CRAZY MAD NEW YORKERS

When it comes to 50 shades of reality New Yorkers can always be trusted to come up with a couple of hundred new shades. They have topped a long list of arrant and vicious stupidity by declaring war on Big Oil. 

The Chief Blowhard of New York City described NY NY's war plan thusly:

Blasio focused on the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, calling it “a tragedy wrought by the actions of the fossil fuel companies.” He detailed the 44 people who died in New York as a result of Sandy, as well as the estimated $19 billion in damage it caused. “That is the face of climate change,” de Blasio said. “That is what it means in human and real terms.” 

The moron has gone on record declaring that all hurricanes and even tropical depressions are caused by oil companies and have been ever since daybreak on planet earth 3 billion years ago.

De Blasio claimed fossil fuel companies were complicit in worsening climate change, because they knew of the problem decades ago but continued to sell a product to Americans that contributed to only more greenhouse-gas emissions. 

It's always a treat to see any idiot this divorced from reality. I'm sure what he meant to say was that the oil companies should have aggressively pushed the nation into 100% nuclear power back in the 50's so we didn't suffer such devastating global warming. As I recall, they tried that but morons and kleptocrats like Blasio killed atomic energy with every erg of political power they could activate.

“The city of New York is taking on these five giants because they are the central actors, they are the first ones responsible for this crisis and they should not get away with it anymore,” he said, adding: “We’re going after those who have profited. And what a horrible, disgusting way to profit — the way it puts so many people’s lives in danger.”

As usual, it comes as a horrible shock to folks like Blasio that the people who profited from oil sales are the share holders who reaped dividends and sold increasingly valuable stocks year after year since Rockefeller created Standard Oil in 1870.

If there was any justice, the oil companies being defamed by New York should either cut off all sales in New York City and cut all supplies to power stations that provide power to New York City. They should also shut down fuel deliveries to JFK and LaGuardia. If that seems unreasonable they should all tack on a $20/gallon climate defense fund surcharge to every gallon of fuel sold in New York City or to New York City.

Why do idiots always think they're sticking it to the man when they elect boobs who think they can tax corporations into paying "their fair share" and then get all pissed off when the corporations simply turn the costs around and jack up prices to the consumers who have to buy their products? Look at cigarettes. Not 15 years ago they cost a $1/pack. Now they cost $7.50/pack because the states won the law suit blaming Big Tobacco for all the harm that cigarettes do. They didn't ban them and forbid their sale or use, they just tacked truly onerous taxes on each pack sold which the tobacco companies all turned into higher and higher prices charged to the consumer.

What is New York City's plan for dealing with power outages on the scale Puerto Rico is currently enjoying? If the courts find that oil is responsible then the only responsible course of action is to shut off the supply of oil to New York City and possibly the state. Nobody wants to compound a felony.

In other news, I heard on THE PEOPLE'S RADIO that European insurance companies were now refusing to insure coal companies in Europe. They seem to think that with law subject to retroactive and punitive damages every time the political winds in Europe blow green that the potential costs for paying off global warming damages in Europe alone are incalculable and unpayable and they have decided to go all serpentine in an effort to dodge the inevitable government hammer.

WAR LIKE NO OTHER

Almost 3 years ago, Pew Research put together an interesting little graphic that purports to show the increasing radicalism of Congress and dearth of centrists/moderates. If you look at the short article and even the comments to it, there are some interesting insights into the nature of the country's wars over the last 50 years.

Under Nixon, it was readily apparent to all Americans that the United States was at war and a very brutal war in a meaningless place for insufficient reasons to justify the lives and well-being of the men we drafted and sent off to fight that war. Congress consisted in large part of members of the Greatest Generation and they still tended to act like a representative democracy which sought to make reasoned arguments for and against policy, law, and war.

Under Reagan/Bush, the country was once again manifestly locked in a war. It was the endgame of the Reagan determined end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR on terms all parties could find bearable. There was less agreement on policy and law but the mindset on nationalism was basically unchanged since Nixon's time. The Cold War, the missile gap, the ABM and IRBM Treaties and SALT issue weighed heavily on the minds of the legislators. They were people like Sam Nunn.

Under Obama the country was obviously not at war and had no intention of being at war and 100% of the majority party was opposed to the war. We all basically opposed the war as it finally had sunk in that we were pouring American lives and treasure into a sewer from which nothing good could be saved and an area and country which will never recover until the 'strongmen' take power again after more blood has been spilled than anybody can imagine.

We also aren't at war with islam or terrorists and even that war on drugs tapered off as everybody started to look at how stupid that rigged game was playing out. In the end, the only war both parties admitted to was the war on poverty. The voting record shows it. Both parties have radically different notions of how to fight that war.

One of the things I make out of that graph is that the flight of reasonableness began when Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi slammed the door on any legislation that was not purely politically driven to enhance only democrats. In short, there was absolutely no 'upside' for any republican to vote with the majority on increasingly radical and insane notions put to vote by the leaders of the House and Senate and the republicans in the House all knew it. It was the 'elected representatives of the people in the Senate' that figured they could still compromise and get away with some comprise because they don't get reelected every 2 years and their political philosophy has always been, devil take the hindmost. Almost all of the legislation enacted under Obama is destructive to the United States and the record shows it.

I am wracking my brain trying to think what issue, presented to me by Pelosi or Reid, that there possibly could be, which I would vote for. I'm not having much luck finding a single one. Those two and Obama, did to politics in this country, what the Gracchi did to Rome and what Cato did to Carthage.

Collapse of Empire - Thomas Cole

COFFEE

Nothing is more powerful.

POWER

I got a kick out of reading this because I know power. Sadly, if I was the facilities guy at MIZZOU I'd have responded to the request for power at the quad with something the students needed. It's a jet engine powered generator. A jet off a 747.  It's a little loud. I'd have put it right next to their little settlement on the quad.

I'd have billed them for it, naturally.