Non quia aliquid consequendum

The link is to another of the inevitable elitist out-of-touch Hollywood liberals who need a bandwagon to jump on:

"I want to add my body and my voice to the thousands of others who are laying themselves on the line and saying,'No, we do not want to be party to this incredibly destructive path. We're becoming more dependent on fossil fuels and now we're becoming dependent on the most dirty of the fossil fuels, which is the tarsands fuel'," Hannah said.

TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline would run from Alberta through Nebraska to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas. It would double the capacity of the existing Keystone pipeline.

Proponents say the expansion would create thousands of jobs in both Canada and the U.S. and would help reduce U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil. Environmental activists say the pipeline is too risky and that extracting oil from the oilsands creates far too much greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, the U.S. State Department released a report that said the proposed pipeline would pose no major risks to the environment and would not necessarily spur further oilsands production in Alberta.

There is nothing in life without some risk (title, in classy and hopefully correct Latin thanks to Google Translate), and no, I'm not talking about getting arrested for a sit-in against something you don't like. We are indeed "dependant on fossil fuels", but this will not change by hamstringing our productivity and prosperity. I have gone over the "alternative" energy problem before, but in short Ms Hanna has no idea what is involved in keeping the modern world's lights on if she thinks that all of our energy can be produced by "solar, wind, geothermal, microhydro" and any other pie-in-the-sky "green" options.

Those listed are only good in specific locations and/or on small scale. Solar and wind farms are as much, I'd even say more, of a blight on the landscape as any (decent) pipeline and are not reliable sources of power. Geothermal only works very locally, and you can bet that any large-scale geothermal project (in, say, Yellowstone Park) would have the Green movement's useful idiots chaining themselves to drill rigs. As for microhydro, great if you have your own river, but how many people does that apply to?

Rich people can afford whatever low-efficiency power scheme tickles their fancy; the rest of us need what works, is proven to work, will continue to work or (the future) will work better than what we already have. That last one includes "scary" things like Liquid Fluoride Reactors which will do everything we need it to do, and do it more safely than existing nuclear plants or even hydrocarbon refineries. I would have one in my backyard, or at least where I could see it from there (it's still a powerplant after all) but the Greens would shit themselves at the name of it alone.

In the meantime, the USA needs to get back on its' feet economically and politically, and affordable secure energy is one brick on that path. Celebrities making responsible, informed announcements/actions would help in a small way too but fat chance of that; the sensible ones seem to just keep their opinions to themselves. Cutting the size of their government by about 50% would help that immensely, but that is another post.

Dead Celebrities and Sentiment

I have no unusual compunctions about speaking ill of the dead, but it is generally considered rude. At the very least, if you have unpleasant things to say they should at least be unimpeachably accurate, since the dead guy is in no position to defend himself.

I do however object to the mawkish outpouring of sentiment which is de rigeur for so many people today. Even more than that, I object to being told that I'm out of line by not caring too much about the death of people I don't know.

With that up front, I will come out and back up Christie Blatchford (link) for saying what a lot of us are thinking. Not all of us, maybe not even most of us any more, but still a lot. Jonathan Kay, one of her co-workers at the NPost says it as well as I could hope to:

Eleven years later [after Trudeau's death], it is Jack Layton who has died. And the same climate of enforced sentimentality is in effect: The entire Canadian media has given a free pass to Jack Layton’s widely published deathbed political manifesto, which promiscuously mingled laudable paeans to love and optimism with not so laudable snipes at the Harper government (such as Layton’s encouragement to NDP followers to “restore [Canada's] good name in the world,” as if Canada had somehow become a rogue state under the Conservatives).

There is more, but the freedom of speech here, imperfect as it is, does cover not being sucked in by posthumous propaganda, so those who dare to rail against it should do so and know that they are not alone. As for the late Jack Layton, I never agreed with much he had to say, and I shudder at the thought of his party running Canada, but I wished no ill on the man. The good side? The odds are that the socialist tide is going out with Jack, so I'll wait for the afterglow to fade and hope that we continue to have a solid economy and good governance.

Good on yer, Kate.

This is definitely NOT a celeb-blog, but I must extend some kudos to Kate Winslet for being a fine actress, a babe, and a real person (as I suspected) after all.

The Associated Press

Date: Tuesday Aug. 23, 2011 9:46 AM ET

LONDON — Academy Award-winning actress Kate Winslet helped rescue Richard Branson's elderly mother from a fire that destroyed his Caribbean home.

The Virgin Group boss said in his blog that he wanted to offer "many thanks to Kate Winslet for helping to carry my 90 year (old) mum out of the main house to safety." He joked that Winslet "was wondering when a director was going to shout 'CUT!'

In a separate statement Tuesday, Branson praised Winslet's two children, 10-year-old Mia and 7-year-old Joe, who were also staying in the house when it caught fire. He called them "two of the bravest kids I've ever come across."

Good children are most often the result of good parents, so more evidence (if it were needed) that she's no vacuous starlet. As for Sir Richard's house, he can afford to build another one, and I'm certain Ms Winslet and her family will have a standing invitation to stay over.

The End of The Beginning in Libya

OK, I'm back, and there seems to be some movement on the Libyan front so I'll start there.

The rebels are fighting out in the streets of Tripoli as I write this, and Gaddaffi is nowhere to be seen. Between his own stupidity over the years and the now-standard announcements about sending Col. Gadfly to the International Criminal Court, he has nowhere to run, rumours of him being in Algeria notwithstanding. Nobody really reads Sun Tzu, so of course these guys will fight to the end.

I still hold that NATO has no business involved in any of this, but there we are. We can hope that some good comes of this, as the Gaddaffi clan will not be missed, unless the place pulls a post-Saddam Iraq and degenerates into chaos of course.

Assad in Syria is still misbehaving (arguably much worse than anything Gaddaffi has ever done), so we'll see in the near future how important this "humanitarian" intervention stuff is to our side. Leaving for the moment the whole Axis of Evil business with Iran and Hezbollah, best current public estimates of the civilian death toll in Syria is 2200 since the populace decided it has had enough. Turkey is the only power, regional or otherwise to be making any moves in relation to this, the rest of NATO nowhere to be seen.

Oh well, plus ca change and all. These situations have room to change significantly so I will ease into it. If you're still here, thanks, and I'll be back with more soon.