Category: Gummint

Oh Dear

Bureaucracy, Eco-Crap, Lies and Untruths, Watermelons

We’re always being told how bad Eeeevil Oil is for us, for the environment and of course for the pore likkel beasties in the fields.

First off, we have to stop using oil-powered vehicles and start using Duracell-powered cars and trucks (lol) instead.  Except that it turns out that electric cars are worse for the environment than gasoline-powered ones (see here for the !SCIENCE!).

So if Teslas and Priuses are doubleplusungood after all, then we need to start using “sustainable” eco-fuels like corn-based ethanol because sustainable.  (Even Formula 1 is moving towards using ethanol-only fuel in the next couple of years, the idiots.)

Sounds good, right?  Errrr, nazzo fast, Guido.  Add this little snippet to the “Solution Is Worse Than The Problem” category:

The US biofuel program is probably killing endangered species and harming the environment in a way that negates its benefits, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is largely ignoring those problems, a new federal lawsuit charges.

The suit alleges the EPA failed to consider impacts on endangered species, as is required by law, when it set new rules that will expand biofuel use nationwide during the next three years, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which brought the litigation.

Not that we need any further proof that the EPA is to the environment as cancer cells are to the human body, but I digress.

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set minimum levels of biofuel usage for the transportation sector. The new rule approved by the agency calls for about 15bn gallons (57bn liters) of conventional corn ethanol for each of the next three years, plus an increase from 5.9bn gallons to 7.3bn gallons of advanced biofuels during the same time period. 

About 40% of all corn grown in the US is used for ethanol production, and nearly half is used as animal feed.

While the fuels are designed to decarbonize the transportation sector, their production eliminates wetlands and prairie land that act as carbon sinks, Hartl noted. The EPA in 2018 estimated that up to 7m acres (2.8m hectares) of land had been converted to grow corn for ethanol fuel. 

Ethanol production also pollutes water. Regulations around pesticides and fertilizers used in corn grown for ethanol fuel are much looser, which means much higher levels of dangerous chemicals run into surface and groundwaters. The pollution probably plays a significant role in dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico after pesticides flow down the Mississippi River, Hartl said. 

Read the rest to see how the EPA is ducking and diving to avoid doing anything that might actually, you know, alleviate the problem.

One by one, every single alternative proposed by the Greens (and their lickspittles in academia and the media) is proving to be a complete fiasco:  wind- and solar power generation instead of nuclear, electric vehicles (EV) instead of internal combustion engines, and now biofuels instead of gasoline.

But Oh No! we have to preserve the Gaia Cult — even if it kills us (and Gaia).

Fucking bastards.

Been There, Done That

Crime, Gummint

This little item brought back a few unpleasant memories:

Three Transportation Security Administration officers were arrested at Miami International Airport for allegedly stealing from passengers during security screenings.

Arrest affidavits show that 22-year-old Elizabeth Fuster, 33-year-old Labarrius Williams and 20-year-old Josue Gonzalez were all arrested Thursday on charges of organized schemes to defraud.

According to the affidavits, the airport federal security director for law enforcement at MIA contacted a Miami-Dade Police detective regarding thefts that occurred at Checkpoint E involving TSA officers. The investigation revealed that three officers, while on duty, were seen on surveillance video conspiring together to distract passengers as they were being screened and stole money from their belongings.

This has happened to me too, only it wasn’t at Miami but at Jan Smuts O.R. Tambo Airport in Johannesburg, at the end of my last [sic]  visit to my hometown.  After unloading my pockets to go through the security cameras, I was (very politely) asked to open my carry-on bag for “extra” security checking.  I did all that, then redressed (shoes, belt etc.) and went off to get some coffee before takeoff…

…only to discover at the coffee bar that all the cash had been stripped from my wallet — about $200, £250, R300 and €50 all told.  Nothing to be done, of course — cash is untraceable, so I had no proof that I’d arrived with any cash in my wallet.

Plus, this was Johannesburg so what else could I expect?  South Africa wins again.  Bastards.

You Have To Ask?

Government Thugs

The Federalist asks the question:

It’s probably more pertinent to start guessing under what pretenses the fucking Fibbies will frame him.  Some thoughts:

  • tax issues
  • campaign finances
  • breaking the Sabbath
  • discovering FBI spies among his campaign staff
  • unpaid speeding tickets
  • criticizing the federal government
  • running an unlicensed lemonade stand in 1973
  • transphobia
  • reading a comic book on an airliner
  • flirting with a woman during his college days
  • wearing white after Labor Day in 1982
  • owning a gun
  • misogyny
  • having a cancer survivor for a wife
  • putting mayo on his fries

…and if there aren’t any federal laws addressing some of the above crimes, they’ll invent them.

We Don’ Need To Follow The Steenkin’ Law

Government Thugs, The Gun Thing

Oh, this is jolly:

In an unprecedented move, twenty armed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents carried out a raid on a gun store in Great Falls, Montana, seizing all Form 4473 – documents that record buyer’s information during firearms transactions.

“We have now confirmed that both the IRS and the ATF were at Highwood Creek Outfitters in Great Falls around 7 am this morning. Both the IRS and ATF would not say why they were there,” KMON Radio reported.

“A spokeswoman for the IRS would only say they were there on official IRS business. The ATF says it was providing assistance to the IRS. We attempted to enter the store today and were stopped by agents at the door who would only say that the gun store is closed and will reopen tomorrow,” the news outlet added.

Considering that this raid was conducted under the auspices of the fine folks at the IRS, one would question whether the agents needed to confiscate the 4473 forms — which, lest we forget, contain absolutely no financial information.

However, ’tis an ill wind that blows absolutely no good, and there’s this little snippet:

Highwood Creek Outfitters is America’s largest online firearms and accessories mall, according to its website. The store is known for selling what Van Hoose calls “fun guns,” including AR-15’s and AK-47s.

And they did all that despite my never having heard of them before.  Sadly, I’m not in a position to give them any business at the moment, but if any of you are thinking of making an online purchase of a gunny nature, you might want to give HSO a look.

As for the Gummint thugs… [taking the Fifth here, Boss]

Long Time Coming

Legal Stuff, Rights, The Gun Thing

I’ve always maintained that it’s an injustice for someone to lose their Second Amendment rights because of a criminal record imposed by the commission of a non-violent crime.  By all means, deny the Second to recently-paroled armed robbers and the like — but for non-violent offenses like forgery or tax evasion?  No.

Seems as though some judges are coming to the same conclusion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held this week in Range v. Garland that the government cannot disarm people convicted of minor, nonviolent offenses.

Unless I miss my guess, this is headed straight for the Supremes — and they’d better get it right.

Life Lesson

Gummint, Lies and Untruths

…well, not for me, nor for most of my Readers, but this story reminds us why we should never believe what the fucking government tells us:

Michael Shellenberger’s Public today released a blockbuster story, “First Person Sickened By COVID-19 Was Chinese Scientist Who Oversaw “Gain Of Function” Research That Created Virus,” which generously credits Racket. The story cites three government officials in naming scientist Ben Hu, who was in charge of “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as the “patient zero” of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is a major story, contradicting early official explanations pointing to zoonotic cross-species “spillover” at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, colloquially known as the Wuhan wet market. The mystery bat or pangolin suspected of transmitting the disease to humans at that market was never found. The Public story for the first time asserts the source of contamination: a Wuhan Institute scientist fell ill after exposure to a virus engineered at his place of work.

The implications of this are enormous and represent a major problem for the federal health bureaucracy, several intelligence agencies, and the news media, to say nothing of politicians in both parties (but particularly those on the Democratic side) who’ve deflected public interest from the Wuhan Institute and gain-of-function research. The secrets of both the pandemic’s origin and the reason for America’s at-best-sluggish investigation of same have become the mother of all political footballs, and today’s news is likely to be just the first in a series of loud surprises.

So all that bullshit about “markets” and “bats” was just that:  weapons-grade

My trust in government was always on the low side, having grown up in a totalitarian society.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that our own American government is, if anything, worse than that.

Trust nobody — and most especially, don’t trust anything the government tells you, when the likely outcome is that they can increase their control over us, with our consent.

Like I said:  a life lesson.