that’s just the beginning of what Idiots International is foisting on the Brits.  The wood for the chips will come from the US where 4,600 square miles have been designated to be logged for this power plant.  There the trees will have to be chipped and shipped thousands of miles across an ocean into special storage facilities built to house the ‘biomass’ until used.  And the gory story goes on, a story which should not be read after a big meal while standing on a good carpet.

Next we move to Alabama where its Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a plaintiff suing the original manufacturer of a drug that has been off patent for years, and then taken by said plaintiff under a secondary manufacturer’s label.  The secondary manufacturer is by law required to print verbatim the original manufacturer’s FDA vetted information on the drug, information which the plaintiff claims was misleading to the point of causing him harm.  The broad application of such “innovator liability” will have a devastating effect on America’s ability to remain the leader in bringing new and innovative products and services to market.  Again, a barf bad at the ready is recommended before reading this piece.

Exit question:  These examples of our achieved state of obvious social madness have their champions claiming convoluted contortions of social justice being served.  Who are these constituencies, and what kind of ideologies could be used to support such government diktats?

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17 responses to “Madness of the Green and Tort Kinds”

  1. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    Dr. Rebane: those are just 2 teeny weenie examples. The list is broad and wide. Come on in, the water is warm.
    Got an e-mail from a friend in the Great Pacific Northwest. Said there were all these folks from the UN hanging around downtown Spokane last week. The UN folks said that 100 miles within the border is a “Free Zone, whatever that means. Might mean free of any US regulation. Perhaps they were there to find a good source of wood chips. Maybe, maybe not.

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  2. Joe Koyote Avatar
    Joe Koyote

    Another boondoggle. Whether it is in the name of “green” or not someone is going make money. Why don’t the Brits clear cut Canada instead? Why would they take US trees when Canada has a lot more wood… unless someone like Georgia-Pacific or Boise-Cascade is making a ton of money on the deal. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to find a way to clean up coal emissions rather than ship mountains of wood chips across the ocean? It would be informative to know what role the timber industry lobbying apparatus plays in these decisions? With building on the decline and the increasing switch to steel framing systems, the timber industry might be looking for other ways to market their products. To assume these ideas all come from “greenies” and socialist leaning governments wanting to “force” private industry to make these changes is a bit naive. Pull back the curtain and I think you will find it’s not the crazy environmental lefties pulling strings, they are the just scape goat so as not to anger the conservative political voting base. When there is money to be made politics and ideology mean nothing.

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  3. George Rebane Avatar

    JoeK 1123am – good one Joe. Turns out its the dirty capitalists who have managed to cut trees and send chips to Britain. All that while the federal and state governments prevent logging on public lands, creating byzantine lumber purchases and transportation problems in the US, and, of course, huge buys of wood products from Canada while our forests fester with decades of dense timber stands and huge undergrowths. In the process we shut off more public lands to public access because of fire danger, etc.
    None of this can be explained away by the obvious green lobby crap, but is readily accepted as the capitalist timber industry being butt stupid about its own best interests. The rationale of a progressive mind …

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  4. Joe Koyote Avatar
    Joe Koyote

    George– All I’m saying is that someone is making some money off the deal and that aspect of any regulation should be part of the equation when trying to analyze it. There are always competing economic interests on both sides of any political/economic issue. Damn right I don’t trust the mega-corporations any more than I trust mega-government or mega-churches. Yes, many of the corporations are evil and have done absolutely evil things, to think otherwise is to ignore reality for iedological reasons rather than logical ones.

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  5. Russ Steele Avatar

    JoeK @12:11PM
    Joe, what if the money is being poured down a rat hole to solve a problem that does not exist except in some computer models that have failed reality test after reality test. There are more folks waking up to the AGW climate hoax. Here is an article from the Daily Mail in the UK.
    The Great Green Con no. 1: The hard proof that finally shows global warming forecasts that are costing you billions were WRONG all along
    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294560/The-great-green-1-The-hard-proof-finally-shows-global-warming-forecasts-costing-billions-WRONG-along.html#ixzz2NrCFFTxF
    There are some interesting charts for the visual leaners. The rather long article concludes:
    The evidence shows CO2 levels follow temperature, not the other way around. Indeed, there may be many factors that determine our climate. Australian scientist David Archibald has shown  a remarkable correlation between the sun’s activity and our climate over the past 300 years. Climate scientists insist we must accept the ‘carbon’ orthodoxy or be cast into the wilderness.
    But the scientists behind  the theory have a vested interest – it’s a great way to justify new taxes, get more money and guarantee themselves more work.
    The reality is that man-made global warming is a myth: the global temperature is well within life’s limits and, indeed, the present day is cooler by comparison to much of Earth’s history. Perhaps this will be the moment that this fact becomes the new scientific orthodoxy.

    Billions down a rat hole to solve a problem that never existed. Just think, those billions could have used to drill wells for every village in Africa that needed one, and we would have something to show for the money spent. Now we have useless wind farms, unreliable solar power and wackos are going to strip the land of trees to avoid burning coal, all to solve a problem that does not exist.
    Who is collecting these billions? It not the poor families across the world who are paying higher and higher utility bills just to stay warm in a cooling world.

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  6. Dixon Cruickshank Avatar
    Dixon Cruickshank

    JoeK why don’t you find out where all the timber is coming from??
    By the way the reason the generator is doing it because they will get a subsidy like a windfarm for switching to biomass. Although being the largest and best run plant in all of England – without the switch they will get squeezed until shutdown by the carbon tax, and your choice would be?

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  7. Dixon Cruickshank Avatar
    Dixon Cruickshank

    Oh they also get paid 700M for the conversation, its not like they wanted to do or think its smart, its just the numbers

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  8. Joe Koyote Avatar
    Joe Koyote

    You are missing my point….I am not saying the switch to biomass from coal is a good thing or a bad thing nor am I talking about whether or not climate change is a fraud or not. What I am saying is that either way you slice it, someone is going to make a big pile of cash, probably the owners of the plant and the suppliers of the fuel, at the taxpayers and consumers expense. The function of government is to mediate between the competing economic interests of any given policy. In the case of the USA, whichever special interests hold the purse strings to the most elected officials usually dictates the policy that usually favors those same special interests. You can blame environmentalists, you can blame greedy robber barons, you can blame the Pope, but that doesn’t change the fact that someone usually makes a financial killing from governmental policy. When analyzing the merit or demerit of any policy it would be wise to follow the money on both sides of the issue before making a determination.
    Politics is like professional sports. A small group of wealthy people put together a team with the intention of winning the championship, in this case control of government. If your guy gets elected you hit the jackpot and cash in.
    Talk about ratholes.. the latest estimates put Iraq at $3-5 trillion depending on the health care costs of injured vets. Someone made a ton of money, especially companies that were formerly connected to the Vice President. And then there were the pallets of hundred dollar bills handed out with no records to the tune of $60b. Iraq was and continues to be the super bowl of scams.

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  9. George Rebane Avatar

    re JoeK 1017pm – It seems that there are more and more reasons to get government out of all these dealings, doesn’t it. But I’m not sure that any one company made a “ton of money”, it was spread around far and wide. If anyone did make a ton, it would be very visible. Any evidence?

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  10. Scott Obermuller Avatar

    Joe – what private company did anything evil here? This whole mess was started and perpetuated by the govt. Businesses just shrugged, followed the rules and are going to make some money. And yes, the consumer will pay. Duh! Conservatives and free marketers have been warning everyone that this sort of expensive nonsense would be the end result of all of this AGW BS. And that some well-connected businesses would be making good profits off of more expensive energy that the middle class would end up having to pay for. Now that it’s coming true, you on the left start blaming businesses? The only blame here is the eco-nazis, greens and compliant fool citizens. Mostly, the middle class that have once again aimed at some made-up evil and shot another one of their own toes off. Left to their own free market wishes, businesses would rather just burn less expensive coal and never even consider this ridiculous plan. But the left and the greens don’t want coal of any kind burned, so off we go.

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  11. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    Before buying a business you better find out what they did 30-40 years ago. Like the guy that bought a manufacturing plant and later was sued for asbestos damage that occurred decades prior in a class action suit.. Seems the plant used to be owned by Johns Mansville (or the Pink Panther), even though that particular plant never dealt with asbestos. But, long ago its was owned by a parent company that did. That investment cost the poor dude who bought the factory everything he owned and then some. It is a rude awakening to find out the legal system deals with legality, not morality.
    Another lady here in the County used to work in the lab for Hercules Chemical in Hercules, CA. The Federal Government contacted the lab and asked them to make a chemical to the exact specs. Hercules gladly complied and delivered to Uncle Sam his chemical exactly as he laid out in the contract. Turned out to be Agent Orange and Hercules got sued big time. Guess they should have known better.

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  12. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    Spot on, Mr. Obermuller. The new Nazis don’t want coal burned anyplace, anywhere, anytime. They (those that have the green whack jobs’ ear) are now forbidding our coal producers from exporting coal. Can’t burn it, can’t sell it. If you are into coal you are under a juggernaut that has your name on it.

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  13. earlcrabb Avatar

    Sure you can sell it, Bill. Put a few lumps in a nice package and market it as stocking stuffers for Christmas.

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  14. Ben Emery Avatar
    Ben Emery

    1846: The Year We Hit Peak Sperm Whale Oil
    http://io9.com/5930414/1846-the-year-we-hit-peak-sperm-whale-oil

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  15. Gregory Avatar

    Ben, we also hit a peak ‘scoop oil out of pools on the ground’ point, and later, a “peak oil from shallow wells”. We now have centuries worth of proven reserves of fossil fuels, with no “peak natural gas” in sight.

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  16. Gregory Avatar

    BT, coal left in the ground now is coal that will be available in the future. There is a season, turn, turn, turn…

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  17. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    To Mr. Ben E, concerning 12:11 post. Yes, thank our lucky stars that oil has replaced Sperm Whale Oil. Because of oil and coal, the Sperm Whale got saved for future generations. Thank you Big Oil, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for saving The Sperm Whale so my offspring’s offspring can yell “Thar she blows”. We as a nation and planet owe the fossil fuel industry a debt of gratitude which can never be fully repaid.

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