Sarah Palin is an “expert” on energy. Um… moving on. She, John McCain (in one of his more recent policy flipflops) and, of course, President Bush, advocate opening up all sorts of protected areas for domestic oil exploitation. In fact, they are saying this is a solution to our gas-pump blues. Here are the bumper stickers I’m seeing in town, these days (snapped from a neighbor’s minivan):

And here is a visual representation of how much our oil supply will change, if we start tearing up our coastlines & wildlife refuges, and destroying our marine & arctic habitats to get those precious drops of oil. Estimates are that no significant price change could be expected until 2030 at the least, and not much, at that. (Chart originally ganked from gristmill, data from the official U.S. Energy Information Administration):

Note how the yellow line is not even visible before about 2020. Naturally, when McCain reversed his position on this, the price of gas fell. This might have even had something to do with his announcement. But it could not possibly have had anything to do with long-term price determinants, since nothing had changed. Even if these estimates could be disputed rationally, I agree with my insightful wife: finding more oil is not our real problem. In my view, that’s kind of like a drug addict explaining that his real problem is not having enough heroin. At some point (ASAP, really) the issue of need must be recognized as much more important than the issue of supply.

1. I have stumbled on the Harry Potter Puppet Pals a little late, but it’s a great way to spend a couple of minutes. Better late than never.
2. Inspiring story about a guy in Africa who started using a traditional method of rejuvenating unfarmable land, starting a grassroots movement that has reforested millions (yes!) of hectares, largely with no government or NGO support; just farmers deciding to do this themselves.
3. I first heard this beautiful tune by the Fleet Foxes a couple of months ago. and I still like it.
4. Liked Back to the Future? Then you’ll (potentially) love Brokeback to the Future! (Totally SFW, despite how hilarious it is)
5. I KNEW IT!!!

Now I should probably stop wasting my day and go be productive. At least a little. The cat, by the way, is doing pretty well, as evidenced by the amount of mischief he has perpetrated in a few short days, and the fact that he is now licking his butt.

In response to Amanda’s ridiculous assertion that Euphrates doesn’t yield any good nicknames for cats, I offer: FRAIDY!

You heard me. We have estimates of the carbon footprint of eating a cheesburger, so let’s figure out how much the drug industry harms the environment. I’m sure someone’s done research on this (and if not, I’ll believe even more in the liberal bias in academia and research). Sure, it might be more urgent to figure out how much the drug industry harms human rights, or political progress, or government corruption, etc., but it would sure be interesting to know how much global warming is being influenced by the drug trade.

Does anyone know?

A couple of nights ago, my friend Brad and I had a discussion. It got me thinking, as I often do, about mi patria (the United States), its role in the world, and its future on the international stage. This morning, while trying to find a citation for homicide rates as (lousy) indicators of overall crime rates, I ran into a 2005 article titled “The next 50 years: Unfolding trends,” in what appears to be a good peer-reviewed academic journal.

The article has a section titled “America’s Retreat.” He predicts the end of U.S. international dominance by about 2050, with clear signs starting a few decades ago, and becoming more apparent very soon. He cites a lot of economic indicators, such as national debt, increasingly weak currency, and huge (and increasing) trade imbalances. He has graphs (pretty ones) and apparently rigorous data analysis. Some nifty excerpts from the article, after the jump. Continue reading →

The Virgina Tech shooter did something horrible. That’s his fault. But he existed in an environment in which he knew with a certainty that he would become famous for it. That’s the news media’s fault. That’s our fault. All of us.

The news media’s predictable vulture-like picking at the corpses of the victims is sickening. The most revolting thing about this, however, is the fact that the media are giving the killer everything he ever wanted. And, of course, this is because they’re giving us what we want. So, in the end, we are the problem. Continue reading →