Excellent article "The Myth of Peak Oil" by Randal O'Toole

As a dedicated libertarian I usually pickup a copy of Liberty to read. While I get turned off by some of the strident stances that are based in reality as I know it they have some of the clearest thinking authors to be found anywhere. This article is the best refutation of the "Peak Oil" argument that I have seen yet.

I do think that he missed one thing. These New Urbanists think that they can plan a community that will allow (force?) people to live within walking/biking distance of work or mass-transit to work. I have seen articles on places in Oregon, Florida, California and other places that try to group housing with business thinking that the people will live in the same community where they work. However they neglect the fact that our labor economy is becoming more and more fluid. According to the US Department of Labor Statistics the Americans average three career changes in their working life.

That's not even counting the number of job changes within career fields. One of the biggest hurdles that people are finding today is adapting to this fluidity. The idea that with multiple job changes and three or more career changes could occur without moving from a community with a small pool of employers is beyond concept. I have changed careers over three times and am still in my mid-life, I am also in my eighth state and ninth metropolitan area. To do this I have always rented as it is next to impossible to buy and sell housing and not lose a bundle over these short time periods (I once moved Dallas to Oakland to Sacramento to Northern Virigina in 18 months). Urban planners don't seem to have any real-life experience, probably because many of them are government employees and there for are among the group of people not worried about layoffs.

Maybe telecommunting will change all that. But don't count on it.

Why are we not talking abou the realistic alternative fuels?

You hear tons and tons of reports, discussions, articles, protests, demonstrations, and flat out arguments on fuel cells, ethanol, electric cars, etc. as alternatives to gasoline, but there are realistic alternatives that don't take a lot of investment that have been available for decades. In fact Henry Ford's first Model T ran on hempoline and Rudolf Diesel (yes, that would be the inventor of the diesel engine) made it to run on vegetable oil even using peanut oil for the 1900 World's Fair.

Diesel engines have a lot of advantages today and require no changes to run bio-based diesel that can be created out of most any vegetable oil, hemp, soy, jojoba, peanut and even used vegetable oil. There is a TV show called Coolfuel that I caught an episode of where they used biodiesel to run a motorhome and even a turbine powered pickup. When the pickup stalled several times they figured out it was because the biodiesel was so clean it was pushing impurities from the previous fuel into the fuel filter. When the filter was changed they had no problems.

So why isn't everyone buying diesel powered cars and creating a market for biodiesel? Hempoline is a banner issue for people who would like to see marijuana legalized, not that I have a problem with that. But everybody talking up the Peak Oil scenario (let's not even get into the problems with that theory). My theory is that the enviromentalists want us to feel pain in converting from petroleum based fuels. This is just too easy for them!

I know that my next car/pickup (some years from now) will be diesel so that I have a choice. Meanwhile there are people out there making biodiesel in the own garage to run their cars on. This site is dedicated to how to make your own biodiesel. Check it out and then think twice about plopping down the extra bucks a hybrid car costs.

Here are a few sites which speak to biodiesel and hempoline.

The flip side of people looking for certainty

A post in Geopolitical Review today on Switzerland passing a 5 year ban on GM foods takes the approach that this is a European viewpoint that is just as anti-science as Intelligent Design. Actually I think it is an example of two sets of people both looking for certainty from different viewpoints. The backers of ID argue that since evolution cannot offer a complete certainty that evolution is responsible for life on Earth today that there for we must look at an alternate view to answer the question. The Europeans who are less religious expect absolute guarantee that GM food is safe in all possible scenarios before they will approve, otherwise known as the Precautionary Principle. Both want certainty in an uncertain world.

Study indicates those with contact to pigs have higher risk of infection - DUH!

Thanks to Instapundit I saw this article on a study partially funded by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The study was purported to say "...suggests U.S. farmers, veterinarians and meat processors have a markedly high risk of infection from flu viruses spread by pigs." and "... the fact pigs can be infected by swine viruses, bird viruses and human flu viruses means they act as virtual virus "mixing bowls.""

This quote from the NIAID Director does not sound like very good science, ""The worry is if a pig were to become simultaneously infected with both a human and an avian influenza virus, genes from these viruses could reassemble into a new virus that could be transmitted to, and cause disease in, people," said NIAID Director Anthony Fauci."

I don't know enough about how viruses can interact to know if this is true, but it sounds more like the rational behind supporters of the Precautionary Principle.

The report is also posted at the NIH website which states this "While the findings are not entirely unexpected, the strikingly higher risk of infection coupled with the fact that pigs can be infected by swine viruses, bird (avian) viruses as well as human flu viruses...". The NIH posting gives more data on the study and it's results. For example the study looked at "111 farmers, 97 meat processing workers and 65 veterinarians. The fourth control group included 79 volunteers from the University of Iowa with no occupational pig exposure.". This doesn't seem like that large a sample.

This statement is the heart of this scare announcement "The researchers tested the serum samples for antibodies to several then-current swine and human influenza A viruses. The results showed that all three occupational study groups had markedly elevated antibodies to swine flu viruses compared with the control group. Farmers had the strongest indication of exposure to swine flu viruses, as much as 35 times higher than the control group. Similarly, comparable values were as much as 18 times higher for veterinarians and as much as 7 times higher for meat processors than the control group. In contrast, exposure to human flu virus in the occupational groups was not significantly different than that of the control group."

It would seem logical to me that people who have some exposure to animal products (meat processors) would have some more risk that those with no exposure and those with year round close exposure would have the greatest, apparently this logic is news to the NIH. More likely they would like it to sound like we need more studies done so that they can continue to justify their, likely sky high, salaries.

However all of this comes under the heading of "Not News". We have known for decades and possibly centuries that those people having direct contact with animals are exposed to more bacteria and viruses. While this does cause I higher infection rate it also means that their immune systems are more robust has it has had to grow stronger to battle these infections. If you don't remember this just go back and read All Creatures Great and Small.

About time Sony!

I have tried and tried to copy MP3s to my PC for Sony XCP DRM disks and have not had any luck. I guess reading some of the horror stories it might have been a good thing that I couldn't get the DRM software to work right, as right seems to have been O so wrong for many. I got to the point where if a CD is listed as copy protected I won't buy it.

So imagine my delight when I received the following notice from Amazon today! If you weren't aware and got stuck with one of these drink coasters jump to it!

The Sony CD(s) listed above contain XCP digital rights management
(DRM) software. Due to security concerns raised about the use of CDs
containing this software on PCs, Sony has recalled these CDs and has
asked Amazon.com to remove all unsold CDs with XCP software from our
store.

Since you purchased this CD from Amazon.com, you may return it to us
for a full refund regardless of whether the CD is opened or unopened.
Just follow these steps:

Big&Rich pay homage to a Vietnam hero - Lawrence Joel

Even if you don't like country music, I would suggest you take a listen to the song 8th of November on Big & Rich's new album Comin' To Your City. I am glad to see the bard's of our time paying rightful homage to the true heros around us, most especially one of those who served in Vietnam.

Here are a few of the lyrics;

Said goodbye to his momma as he left South Dakota
To fight for the red, white, and blue
He was 19 and green with a new M-16
Just doing what he had to do
He was dropped in the jungle where the choppers would rumble
With the smell of napalm in the air
And the sergeant said..look up ahead
Like a dark evil cloud, 1,200 came down on him and 29 more
They fought for their lives but most of them died in the 173rd Airborne

Chorus:
On the 8th of November the angels were crying
As they carried his brothers away
With the fire raining down and the hell all around
There were few men left standing that day
Saw the eagle fly through a clear blue sky
1965, the 8th of November

Now he's 58 and his pony tail's gray
But the battle still plays in his head
He limps when he walks but he's strong when he talks
About the sharpnel they left in his leg
He puts on a gray suit over his Airborne tatoo
And he ties it on one time a year
And remembers the fallen as he orders a tall one
And swallows it down with his tears

Chorus:
On the 8th of November the angels were crying
As they carried his brothers away
With the fire raining down and the hell all around
There were few men left standing that day
Saw the eagle fly through a clear blue sky
1965, the 8th of November

Saw the eagle fly through a clear blue sky
1965,,
On the 8th of November the angels were crying
As they carried his brothers away
With the fire raining down and the hell all around
There were few men left standing that day

Chorus:
On the 8th of November the angels were crying
As they carried his brothers away
With the fire raining down and the hell all around
There were few men left standing that day
Saw the eagle fly through a clear blue sky
1965, the 8th of November
the 8th of November,,

Said goodbye to his momma as he left South Dakota
To fight for the red, white, and blue
He was 19 and green with a new M-16
Just doing what he had to do

The introduction to the song is by Kris Kristofferson and them man is Lawrence Joel, a Medal of Honor recipient. One of the wounded saved was a friend of Big Kenny, Niles Harris, and the source of Kenny's hat.

French Car-B-Que

Most posts I see about the French riots tend to spend a lot of time and space looking at the torching of cars (Car-B-Que as Captain's Quarters terms it) but fail to put this in context. In the November 12-18 2005 Print edition of The Economist (I do occasionally read print) they point out that in France there were 21,900 Car-B-Ques in the first seven months of this year, up (how much is not stated) over the previous year. They do mention that this shows that trouble has been brewing for awhile, but fail to try to relate it other than this leap in logic.

Captain's Quarter posted a Reuters story who repeat others car burning barometers mentioning a rise in Car-B-Ques in the Paris area from 84 to 111. Well at 21,900/210 days that is 104 cars per day and change! So 84 and 111 probably fall in the normal pattern, though I don't know how total French Car-B-Ques tracks against only ones occurring in the Paris area. I can't find a source for the Economist's figure and so far have failed (due to so many recent stories) to track it down in a web search. I have also tried, and failed, to find figures for the U.S.. Apparently it is untracked or just not reported on the web at this time. Since I can remember only a very few incidents reported in my local news (and I have lived over the years in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Denver, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Oakland, Reston, Raleigh, Spokance and now K.C.) I doubt if the numbers for all of the U.S. come near 104 a day.

So what makes the French want to torch cars every day? Seems from the numbers that Car-B-Queing is as French as Burgundy.