NOVATOWNHALL

Have you ever wondered where all the dead are?  I know that when the physical body dies that it can be burned, buried, mulched or feed (unintentional…..maybe not) for “others”.  Now the spirit (for those that believe) lives on for eternal life or damnation.  Maybe even a personal ghost or two while waiting for resurrection.  Absolutely NO ONE comes back as a tree! 

There are cemetaries everywhere and even Arlington National is having to expand its grounds.  People are looking for alternatives-espescially the “greeners”.  Because I am old and am still making my “peace” with the creator (which, in itself, is a lifelong chore for me) I don’t necessarily want to be reminded about my vulnerability and inevitable end.  Mind you, I worked in a bone orchard for many years and it has no phasing on me whatsoever.  However, what I want to know is this:

Are all those memorials along the road right-of-ways and in the medians really gravesites?  If not, why are they there?  I won’t get into statistics but I guarantee that at least 12 people die everyday in this counrty and I probably don’t know them.  I don’t know most of the people in the cemetaries.  If I did and I really wanted to talk to a piece of marble or a dirt spot, then that is where I would go to do it. 

Death is inevitable (physical).  Sometimes it is tragic-sometimes not.  Regardless of how or where, if you want to memorialize someone then name a building or street or park after them.  Create a schlorship fund in their rememberance.  Whatever you feel you must do, do it in a way that does not get in my face or infringe on my quality of life because I don’t want to see YOUR memorial for Pop, Pepe or Pooch on the right-of-ways that I am taxed for up-keep!  It kinda bugs me just like when your favorite TV show gets done with 5 minutes of commercials, then rejoins the show while you are subjected to MORE commercials on the bottom third of the screen (especially when you can’t read the subtitles because of the commercial).  These memorials don’t belong there.  Yes, as a taxpayer AND an activist, I don’t believe….I know they don’t belong there. Period.  More signage eyesore in my book.  Put the memorials where they belong-in your locker, on the mantle, on the dash of your car, on your livingroom or bedroom wall (or bathroom for you sicko’s), in your yard.  Heck, you can stick them up your a** for all I care.  Just keep the frigin things off the road right-of-ways!!!!  Thanks.

I first met John Berlau at Dulles Airport in January, 2007 - I think I got his interest with my swastika armband … or it could have been my Townhall.com ball cap - and he told me about his then-new book, Eco-Freaks.

[Note to the world: If you want Joe to comment on your book, you need to allow some serious lead time.]

I was preoccupied with other extra-curricular stuff, along with a very consuming day job, so it has taken this long for me to begin to post on the topic of environmental alarmism, about which Eco-Freaks should be required reading. The footnotes alone are worth the cost of the book. If not for the issue which crowded our consciousness here in Loudoun County the past couple years, this is the one I would have been most passionately involved in all along.

Eco-Freaks is an essential primer on the most damning moral and intellectual failure of the modern age. “Science” has been so throughly corrupted by the grant process that political correctness has trumped objective research and analysis. Tracing back to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, an anti-human ideology has become normalized and institutionalized in popular culture, resulting in an outrageously negative - and wholly unnecessary - impact on mankind.

The topic is going to span over numerous posts at NVTH of which this is only the preamble.

Read the rest of this entry »

The price of gas should force us to invest in alternative energy sources on economic grounds alone. The fact that much of the world’s readily available oil supply is in the hands of would be dictators like Chavez, or established dictators like the Saudi’s or outright religious lunatics like the Mullahs of Iran should force us to invest in alternative sources of energy, on security grounds alone. The fact that the much of the Western World (Britain, Germany, France Japan) already have adopted nuclear energy as that alternative should give us pause as to why we have not. That a ‘carbon-free’ source of energy would improve air quality by reducing emission particulates, ozone and carbon monoxide is established fact. The impact of carbon dioxide emission leading to Global Warming, while not a proven fact, is something to consider. If we reduce our carbon footprint, without buying carbon credits, Al Gore will go broke; such a laudable goal is worthy of a Manhattan Project.

Nuclear power is the only alternative that is anywhere near cost effective. The rest of the current crop of alternatives are economic losers. Research and development will be required on a massive scale for many of these ideas. Solar and geothermal power are untested in the market on an industrial scale. Wind power has been tried in CA and required huge capital expenditure for little energy, and is economically uncompetitive; even with $100+ per barrel oil, it will require a technological breakthrough to become viable. These lines of development effort have all three of the economic millstones around their necks: high-cost, high-risk and indeterminate schedule. All of these economic millstones make the alternative energy schemes attractive to the Democrats and their friends in ELF, Green Peace and the Sierra Club.

Nuclear power is a proven source of power that is used world wide. Nuclear power has been used for years. Proven nuclear power plant designs exist. In short, in comparison to the other alternatives nuclear power is low cost, low risk, and critically, has a determinant schedule. In a market that has not been politically skewed, as ours is, this power source would not be confined to less than ten percent of the energy production. This skewing is the result of lobbying by the likes of Green Peace and pandering by the likes of the Democrats.

In France and Japan nuclear energy accounts for the majority of the electrical energy production. Britain, Germany and Scandinavia are not far behind. All of these countries (and regions) are far more heavily populated than the United States. Why are we waiting? These countries’ nuclear programs, along with our current aging nuclear power plants, have provided us with proven, safe, and reliable field-tested designs. These countries are not as heavily impacted by the current energy crisis as we are because they have a nuclear cushion. Why are we allowing our economy to be wreaked?

What are we waiting for? We only lack the political will to overcome and defeat the Sierra Club, Green Peace and ELF and other members of the environmentalist/anti-humanist lobby. We also need to over come the coal and oil lobbies that work behind the scenes with the enviro-whackos. This is the irony, the self anointed champions of the environment are actually harming it due to their ignorance and fear. Ignorance and fear have lead to many stupid and evil outcomes in the past, this is one problem that has an ‘on-the-shelf’ solution, need we wait for things to get worse?

My daughter (bless her veagan heart) made me aware of something of late and I find it noteworthy.  Although when growing up she really didn’t have a say in what was shoved down her throat for meals, now being a mother of 2 has changed how she sees things done for her own .  Makes you wonder where it will all end.  I am talking about genetic engineering of food stuff.

“Why should you be concerned about GMOs and labeling of GE foods:

It’s a simple conflict of interest.  Pesticide companies like Monsanto have developed Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) spliced corn, that is resistant to it’s own Round Up herbicide product.  This starts a vicious cycle where farmers must use both products to grow anything.

Biodiversity is a big deal.  There are 20,000 varieties of corn in Mexico alone.  If heavily introduced in Mexico, GE seed stands to decimate the assortment through cross pollination/contamination.  In 1970 the US experienced a corn crisis.  Southern corn leaf blight destroyed 15%-50% of the total US corn harvest, resulting in the loss of over $1 billion.  The US turned to Mexico’s seed biodiversty and cultivated several varieties of corn that were resistant to Southern corn blight, thus saving billions of dollars in losses the next year.

Bt corn is engineered to punch holes in the intestines of the insects that eat it and kill them.  What effect does Bt have on human organs and immune systems?  What effect does it have on our livestock that eat it and also become our food?  What effect does it have on beneficial insects?  It’s a good question.  It’s also a question that cannot be answered without GE labeling.  There is no way to link or trace illnesses back to GE foods if they are not labeled, thus the effects have never been studied.

 A small California biotech company, Epicyte, in 2001 announced the development of genetically engineered corn which contained a spermicide which made the semen of men who ate it sterile. At the time Epicyte had a joint venture agreement to spread its technology with DuPont and Syngenta, two of the sponsors of the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault. Epicyte was since acquired by a North Carolina biotech company. Astonishing to learn was that Epicyte had developed its spermicidal GMO corn with research funds from the US Department of Agriculture, the same USDA which, despite worldwide opposition, continued to finance the development of Terminator technology, now held by Monsanto. 

According to the USDA in 2007, adoption of biotech corn reached 73% while GE soy is at a staggering 91%.  This means most soy on the market is genetically engineered.  This is very frightening indeed.  Soy is the first alternative infant formula for babies with milk sensitivities and allergies.  What effects will this GE soy have on infants exclusively fed this formula?  We just don’t know and there should be proper labeling.  We DO know what it does to rats, however:

 Over half of the rats born to mothers who ate GM-soy (55-56%) were dead in three weeks, as opposed to a 9% mortality rate in rats whose mothers ate normal soy.What is happening here is that genetic seed is being manufactured.  The seed can pollunate with other seed but by the same token NULLIFYS (sterilize if you will) that seed so that it cannot be anything but GE used for future crops.  In essence, terminator seed wipes out the competition.  All that is left for each years crops are genetically manufactured seed from Monsanto.  We are talking about cornering the WORLD market literally.  It takes decades to manipulate nature into producing changes that are good for us and it takes science a short time in the lab to ruin it forever.  This isn’t comforting.

http://www.thecampaign.org/index.php

http://www.thecampaign.org/states/virginia.php

I would say that this is definately worth consideration.  Make your voice heard.  Do some research.  Watch what you eat and never, never eat grain from a crop circle! (Just thought I’d throw that in).

Ok, you softies are going to absolutely love this story.

A female dog takes on a litter of kitties; a cat takes on a deer fawn; a leopard takes a monkey. Mothering instinct at its best.

Happy Mother’s Day, all.

It appears that some in the U.S. enviro-whackos-r-us crowd are beginning to see the light. The first part of the equation is there is no scientific proof that we cause global warming. The second part is that wind power, solar power etc is too inefficient to meet our energy needs. What we need is a return to the energy source of that we abandoned in the 70’s, nuclear power. Patrick Moore says:

there is no proof global warming is caused by humans, but it is likely enough that the world should turn to nuclear power

A nuclear power plant creates less nuclear waste than a coal burning power plant. The amount carbon 14 released directly into the atmosphere far and away exceeds the amount of nuclear material created by a nuclear plant. Then there are the other pollutants created by burning of fossil fuels such as coal.

Life has not been good to Al Gore, first he gets stuck as vice-vice president, third in line after Hillary Clinton while ol’ Bubba is frisking interns, then he loses the election despite the media being in the tank for him, a more or less peaceful world and a good domestic economy. Now Gore is proving to be one of the more famous snake oil salesmen in history. If the oceans would just hurry up and rise already. In the mean time food is getting scarce due to the emerging bio-fuels fiasco:

One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.

“I don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said.

This means of energy production is turning out to be grossly inefficient, and does not reduce the CO2 emissions. In fact considering the amount of energy needed to created a gallon of biofuel, it more than likely will become a net increase.

This form of energy does have a plus side I am sure in the eyes of the left wing enviro-whackos, it will starve out all those pesky poor people and finally cause that long needed population draw down. Not to worry though, because the middles class will become poor paying for food due to this plan. We will still have poor people, the future of the Democrat party is ensured.

In the meantime this is turning out to be an embarrassment for Gore, the swami of the environmental movement, he has a Nobel peace prise and an Oscar to prove it.

Mr. Senauer said climate change advocates, such as Vice President Gore, need to distance themselves from ethanol to avoid tarnishing the effort against global warming.

but

In an interview last year, Mr. Gore expressed his support for corn-based ethanol

Ooops! Guess he should have thought this one through first a bit. First time for everything, this would have been a good place to start.

Considering the impact this is having we need to look at Japan and other first world countries to see what passes for energy policy outside the U.S., being we do not have an energy policy. Japan seek to get 60% of their power from nuclear energy by 2030. Part the the drive to increase nuclear power is to decrease CO2 emissions. Something the one would expect the enviro-whackos to applaud, but no, they obviously would prefer to see us living in yurts, and all that implies.

The “environmental” movement jumped the whale shark long ago, and is in the process of jumping the Loch Ness Monster:

Sunspot activity has not resumed up after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that — far from warming — the globe is about to return to an Ice Age, says an Australian-American scientist…

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Chapman wrote in The Australian Wednesday. “If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.”

The global cooling scam of the 1970s morphed into the global warming scam of the 1990s, which is now transitioning into the indeterminate environmental freak out scam of the current age.

The point is to make everyone susceptible to behavior modification.

And because the actual environment refuses to cooperate with the ideological framing, eco-freaks are now attempting to re-brand the ineffable threat under the more plausible rationale of “climate change.”

This is a pretty safe approach, given the established concept of “seasons,” which much of humanity is prone to accept, considering what happens all the time around us. The cleverness of this approach will be measured by the extent to which normal people can be convinced that the weather should serve as a reason to reverse the gains that technology has brought to human civilization.

This seems significant:

Skeptics have long questioned the value of diverting food crops for fuel, and the grocery and live- stock industries vehemently opposed an energy bill last fall, arguing it was driving up costs.

A fifth of the nation’s corn crop is now used to brew ethanol for motor fuel, and as farmers have planted more corn, they have cut acreage of other crops, particularly soybeans. That, in turn, has contributed to a global shortfall of cooking oil.

Spreading global dissatisfaction in recent months has intensified the food-versus-fuel debate. Last Friday, a European environment advisory panel urged the European Union to suspend its goal of having 10 percent of transportation fuel made from biofuels by 2020. Europe’s well-meaning rush to biofuels, the scientists concluded, had created a variety of harmful ripple effects, including deforestation in Southeast Asia and higher prices for grain.

Even if biofuels are not the primary reason for the increase in food costs, some experts say it is one area where a reversal of government policy could help take pressure off food prices.

Some studies have shown the amount of energy required to create ethanol (i.e., to grow and transport the crops) exceeds the amount of energy ethanol provides. In any case, this seems like as good a time as any to pull the plug on this feel-good experiment.

Never let it be said that Nova Townhall Blog only worries about the big issues.  We worry about the little issues also.  Just so long as they are important to our readers.  That is why I want to promote some ideas that I believe would be beneficial for Loudoun County residents as well as all Virginians.

I think we should start finding and prosecuting those individuals who leave bags of garbage (Taco Bell, baby diapers, 3rd-me-down clothes, etc.) along side of our roads.  If we can’t prosecute to the fullest extent of the law then we should at least find out where they live so as to return their garbage to them as well as a few additional helpings.

How about those individuals who don’t use their turn signals?  They have to work to pass inspection and if you need to replace an assembly it runs a minimum of around $1000 so why not use them.  The signals actually aid in telling other drivers your intent.  Of course if you find someone who refuses to use their signals as they cut you off in traffic, write down their license and call the cops.  That is your civic duty and it is a crime related to aggressive driving and reckless endangerment.  Of course, I don’t think they can deport you (unless your illegal) but it does carry points and a heavy fine.

I also believe that we should be on the watch for the non-grasscutters.  It is the season and we don’t want our neighborhoods looking like the African velt.  If they use sheep or goats, turn them in as they are not considered lawnmowers (or pets).  Contrary to popular belief, neither are rats.

Nova Townhall is a full service blog and these are just a few of the many issues we believe are important to all citizens.  We are here to address YOUR concerns.  How may we help you?

Well, here is another article debunking the global warming lie, and attributing the changes to solar activity.

Michael Savage has compiled a whole list of similar articles.