Daily Archives: August 15, 2011

Taking power from the people

Posted on August 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

Left/Green Policy Proposal: Empower Bureaucrats To Remotely Turn Off A Home’s Power To Save Electricity

Read here. The coalition of lefts/greens have proposed an Australian policy that would allow utility/govt bureaucrats to remotely switch off energy intensive items in the home at their discretion. If allowed, this would be the first step towards eventual complete control of each consumer’s power consumption, including the entire blackout of residences at certain times.

The fact that this policy has even seen the light of day in a free market, democratic country attests to the politician’s desire for sheer control over the masses. The rationale that the politician provides is that CO2 emissions are behind the global warming that also needs to be “controlled.” (C3 Headlines)

In Defence of ‘Taking Energy For Granted’
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Posted in Energy, Misanthropy, Regulation

Mike Shaw: Improving residential fire safety

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Improving residential fire safety

As I point out in my latest HND piece, the US lags far behind much of the civilized world in fire safety. While this trend is thankfully improving, there is still much ground to be gained.

The conventional wisdom says that smoke detectors save lives, but the truth is far different. Yes, a drop in fire deaths did coincide with the promulgation of these devices, but many others factors came into play at the same time, including more rigorous building codes, better design of electrical appliances, and enhanced fire resistance of many household items.

The other problem is that the popular ionization smoke detectors are more effective at producing false alarms based on cooking vapors than actually responding to most typical residential fire scenarios. Veteran fire protection engineer Richard Patton and many other experts are pulling the lid off this scandal, and Patton names names on his website.

We also discuss residential fire sprinklers, now required in many jurisdictions. They’re surprisingly affordable, and definitely do save lives—to say nothing of putting out the fire.

Read the complete article. (Shaw’s Eco-Logic)

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Posted in Health care, Regulation, Research

Gosh darn “obesity paradox”…

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Being Obese Can Be Healthy
August 15, 2011

A study out of York Univ. has some refreshing news: being fat can actually be good for you.

Published today in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, the study finds that obese people who are otherwise healthy live just as long as their slim counterparts, and are less likely to die of cardiovascular causes. (Lab News)

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Posted in Health care

Shining some light on the “endangered critters” scam

Posted on August 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

Scientists Expose Inside Job Behind Endangered Species Scam
Marita Noon

History tells us that listing a critter as an endangered species does little for the species and can do a great deal of harm to the local economies—the spotted owl and the delta smelt are two oft-cited cases. But there is not a big body of evidence showing how these listing decisions were made. It was just assumed that the species plight warranted protection.

But that was before the listing proposal for the dunes sagebrush lizard threatened a large segment of U.S. domestic oil production and the economies of Southeastern New Mexico and West Texas. (Townhall)

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Posted in Enviros, Green scams, Misanthropy

The UN’s incessant drive for global governance

Posted on August 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

National Resources are no longer National

by Dennis Ambler

In June this year, the German government issued the Press Release shown below, relating to the UN Convention on Biodiversity, which is another product of Maurice Strong’s UNEP/Agenda 21 from the 1992 Earth Summit. The Press Release relates to a UN Conference on Bio-Diversity, in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010, which was widely reported in the media, but with minimal detail and little public interest, because all the talk was of the forthcoming UNFCCC COP16 event in Cancun, Mexico.

This is how major advances are made by the UN, in their drive for global governance. Conferences and meetings on all sorts of issues are held almost monthly and each country sends its representatives to agree on measures which the average member of the public will not be aware of until it impacts them directly. Whilst ostensibly to protect the rights of “indigenous peoples”, if new genetic resources, such as medicinal plants were to be discovered in, say, the Amazon, the implications are widespread and effectively it says genetic resources are no longer the property of an individual nation, they are “World Property”, to be administered by the UN. If anyone accessed them without UN sanction, they would be guilty of “Bio-Piracy”. How much closer to global governance can you get than this? (SPPI)

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Posted in Agenda 21, UN

Publication bias and the distortion of research results

Posted on August 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

Researchers don’t mean to exaggerate, but lots of things can distort findings
It’s possible people are not bothering to report a negative result alongside positive ones they found
Ben Goldacre

You may have seen some news stories saying one part of the brain is bigger, or smaller, in people with a certain mental health problem, or even a specific job. These are generally based on real, published research. But how reliable are the studies?

One way of critiquing a piece of scientific research is to read the academic paper in detail, looking for flaws. But that may not be enough, if some sources of bias might exist outside it, in the wider system of science.

By now you’ll be familiar with publication bias: the phenomenon where studies with boring, negative results are less likely to get written up or published. You can estimate this using a tool such as, say, a funnel plot. The principle is simple: expensive landmark studies are harder to brush under the carpet, but small ones can disappear more easily. So split your studies into “big ones” and “small ones”: if the small studies, averaged out together, give a more positive result than the big studies, then maybe some small negative studies have gone missing in action. (Guardian)

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Posted in Research

Obama Administration successfully killing US oil industry

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Analysis:Recession could tip U.S. oil use into permanent decline

As a U.S. economic rebound stalls and threatens to spiral into recession, oil demand in the world’s top consumer may be slipping into an irreversible decline.

Last year’s fledgling recovery in U.S. oil usage — when demand rose 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) — made up for only a part of the 1 million bpd demand drop during a year of economic turmoil that began in August 2008.

Until recently, most analysts believed a healthier economy would push U.S. oil use higher this year and next, before tighter environmental regulations, increased use of biofuels, and tougher fuel-efficiency standards kick in later this decade to lower demand permanently.

Instead, a sour economy may turn last year’s demand growth into a one-off. With U.S. manufacturing and service sectors slowing, a recent S&P downgrade on U.S. debt, and a series of stock market falls that have rattled consumer confidence, the odds are tilting toward short-term declines as well. (Reuters)

Obama administration to launch Brazil energy partnership next week
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Posted in Energy

The EPA’s potentially lethal assault on your quality of life, while the EU vastly increases coal importation

Posted on August 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

New Rules and Old Plants May Strain Summer Energy Supplies
By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — As 58 million people across 13 states sweated through the third day of a heat wave last month, power demand in North America’s largest regional grid jurisdiction hit a record high. And yet there was no shortage, no rolling blackout and no brownout in an area that stretches from Maryland to Chicago.

But that may not be the case in the future as stricter air quality rules are put in place. Eastern utilities satisfied demand that day — July 21 — with hefty output from dozens of 1950s and 1960s coal-burning power plants that dump prodigious amounts of acid gases, soot, mercury and arsenic into the air. Because of new Environmental Protection Agency rules, and some yet to be written, many of those plants are expected to close in coming years.

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Posted in Coal, Energy, EPA, Mercury, Misanthropy, Pollution, Regulation