Parade Of Morons

So last week, after golf, I took my family to the much-hyped Hingham 4th of July Parade.

It flat out sucked.

Yeah there were the obligatory youth sports teams, antique cars, and rifle toting veterans. Hooray!

But then I had to witness:

• "Our Elected Officials" - I booed.
• Some carpenters' union.
• Four silver Prius's. (Why?)
• A stupid eco-pagan windmill display.

It was more like a "Parade of Morons" - as far as I am concerned. It was hardly worth my time or effort. There wasn't even any food there for crying out loud, seriously. Nothing. No popcorn. No hot dogs. No funnel cakes.

The pathetic windmill display reminded me of that farcical Hull windmill nearby.

Point of fact, we were up in Hull a couple of weeks ago and the wind was howling. It had to be at least 25 mph. I looked up and noticed the windmill wasn't twirling. Then, twenty minutes later, I noticed that it was *working* - rather rapidly at that.

I said to my wife, "They must have plugged it back in!"

Windmills - Truth In The ART Of Lying

Nearly two years ago, I wrote:

Point of fact, we were up in Hull [Massachusetts] a couple of weeks ago and the wind was howling. It had to be at least 25 mph. I looked up and noticed the windmill wasn't twirling. Then, twenty minutes later, I noticed that it was *working* - rather rapidly at that.

I said to my wife, "They must have plugged it back in!"

Now check out what I came across in my daughter's book tonight:



Hah!

The preceding page read had Dora exclaiming:

...We need to to TURN OFF the windmill so the kite can fly by.

For more on *bird blenders* see also:

Pagans Blowing It...

Bird-Blender Malfunction!

Green In-Fighting And More On Bird-Blenders

Big Government Killing The Environment

That above pic is captioned:

Ken Gooch, Massachusetts Program Director for the Asian longhorned beetle program, walks Monday through an area in Worcester along I-190 which has been cleared of beetle-infested trees.

First read - Worcester Beetle - An Another Ill-Conceived Bailout.

So, after government agents rashly cut down 22,000 trees in New England's 2nd biggest city,....it comes out that apparently there is a pesticide that tree-owners can buy over-the-counter and protect their trees against both the Asian longhorned beetle AND the tree-felling Feds!

USDA Says Residents Can Treat Beetle-Infested Trees

WORCESTER — Contrary to earlier advice from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, residents in the Asian longhorned beetle infestation and quarantine area can obtain over-the-counter chemicals to protect potential host trees from becoming infested by the tree-killing bugs.

A letter from Christine K. Markham, director of the USDA's national Asian Longhorned Beetle Eradication program, states that earlier advisories that the USDA issued to residents indicating that no such protective treatment is available were inaccurate.

In the letter in which she retracted that earlier advice....

There's so much going on in this story I haven't time enough to fully comment.

We have a Big Government, which is moving full-steam ahead in co-opting more and more power to regulate the *environment*.

We have, with this revelation of an extant pesticide, an abundantly clear demonstration of rank Federal incompetence.

We have petrified homeowners about to pump tons of pesticides into their trees....just so they MIGHT be spared from the Federal extermination. How long before someone cries about the *environmental impact* of said chemicals!

And we have an irony of ire in Central Massachusetts. These clowns here have ceded everything in their lives to *government*. Now they are all grumbling left and right about the Feds ravishing their neighborhoods. And they just accept their subjugation like hopeless serfs, totally clueless to the fact they are simply getting the government they have voted for.

Here's a maple *marked for removal*:





Now I'm the last one to elevate trees, animals, or anything *natural* to the status of precious humanity....

BUT, this entire process, this tyranny of bureaucracy, of national agencies and their ill-conceived, ineffective diktats....

In some ways it hearkens back to another dark moment in our shared history.

Remember when these kids were systematically *marked* in Germany some 70 years ago?



Big Government can't handle an insect in Massachusetts and yet Morons all over the country think nothing of empowering it with hundreds of billions in new *green mandates*!

Who could be against a windmill, right?

Well, who could be against *teaching children to read and write*?

Remember that was how our utterly hideous and abominable *school system* was marketed, and expanded, and expanded.

Go take a gander at the disturbingly illiterate *comments* on YouTube and do your own assessment of how a well-intentioned Big Education has turned out.

You know how in many states (I think) one can't sell their house without a *septic inspection*?

Well I've heard that the *greenies* are already licking their chops to expand this un-Constitutional financial meddling. I've heard that they are trying to impose other *environmental* standards on owners of private property before they can effect a sale - energy efficient windows and whatnot. This will cost tax-paying Americans nothing, right? And the statist intermediation will end here, right?

Me, I'm against every single *harmless* windmill - and may even be impelled to vandalism!

Hey, if those eco-pagan terrorists can fire-bomb McMansions in Seattle....

Us *brownies* should be out there in force, battling mind pollution for the sake of future generations....and Father Nature!

Marginalizing Upwind Peeing Pagans

I know a guy who's, well, an environmental wacko. I forget how it came up, but one day he started going off on cell phone chargers. He got all hot and bothered about how people leave their cell phone on the charger and plugged in long after the charging is complete.

This guy is such, like, a total DOUBLE LOSER.

By no means was this a personal crusade. I right away found the issue on TreeHugger.com. None of these clowns think for themselves.

Apparently, phone chargers burn electricity even when there is no phone plugged into them. So exactly how much electricity, if I may to ask the obvious, germane question?

Well, you had to get far down the comment thread to find out, after one brave soul tested his charger with a Kill-O-Watt meter, that over the course of a year, his particular charger burned 1.1 KWh.

So that's around 14 whopping cents - for the entire year!!!

Note this DOUBLE LOSER has a PhD from one of the top five universities in the country.



It's been fun recently breaking balls on composting. The idea has been around for quite a freakin' long time. As such, anyone jumping out of their seat to buy a composter at Costco today is a certifiable, docile Moron. It's a fad for crying out loud - as very well proven by them selling at big box retailers.

It reminds me of the Atkins diet at its peak in January 2004. When many of my MOST DUMBEST friends/family members pig-piled into the decades-old idea of carb reduction I knew the mania was over.

By the way, that composter above retails for about $500 - more proof that a justice-rendering, fool-impoverishing God exists!

What did y'all do with your egg shells and coffee grounds this morning anyway, you Earth-rapers?!?!?!



One of my new favorite shows is Hell's Kitchen. Despite the ridiculous volume of profanity and ugliest cast in the history of television, the show is a compelling watch. Anyone who cooks or eats out (everyone?) might be interested in seeing how a restaurant kitchen functions behind the scenes. (Yes germaphobes, they are constantly sticking their fingers in your food to test for doneness and proper seasoning!)

Gordon Ramsay is a famously successful restaurateur in Great Britain ($60 entrees?) - but like any specialized ego-maniac, he thinks his intelligence transfers smoothly into all other fields. He's now calling for banning restaurants from using vegetables that are "out of season" and have to be trafficked half-way around the world. "Buy local" is his preachy platitude presumably to save the planet from burning fossil fuels.

Mr Ramsay said in a radio interview: "There should be stringent laws - licensing laws - to make sure produce is only used in season.

"The quicker we get legislation pushed through the Houses of Parliament, the more unique this country will become in terms of its sourcing and level of inspiration.

"Fruit and veg should be seasonal. Chefs should be fined if they haven't got ingredients in season on the menu."

Yeah Gordon that's a great idea! Go shut off the richest markets on this over-heated planet to impoverished Third World farmers. He's a real world-saver!

This sort of reminds me of the nearby Hull windmill:



Hull is a tiny beach town up the road from me (1.5 miles) that has a very low socio-economic status (average household income $58,136); it's quite rough if you what I mean. However it happened, the eco-pagan elites got Hull-ites to sully their skyline with a couple of hideous windmills. They are an absolute eyesore. I brand anyone that claims otherwise an Automatic Moron. Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy and other "do as I say, not as I do" wealthy Earth-copulators have been able to keep wind turbines away from their pristine horizon in Martha's Vineyard.

Note the full-court brainwashing going on in Hull:

Hull has been "a model for engaging the entire community to understand and move forward together on its wind power project, from school teachers, utility engineers and local leaders to state government, academia and industry".

I found that on a website "not affiliated with Hull", powered by CARE (Citizens for Alternative Renewable Energy). The addresses I found for CARE were Greenwich, CT and Washington DC. Thank you citizens elitists!

I wish some of the crunchy trust funded tools in Cambridge would saunter into Hull one night and start barroom discussions of renewable energy, climate change, and sustainablity. If they did, they'd probably be going home minus a few teeth to say the least.



Unplugging cell phone chargers, composting 8 egg shells a week, and providing *sustainable* electricity for a fraction of one town's mere 11,000 residents....

...it's like peeing upwind(!) on a forest fire.

UPDATE - Here's an email on this subject I received from a reader:

Hi C:

I just read your blog post about the Hull windmill. I previously audited a Nebraska electrical company's books (during my CPA days) and asked about the 2 windmills near Lincoln, the state capitol. The employee said that if the taxpayers (it was a public utility) knew about how many $$ the windmills lost, they would be outraged.

Bird-Blender Malfunction!

I know I wouldn't want to live near one of those so-called wind farms!

So between that NIMBY aversion....and the drowning....I guess I have a couple of things in common with underworld newcomer Ted Kennedy.

Too bad there's not a pure play stock on *windmill insurance*. Now THAT would be a short!

Except that its losses would obviously be born by taxpayers.

Instead, short the dollar, short Treasuries. (It may be time for me to look at TBT again.)

Typical Windmill Investor!

Pagans Blowing It...

When Windmills Don’t Spin, People Expect Some Answers

Turbines, more than 100 feet tall, were installed last year in 11 Minnesota cities to provide power, and also to serve as educational symbols in a state that has mandated that a quarter of its electricity come from renewable resources by 2025.

One problem, though: The windmills, supposed to go online this winter, mostly just sat still, people in cities like North St. Paul and Chaska said, rarely if ever budging. Residents took note. Schoolchildren asked questions. Complaints accumulated.

Hah!

Well, the first thing I'd do if my windmill stopped spinning....is to check and make sure it was plugged in properly!

Hey, as least this article had to stones (or oversight!) to call them what they were *symbols* - even if the modifier ought to be changed from educational to *pagan*.

And I must say, I was surprised to see this article in the NYT. In the *old days*, they'd never slip up like this!

See also - Green Infighting And More On Bird-Blenders

Marginalizing Cheesy Shutterfly Cards

Here's one of my wife's attempts at a potential *Christmas card photo*.

She asked them to say "cheese":



After several unusable shots....I had to step in.

I made them instead say "poophead", "fart face", etc.

Notice the difference:



Two other items here:

One, the second shot did indeed become our Christmas card. And the windmill in the background....well, my wife violently insisted on cropping it out. What can I say, SHE'S the household fanatic!

Lastly, I am pissed at Shutterfly. Every year I make remarks about how we have to cut back on how many cards we order and send out; the list gets longer EVERY year. I mean do we really have to send them to our neighbors and local friends? They see our kids all the time! And then there are cards for *our parents' friends*, cards for people who live far away that we haven't been in touch with in YEARS, then those people who send you a card out-of-the-blue to whom you HAVE TO reciprocate.

These things cost $1 each....times 135 ordered....plus 44 cents apiece in postage...equals

$194.40

But get this, freakin' Shutterfly actually sent us a double order of cards!

So everyone Marginal on our list, everyone ripe for cutting....they got a card, again. (And surely husbands far away will be cursing us for making them reciprocate!)

So with the extra cards, we'll be well over $200 for cards - IN THIS ECONOMY!

Not for anything, but I don't think this is the first time Shutterfly has screwed me with an over-delivery. I think it may in fact be a deliberate scam on their part - to set off a spiral of extra card sending.

Look Yonder Whilst I Poke Ye In...

So while Kfell warns me of *not registering* my homeschooled brood...

NEW HAMPSHIRE POISED FOR LANDMARK HOMESCHOOL VOTE

Purcellville, VA—On Wednesday, January 6 the New Hampshire House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on an amendment to House Bill 368 which, if passed, would make New Hampshire’s homeschool law the most restrictive and burdensome in the nation. "Members of the Democratic leadership are taking advantage of the system and attempting to slip through the most anti-homeschool legislation ever conceived in New Hampshire," said Mike Donnelly, staff attorney for HSLDA.

Despite the fact that a bi-partisan legislative study committee recently voted 14–6 to retain New Hampshire’s existing homeschool law, the Democratic leadership kept the bill alive and placed it among 30 other bills which are all scheduled for separate votes on Wednesday, January 6.

The proposed amendment to H.B. 368 would require that every homeschooled student be tested every year, a portfolio review be conducted for every student every year. Home educated students’ test scores would also have to be sent to the New Hampshire Department of Education each year, and the DOE would be granted sweeping rule making authority.

"This legislation is completely unnecessary. The existing New Hampshire law works well, and in an era when homeschoolers are significantly outperforming their public school counterparts the last thing homeschoolers and taxpayers need is another bureaucracy wasting their time and money," said Donnelly.

Hah!

While he warns me....his libertarian paradise of NH, after voting for Obama,....they're trying to sneak in a fascist little Nazi regulation on those pernicious little homeschoolers!

Now look, I'm no *party guy*, but everyone who falls into the us-versus-them-ism of party politics has to take a hard look at which one is repeatedly engaging in all sorts of underhanded politicking. They did the same thing in my town recently; they called some midnight meeting, around a holiday I believe, to jam through some *windmill* approval BS. It's always the same people who pull this crap.

And my wife and I got a good laugh at some of the otherwise blue people in town who were sandbagged by the standard operating procedure of dissembling pinkos.

Fighting Inanity With Inanity

"Pagans" and "Homer"? When I first saw the headline, I thought it was a news story ripped from an ancient Greek periodical.

How telling is it that now "Homer" colloquially refers to the cartoon character and not the epic poet? Here are some excerpts if you can bear the double dose of inanity,

PAGANS have pledged to perform “rain magic” to wash away cartoon character Homer Simpson who was painted next to their famous fertility symbol - the Cerne Abbas giant.

The 17th century chalk outline of the naked, sexually aroused, club-wielding giant is believed by many to be a symbol of ancient spirituality.

Many couples also believe the 180ft giant, which is carved in the hillside above Cerne Abbas, Dorset, is an aid to fertility.

A giant 180ft Homer Simpson brandishing a doughnut was painted next to the well-endowed figure today in a publicity stunt to promote The Simpsons Movie released later this month.

It has been painted with water-based biodegradable paint which will wash away as soon as it rains.

Ann Bryn-Evans, joint Wessex district manager for The Pagan Federation, said: “It’s very disrespectful and not at all aesthetically pleasing.



Speaking of pagans...

Recently my toddler son saw the above doohickey on the south shore of Boston (Hull Windmill). He asked what it was,

CaptiousDad - Son, here in Boston, that is a pagan idol.

And then he sounded it out perfectly - "pey-guhn ahyd-l".

My son is already a prolific Earth-scorching fuel waster. He won't touch the tricycle he was given. Instead he emptied out his piggy bank and anted up for a battery-powered tractor.

An Eco-Pagan Discount?

Look at that ↑

3,206 square feet, curb appeal, in a tony town, and a very young (for New England) 19 years old!

It started last year somewhere north of $800,000 - either 825k or 850k. I can't remember. My wife checked it out and really liked it, notwithstanding the price of course.

Here's the listing today:

VALUE RANGE PRICING- Sellers will entertain offers between 700,000-749,900. Well maintained home nestled in a sought after neighborhood, close to village, ballfields and beaches. Private backyard, abuts conservation land-bird sanctuary. This home has had many rooms freshly painted, Glistening hardwood floors, granite kitchen, renovated half bath, new gym or office in lower lever. New boiler as well as two decks, with custom mahogany railings, all make this home ready to move right in.

Okay, what the bleep does *entertain offers between 700,00 - 749,900* mean???

I've seen that nonsense a few times on Coldwell Banker properties. Why exactly would any Moron bid over $700,000 given that stipulation. (My wife and I have mind to bid them 595k!)

Let's see, the house has been sitting there since last year....so I'm not sure *entertain* is a well-chosen verb either. They must be pissed; I've seen plenty of worse looking homes sell, at higher relative prices to boot(!), in this region during the knife-catching, low-interest-rate-mirage, year of 2009. It's probably one of these situations where the house has been just a little (50k?) over-priced, the whole way down. Much like that one we bid on!

Another hypothesis, of which I'm skeptical, is that maybe all the potential buyers somehow found out that this house will be in the shadow of a soon-to-be-built, ginormous, eco-pagan windmill?

Yes indeed. The locals were vociferous, and evenly-split on the issue - at least until the dark side called a *midnight meeting* during a quiet summer week....and rammed the controversial proposal through.

One interesting thing about that battle was that, supposedly (because I won't get personally involved in this crap), there was a strict age divide. All the 'old coots' and 'old bags' in town were FOR a spinning, symbolic waste of tax dollars. And standing opposed were the younger families - the people who hadn't been voting for Ted Kennedy for the past 46 years.

Green Infighting And More On Bird-Blenders

Reading this article will make your head spin:

Solar Flare Ups

A fight over the future of clean energy is pitting environmentalists against one another.

True or false: California's plan to generate massive amounts of clean, sustainable solar power is a win for everyone—liberal or conservative, environmentalist or business executive.

Answer: True ... but only in principle.

In practice, the state's new solar gold rush is generating far more conflict than current. At issue is not whether we should green the grid, but how to do so: Should we build massive solar-powered generating plants deep in the Mojave Desert on ecologically sensitive public lands to take advantage of some of the most sun-drenched landscapes on earth? Or would it be just as effective, with less impact on the environment, to deploy thousands of smaller solar arrays closer to civilization—on abandoned farms, urban "brownfields," and rooftops?

When environmentalists clash with giant utilities on such questions, no one is surprised. But what is surprising is how much this issue is pitting environmentalists against each other.

Now click the link and continue onward.

Great comment posted there:

One of the reasons that the utilities won't commit to only using the transmission lines for renewable energy only is that they would have to reveal the deeply held secret... that they generate very little and since they are intermittent in nature, need a lot of "back up" power from conventional sources. In essence, the utilities need the same amount in back up or spinning reserve as installed capacity. This is a DUPLICATION of energy that we the rate and tax payers have to pay along with bankrolling their transmission lines! The bottom line is that "we the people" are getting fleeced for this useless energy, that because of its unpredictability cannot be used as base load, cannot be called on upon demand. Note that the developers always only state their installed capacity, not how much they generate and the times of generation. Wind power is most notable for this. For instance, all the windmills [close to 600 MW]in the San Gorgonio Pass only generate an average of 100-/+ MW per year, of which 6 MW are generated at peak need time and the rest, 61% off peak and 33 MW mid peak. the wind is only good enough for them to generate 14-20% of installed capacity. To put this in context, Edison uses over 13,000 MW per year. And this will do what to enhance our power supply? For years we have been fed their propaganda and misleading information that is never checked by the news media for accuracy. I have yet to see any reporter ask them for their production records. I managed to obtain 15 years of these records from Edison that backs up my assertions as well as I live here, where I can see when they work and mostly don't. The only green transmission has been the $'s from the tax and rate payers into theirs! Anyone interested in obtaining these records can e-mail me at bobweit@msn.com

The young lady who wrote that is the one who's been trying to get me some info on that Palm Springs wind farm boondoggle that I wrote about in - Breaking Wind In Taxpayers' Faces.

To continue that discussion....apparently there was a widely-disseminated WSJ article on bird-blenders, aka wind turbines, only a couple of months ago:

On Aug. 13, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that had come into contact with crude oil or other pollutants in uncovered tanks or waste-water facilities on its properties. The birds were protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which dates back to 1918. The company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees.

ExxonMobil is hardly alone in running afoul of this law. Over the past two decades, federal officials have brought hundreds of similar cases against energy companies. In July, for example, the Oregon-based electric utility PacifiCorp paid $1.4 million in fines and restitution for killing 232 eagles in Wyoming over the past two years. The birds were electrocuted by poorly-designed power lines.

Yet there is one group of energy producers that are not being prosecuted for killing birds: wind-power companies. And wind-powered turbines are killing a vast number of birds every year.

A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont.

I've also discovered, that the windmill blades are very toxic, they catch fire quite often emitting said toxins, and that firemen/maintenance can't really do anything to extinguish them. In fact the composition of these blades is so toxic....look how they have to be produced:



Real organic....real green, huh?

And I also learned, from this video, that the blades are so toxic, they cannot be *recycled* in any way shape or form. At the current course of proliferation, we're looking at a future mountains of hazardous scrap metal from this eco-pagan initiative.

That source also profiles a family living in proximity to the Palm Springs wind farm boondoggle. When the all-too-frequent turbine fires are near them....their property gets littered with burning toxic fiberglass. It's so bad they literally can't breathe; and they have to vacate their own home.

Summing it up, we have:

Fire hazards, toxic waste, bird genocide, no economics,....

Oh yeah, and wind turbines are hideous to look at.

Our government is doing so many things, so profoundly wrong at the moment - I submit it all but guarantees imminent financial collapse.