It’s Probably Nothing

Ethical Energy 10 Comments

Looks like we picked a bad time to fall behind the export curve.

Commercial development of the globe’s huge reserves of a frozen fossil fuel known as “combustible ice” has moved closer to reality after Japan and China successfully extracted the material from the seafloor off their coastlines.
[…] Commercial-scale production could be “transformative for northeast Asia, particularly for Japan, which imports nearly all its hydrocarbon needs,” said James Taverner, a senior energy industry researcher at IHS Market, a London-based consulting firm.

h/t Sask Watch

This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society

Animal Rights Extremism 3 Comments

RIP Ringling.

Capping a legacy that stretches back to the legendary 19th century showman P.T. Barnum, the circus bids farewell at a series of shows this weekend at newly refurbished Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale on New York’s Long Island. A worldwide audience will watch the last show on Sunday evening via a live stream on the Ringling website.
The finale, announced by parent Feld Entertainment Inc in January, comes a year after the company bowed to pressure from animal rights activists and agreed to stop using elephants in its performances. A featured attraction for more than a century, the elephants had come to symbolize the Ringling Bros brand.
Feld decided to fold up the tent as a result of high operating costs combined with lower ticket sales, it said in a statement at the time. After phasing out the elephants, the owner said, the decline in attendance was “greater than could have been anticipated.”

Their final show begins at 7pm Eastern. And then it ends.

Everything Old Is New Again

Uncategorized 30 Comments

I feel like I’m back in the Bush years, when the news cycle was a steady drumbeat of negativity, smear, and drive-by; quagmire, grim milestones and flag draped coffins. It was up to the conservative and libertarian blogosphere to counter the narrative, bringing news on the military successes and political progress in Afghanistan and Iraq that couldn’t be found on the mainstream networks.
Well, everything old is new again.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday that new tactics approved by President Trump to defeat Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters have thrown the terrorist group on “their back foot.”
Speaking during a Pentagon press conference, Mattis said the U.S.-led coalition was increasing its pressure on ISIS by encircling fighters in their “strongholds.”
“[Trump] directed a tactical shift from shoving ISIS out of safe locations in an attrition fight to surrounding the enemy in their strongholds so we can annihilate ISIS,” Mattis said.
He explained that by “taking the time up front to surround these locations, instead of simply shoving them from one to another” coalition forces are able to “carry out the annihilation campaign so we don’t simply transplant this problem from one location to another.”

Lord, grant him strength.

YOU Get Infrastructure! And YOU Get Infrastructure!

Political Animal Shiny Pony 24 Comments

And YOU get infrastructure!

Here’s what he said in the House of Commons: “We’re going to continue to invest historic amounts in infrastructure that are going to help families get to and from work in a reasonable amount of time; back in time for their kids’ soccer games. We’re going to make the kind of investments that make a difference for small businesses being able to get their goods to market.”
Taken at face value many Canadians would have no qualms with such a statement, which suggests the government is undertaking a massive expansion and improvement of the country’s core infrastructure–roads, bridges, railways and ports. After all, infrastructure of this kind can improve the economy’s productive capacity by helping move people, goods, and resources more efficiently within Canada and to international markets.
But the reality of Ottawa’s infrastructure plan is quite different from what the prime minister suggests. Very little of the new “infrastructure” spending over the next decade is earmarked for projects that will actually improve Canada’s core infrastructure. In fact, a mere 10.6 per cent of the nearly $100 billion in new infrastructure spending is earmarked for trade and transportation…

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