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DEATH HOUR
An Earth Hour warning from greenist Rob George:
He believes we need to urgently address the excesses of the past few decades. “I think there’s an awful lot of talk and very little action. Cars keep getting bigger, houses keep getting bigger, there are more people,” he says.
"I hope we’re getting to a stage where we’re going to react against that."
Keep your lights on, citizens. For safety.
Good idea, CB. After all, Mr. George is worried about there being too many people, right? So he and his ilk ought to be first in line for the suicide booth.
Do it for Mother Gaia, Rob! Do it for the children!!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 23 at 12:29 AM • permalinkThis dislike of big cars by Leftists goes way beyond a belief that they’re “bad for global warming.” Oh that’s the excuse but it’s more than that.
It’s a really primal hatred. Or perhaps fear. It sounds crazy but I suspect they’re actually afraid of them.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 23 at 12:46 AM • permalinkBefore environmentalists commence their inevitable final solution, I propose they start with warnings on packets of viagra, accompanied by horrifying photographs.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2008 03 23 at 12:52 AM • permalinkBefore they decide to plunge Australia into darkness for one hour, they might want to read this. Getting colder
Perhaps time could ask people to “triple their carbon footprint” to celebrate the great benefits that electricity and light have bought us over the last 100 years, including an increase of life expectancy from about 30 years to about 80 years today.
Posted by hkcapitalist on 2008 03 23 at 12:57 AM • permalinkAnastasios says their rethink has also changed the way they get rid of things: “We try not to throw things out - we might take stuff down to the Sacred Heart Mission [op shop], sell things on eBay, have a garage sale or leave stuff on the nature strip."
Yeah, just leave your rubbish on the nature strip. Good idea.
Growing up on Sydney’s lower North Shore in the 1940s and ‘50s, nothing went to waste, says Keelah Lam. She remembers bread being delivered in waxed paper, which was was preserved for wrapping sandwiches or for one of a thousand other uses around the house.
But when Lam returned to Australia in 1974, after living in Malaysia for 17 years, she witnessed rampant consumerism where simple reusable items such as waxed paper had been replaced by the ubiquitous plastic bag.
Waxed paper had a thousand uses around the house? Ubiquitous plastic bag?
What is she on about? Waxed paper is not as reuseable as plastic bags, it never kept lunches terribly fresh. I’d like to see her wrap her doggy-doo in waxed paper.
Remember, too, that the 40s followed directly after the depression* and the Second World War.
*Depression. Remember that. We might need to recycle some ideas from then pretty soon….
Evidence of how little the left knows about fascism is the resemblance of their own rhetoric to it.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2008 03 23 at 01:23 AM • permalinkEnvironazis or enviroloonies? Which the more apt descript?
Oh, and kae, they haven’t a clue about depression…Posted by American Interests on 2008 03 23 at 01:27 AM • permalinkI’m amazed at the cleverness of these people. Who would of thought of growing vegies in the back yard or having chooks?
What might be less clever is using grey water on the garden. It is a health risk to apply it to vegetables. Also, powder laundry detergents have a high salt content. Using grey water from this detergent every day will kill plants as surely as sea water. Probably will kill the neighbour’s garden too. Borax, the main component of eco-friendly homemade detergent is a banned food additive in the US.
While looking up stuff for the comment at #12, I discovered another reason why Muslim women have a hard life:
For Laundry Detergent, you can use Soap Nuts one of two ways:
1. Toss 2 or 3 Soap Nuts in a small muslim bag and throw it in with your laundry.The word is muslin.
"Cars keep getting bigger”
I went out and measured my car. It’s the same length it always was.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 23 at 01:44 AM • permalink"Toss 2 or 3 Soap Nuts in a small muslim bag”
Then duck, because she’ll probably try and hit you.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 23 at 01:45 AM • permalink#12 contrail
I’m amazed at the cleverness of these people. Who would of thought of growing vegies in the back yard or having chooks?
What might be less clever is using grey water on the garden.
I’ve got grape vines and fruit trees in my yard, and my mother keeps hens for the eggs. Not because we’re Greenies, but they’re better when they’re fresh and/or “ripened on the vine”.
Using grey water for irrigation in the garden is strictly verboten around here, almost certainly for the reasons you cited.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 23 at 02:06 AM • permalinkI did note the sarcasm in contrail’s #12. I meant no offence, btw.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 23 at 02:08 AM • permalinkBelinda Carlisle once suggested
Darling leave a light on for me
I’ll be there before you close the door
Darling leave a light on for me
Just leave a light on for me
Just like a spark lights up the darkPosted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 23 at 02:13 AM • permalink#12 that’s an important observation, Contrail. These people are poisoning themselves and their child.
Now I know why I don’t recycle water from the washing machine. The things you learn here!Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 23 at 02:17 AM • permalink#9 kae: caught that idiocy, too ...
Growing up on Sydney’s lower North Shore in the 1940s and ‘50s* ... say no more?
... waxed paper had been replaced by the ubiquitous plastic bagBecause it provides an air-tight seal, keeping the food fresh, FFS?
*I guess that scourge, Tupperware, replaced the Grecian urns, too?
This whacked woman should be placed in (Rudder’s?) House of Wax ...
Spare me the platitudes, please!
Rob lives in East St Kilda. We’re talking a nice stroll of a few kilometres into the heart of Melbourne if that’s what he likes.
There are trams, buses and the occasional train depending on where his house is, and if he bought the house then he’d have to be on a good income to pay the mortgage.
As for there being more people! WTF do you expect when the bleeding hearts brigade you subscribe to keeps bringing in more refugees to add to the regular immigrants? They’ve got to go somewhere.
Unless, of course, Rob’s solution would be to set them all down on an island with huts powered by solar energy and rows of corn and potatoes and carrots.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 03 23 at 02:27 AM • permalink"Growing up on Sydney’s lower North Shore in the 1940s and ‘50s, nothing went to waste"
Yes we used the dripping off the chops for our bread. Bones went into the garden patch.
"bread being delivered in waxed paper"
No straight into a bed box then a bread tin.
We had Earth Hours went power went off.
Ah! Nostalgia!
"I try to find ways of producing zero waste. I see it as a fantastic game - I really enjoy competing with myself to see in what ways I can reduce my impact on the environment."
Why not just disappear?
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 23 at 03:09 AM • permalinkGrowing up on Sydney’s lower North Shore in the 1940s and ‘50s, nothing went to waste...She remembers bread being delivered in waxed paper...
I thinks she made that up, i.e., it’s a lie. I’m old enough to remember the iceman and unpasteurised milk delivered in a billycan (admittedly remote rural Australia). That’s the late 50s.
Bread wasn’t delivered in waxed paper. Just ‘as is’. Plastic didn’t come along until the 60s when ‘Wonderbread’ sliced bread came on the market.
Posted by walterplinge on 2008 03 23 at 04:16 AM • permalink#35
"unpasteurised milk delivered in a billycan That’s the late 50s."
Sydney suburbs the iceman, milk delivered in a billycan, the early 50s.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 23 at 05:11 AM • permalink# 1 CB.
I can probably help out with that. Put a 180 grain Speer softpoint thru a fox at 185 metres last night.
So my eye is still in. And two of the young sons of the VRWC meant that I spent a deal of time early this AM skinning rabbits.
Trouble is that there’d be no sport at all in greenies, what with them being dumber than dirt. They are also a bugger to clean, no brain, no spine, and totally full of sh*t.
/rant on/Seriously, how can a ‘greenie’ call itself a conservationist if it is not doing the practical hard yards, like going out and trapping or shooting the introduced vermin species (rabbits, foxes, deer, cats, goats, pigs, donkeys, horses, camels, dogs) which are slaughtering out native wildlife? Or if they are hoplophobes, going out and joining local landcare groups and spending their weekends ripping out blackberry and lantana vines, or willows, olives, pines or the hundreds of other introduced vermin plant species buggering up the bush?
Guess they are both hypocrites and lazy.
/rant off/MarkL
Canberra#19 spiny norman. Vegies and chooks in the Aussie back yard were normal until the late 1960s. It is remains normal in the village I live in but it happens to be 1960 here. And I mean that as praise. It is quite nice to live in a place where houses and cars are left unlocked, where volunteers do what governments usually do and almost no one votes Labor.
#23 daddy dave You can use grey water, just not on vegies and not in the one spot all the time. Liquid detergent will reduce the salt problem.
Cars keep getting bigger, houses keep getting bigger...
Lovers keep on lovin
Believers keep on believin...New Zealand Herald:
The last Fairlane to leave Ford Australia’s production line is to be auctioned for charity.
The BF Fairlane Ghia is powered by a 4-litre, six-cylinder engine mated to a ZF six-speed automatic transmission and is painted silver.
It is the final example of more than 250,000 Fairlane and LTD vehicles built at the company’s Melbourne plant between 1967 and 2008.
Fairfax Digital:
...According to figures obtained by Drive, the No.1 selling car among private customers this year is the Toyota Corolla (above left), followed closely by the Mazda3 (centre), with Toyota’s Yaris (right) and the Echo model it replaced No.3. Commodore comes in at No.9. Imported vehicles fill the top eight spots on the private top-sellers list.
The figures are sure to create big headaches for Australia’s four local manufacturers, which all make large cars.
Private consumers buy four times as many Corollas as they do locally built Falcons and four-cylinder Camrys. Private sales of Corolla are more than double those of Commodore…
The end of the big car is nigh.
The end of the big car is nigh.
If it is, then it will be due to market forces, not ideology. But let’s not organise the funeral service just yet.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 23 at 06:00 AM • permalinkSure monaro, but that is because it is young girlies and their mothers insisting on a new car, and thus little puss boxes like the yaris fit the pay packet. Can’t have a second hand one, it’s used.
And why buy a new commodore privately? There are so many near new ex fleet ones for half the price of a new one, you’d have to be an idiot to buy a new one, (unless it’s a noviated lease).
I have a little bet going with the the new crop of
indoctrinatednatural resource graduates at work. I am betting the price of oil will be below $60 a barrel in 2011.
They look at me like I am mad.I also enjoyed explaining to them the concept of ‘base load’ power demand and what a crock is earth hour this week. I was accused of destroying delusions by one of my more senior policy officers. My bad.
I’ve gotten to the point where it appears my next vehicle to destroy the planet is going to be a 10 year old Range Rover. All leather, all electric, all power. This will match the uber-turbo import wagon, and Gaia-crushing V8 F-truck. All bear witness to the fury that is turning dead dinosaurs into velocitation, at the emergency rate.
#40
Although Ford introduced the long-wheelbase sedan to Oz via the Fairlane in the 60s, GM/Holden continue to sell 3x as many Statesman/Caprice (=Chevrolet Caprice) into the Middle East than into the domestic market, where it outsold the Fairlane/LTD c. 3-to-1 (it is also shipped to China as the Buick Park Avenue); Ford prolly screwed their market via lack of range/styling updates, etc.
The Middle East demand changed the Oz Caprice into a sports orienation as it is known there as the Chevrolet Caprice SS, thus the Oz version also gets tougher suspension tune than the Statesman equivalent (c/- a happy WH LS1 owner).Greenist? Probably many other “ists” as well. Saddam had solutions to too many people, but all the screams of “illegal” have been thrown at the west.
Words of Wisdom from EU Referendum: Five Years On
“That the US failed to secure a UN resolution which “mandated” the invasion of Iraq now gives solace to those who claim the war was illegal but, as we have remarked before, to find that this number includes a goodly number of Eurosceptics is a worrying development.For those, in their battle with the European Union, who argue that the sovereign state is the ultimate authority, the test of a legal action lies with the state.
As long as an action is taken in accordance with the constitutional arrangements of a state, then it is legal. To argue otherwise – and thus in this instance to accept the UN as the arbiter of what is and is not legal, is to slide down that slippery slope of accepting the authority of trans-national bodies as superior to that of the sovereign state.
In that the US and the UK went to war in accordance with their own constitutional principles, their actions in invading Iraq were entirely legal – period. To argue otherwise is to accept that there is a higher authority than the sovereign state. This we cannot and will not do."
This is just like those movies this guy is telling us the truth but we don’t listen.
Then again this is real life.
Posted by Old school on 2008 03 23 at 07:58 AM • permalinkGuess what, in two short years China’s CO2 increase since 2000 will have vastly, that’s right vastly, exceeded reductions achieved by all countries that have signed up to Kyoto combined! China emissions to swamp Kyoto reductions by 2010
Enviroloonies silence on China is deafening…Posted by American Interests on 2008 03 23 at 07:59 AM • permalink#45 “I was accused of destroying delusions by one of my more senior policy officers.”
I’ve been accused of the same by a younger co-worker who acted like I just proved to her that there is no Santa Claus. Fully grown adults who pride themselves on being very hard-nosed about life in general will swallow the global warming nonsense hook, line and sinker and then act injured when their delusions are dispelled.
Sorta O/T, but not much.....
OMIGAWD, WE’RE GONNA FREEZE!!!!
/envirotard scrabbling for new looming disaster to advocate.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 23 at 09:40 AM • permalinkKae #9
Depression. Remember that. We might need to recycle some ideas from then pretty soon….
In the US we’ve got at least two presidential candidates threatening to do exactly that. Unfortunately, they’re pushing the stupidest and depression-prolongingest of FDR’s ideas from the 1930s.
Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 23 at 10:17 AM • permalinkEntropy #45
I am betting the price of oil will be below $60 a barrel in 2011.
How will that happen?
Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 23 at 10:28 AM • permalinkBlogstrop #49
the US and the UK went to war in accordance with their own constitutional principles,
Not so much. We kind of skipped right past that whole Section Eight thing.
Crossie #54
Fully grown adults who pride themselves on being very hard-nosed ... act injured when their delusions are dispelled.
“Don’t ruin Cuba for me!”
Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 23 at 10:37 AM • permalinkWe kind of skipped right past that whole Section Eight thing.
Only if you believe that Congress must always declare war regardless of the situation, and/or disregard the President’s authority as Commander in Chief (Article 2, Section 2).
Oh, and overlook the War Powers Act of 1973, which is the mediated compromise between the Legislative and Executive branches on precisely this constitutional conflict. And which has been carefully followed by both branches during the Iraq war.
The fact that many people don’t like the war in Iraq does not mean we didn’t follow the principles of the Constitution. It just means that the democratic process, as set forth in the US Constitution, does not require unanimous agreement.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 23 at 11:47 AM • permalinkDave S #59
I’m guessing Entropy feels the current price is artificially high because of a speculative bubble, and bubbles eventually burst.
Okay, that could be partly kind of right, but only if speculation is the primary long-term determinant of oil’s price, which I bet it ain’t.
Don’t forget, oil was $100/barrel in ‘81 (adjusted for inflation), and tanked in the ‘90s.
I did forget that! Still, at the rate they’re putting new cars and buses on the new roads and streets in India and especially in China, I still expect demand for oil to increase at an increasing rate. And so should you.
Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 23 at 12:14 PM • permalinkThe_Real_JeffS #61
Only if you believe that Congress must always declare war regardless of the situation, and/or disregard the President’s authority as Commander in Chief (Article 2, Section 2).
I don’t believe they always must, but I do believe they had plenty of leisure to do it in the right way, back in 2002/2003. And I also believe that if they HAD done it in the right way, there would be zero of their stupid “defund-the-war” bills rolling through Congress, every ... what? ... every two weeks for the past three years?
Oh, and overlook the War Powers Act of 1973, which is the mediated compromise between the Legislative and Executive branches on precisely this constitutional conflict. And which has been carefully followed by both branches during the Iraq war.
That’s some low-quality legislation, right there, and the results have been crap. The WPA’73 was in effect when we bailed out of Viet Nam, because it made it easier for Congress to chicken out on an unpopular ongoing war. If it remains in effect during an Obama or Clinton administration, there is a very real danger of Congress doing exactly that.
The resolution passed in 2002 was even lower-quality legislation, and gave Congress infinite slack to waffle and Clintonize and Kerryfie and distance themselves from the war, placing the entire onus of it on Bush’s executive branch. It was the most craven piece of legislation ever, imho.
An actual declaration of war would commit Congress to actual victory.The fact that many people don’t like the war in Iraq does not mean we didn’t follow the principles of the Constitution.
The fact that I pick the same constitutional nit as those people do does not mean I don’t want the war to be won. They’re picking the right nit for the wrong reason; I’m just being a stickler for the rules, because the rules work better in their uncompromised form. Doubt it? Compare the outcomes of the declared war against Japan versus the undeclared war against N.Korea/China.
It just means that the democratic process, as set forth in the US Constitution, does not require unanimous agreement.
The process set forth in the US Constitution has become steadily more democratic over the centuries, and this has not been a good thing. Especially as regards the waging of war. Because if a war needs to be popular throughout its entire duration, in order to continue to be fought, most wars won’t clear that hurdle.
Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 23 at 12:33 PM • permalinkfHF, it sounds like that you and I actually agree on the same principles. I’d guess I’m more pragmatic about the current idiocy.....
That’s some low-quality legislation, right there, and the results have been crap.
That pretty much describes most Congressional legislation since the 1960s. But at least there’s a process that they agree on, even if the Dhimmicrats use a silly “vote and duck” strategy to maintain their street creds.
Still, as much crap as it, the WPA73 remains a valid law. Wishing it away ain’t gonna happen. It’s there, so we get to deal with it.
I’m just being a stickler for the rules, because the rules work better in their uncompromised form. Doubt it? Compare the outcomes of the declared war against Japan versus the undeclared war against N.Korea/China.
I doubt it not all, fHF. But reverting to the original Constitution, and doing away with this “living document” crap just ain’t in the books right now....if ever. That would require a fundamental shift in voter beliefs away from the left.
The process set forth in the US Constitution has become steadily more democratic over the centuries, and this has not been a good thing.
And that’s why we have the current impasse. The Constitution has been watered down over the years, not in small part due to those Congresscritters voting themselves bread and circuses for several generations.
However, when you look at the entire situation around the Iraq War, and assuming that one accepts the WPA73 (I know, I know, but assuming, OK?), then the elected idiots in Congress have no one to blame but themselves, since they approved the original legislation, and have failed to rescind it since.
And they won’t EVAH blame themselves, of course. Instead, they scream about “Bush Lied!”, and mouth the same words as the nutroots do, all in a massive pandering effort intended merely to maintain the status quo, and thus keep themselves in power.
Until our elected leadership (and their political cronies in the DNC and RNC) stop putting themselves ahead of the country, we will be in this situation; that’s the only way we’ll ever see genuine unity (e.g., World War II).
And the only chance we have of doing that is either armed revolution (not likely), or those cretins realize that they are a major source of our current problems (difficult, but more likely....but not a lot, IMHO).
So hoisting them on their own petards, especially regarding WPA73 is one way of pointing out the facts to them.
Pointing out that the WPA73 is flawed is valid, of course. But the flaw is not that bypasses the Constitution; it doesn’t, it merely codifies common sense protocols, God knows why. The flaw is that the Executive and Legislative branches are encroaching on each other’s territories, as set forth in the Constitution. WPA73 is merely a symptom of the disease.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 23 at 01:08 PM • permalinkWell, I’m still grumpy about it, and am gonna bitch!
Posted by formerly Huck Foley on 2008 03 23 at 01:22 PM • permalinkPlease do, fHF! Please. Ain’t nothing like smacking people along side the head, and reminding them that America didn’t rise to our current levels of achievement by winning the lottery.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 23 at 05:03 PM • permalink
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I’m happy to assist crazy Rob remove some of these impediments to a clean atmosphere. We’ll start with Rob and his ilk.