Global Warming

Global Warming Is Killing Polar Bears!

Wait. No it’s not. Nevermind.

Written on Friday, March 9th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: Be the first to Comment

If you believe the environmentalists and the Global Warming alarmists, global warming is destroying polar bear habitats forcing them to live on small, tiny icebergs such as this:

Makes you want to cry, doesn’t it? Too bad, this is not reality. According to a study released today:

In the Davis Strait area, a 140,000-square kilometre region, the polar bear population has grown from 850 in the mid-1980s to 2,100 today.

“There aren’t just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears,” said Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has spent 20 years studying the animals.

His findings back the claims of Inuit hunters who have long claimed that they were seeing more bears.

I’m no math wizard, but 2,100 bears certainly seems like a lot more than 850 bears.

But of course, counting bears has an agenda behind it. As it global warming doesn’t, right?

While fellow scientists have accepted Mr Taylor’s findings, critics point out that his study was commissioned by the Inuit-dominated government of Nunavit.

Critics claim the government has an agenda to encourage polar bear hunting and keep the animals off the endangered species list.

Everyone has an agenda. Bear counters, global warming experts. Whose agenda leads to the least bias; now that’s the real question. Since the critics have not come up with their own count; you have to at least assume their count is somewhat accurate. Since the critics are also delving immediately into ad hominem attacks here (claiming agenda, bias, etc), I doubt they even know how accurate the numbers are.

Snow Affects Global Warming Hearing…Again

The Gore Effect in Full Swing.

Written on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: 1 Comment so far

I saw this on Drudge this morning, but Hot Air beat me to it. This meeting was already postponed earlier this year; and now today there is another snow alert for the committee hearing on Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet? God’s sense of humor is duly noted once again. Not much to say here, other than (in my best Nelson voice) Ha Ha!

But, I will express dismay that Global Warming is having a negative impact on the brothel business. And this makes me sad.

Brothel owners in Bulgaria are blaming global warming for staff shortages.

They claim their best girls are working in ski resorts because a lack of snow has forced tourists to seek other pleasures.

Petra Nestorova, who runs an escort agency in Sofia, said: ‘We have hired students, but they are temps and nothing like our elite girls.’

Well, at least the college kids can pick up the slack! Whew!

Global Warming, Al Gore & Tithes and Indulgences

What’s Old is New Again.

Written on Sunday, March 4th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: 3 Comments so far

Recently, it was reported that Al Gore’s energy use was highly hypocritical, given his demogaugery of the Global Warming issue. According to one paper:

The home’s average monthly electric bill last year was just under $1,200, according to bills that The Tennessean acquired from Nashville Electric Service.

Of course, Gore fought back, saying that he offsets his power usage by purchasing carbon offsets to lower his carbon footprint on the planet. He buys them from a company called Generation Investment Management, which coincidently (I’m sure) Al Gore is the Chairman and one of the six founding partners. So, in essence, he profits by using energy and buying offsets from himself. The website is very sparse and non-descriptive as to what it actually does, but Wikipedia says that generally carbon offsets are done by planting trees to offset your carbon use, in an effort to become carbon neutral.

Unfortunately, planting trees as a carbon offset is very much in question; as a tree gives off more carbon dioxide when it is decaying than they absorb while they are alive. So, planting trees to offset your carbon usage is completely useless. We won’t focus on this; as there is no evidence Gore is using his company to “plant trees” to offset his carbon usage. It’s very possible it does investment more wisely. It’s irrelevant anyways.

The real point is that, to reduce the sin of using more power than the average American, Gore is buying his indulgences by tithing to a corporation that forgives him of his sins. It’s all very religious. Very medieval.

Gore has also questioned that the media is too fair, in its reporting of Global Warming, noting that 53% (or so) of news stories doubt global warming exists. He thinks the coverage should more reflect his view that Global Warming is real and dangerous.

As Opinion Journal notes:

So, let’s sum this up: Here we have a major American politician who is calling for policies that would impose huge costs on society but appears to be profiting handsomely himself; who is leading an extravagant lifestyle while demanding sacrifices from ordinary people; and who is calling on the media to suppress the views of those with whom he disagrees, while at the same time urging more government regulation in the name of “fairness” to his partisan and ideological allies.

In reality this is a Sacrament of Pennance, “In other words, sin is fully pardoned, i.e. its effects entirely obliterated, only when complete reparation, and consequently release from penalty as well as from guilt, has been made.”

So, as long as Gore can continue to pay for his sins, he is free to commit as many as he wants. This is a similar setup to what Kyoto was, where countries are allowed to continue to purchase indulgences to pay the price of your sins.

Carbon offsetting has become an ultra-fashionable way for the wealthy middle classes to assuage their green guilt by use of a little cash and equally scant thought. The theory behind carbon offsetting is simple: you can repair the damage created by your flight - in the form of emissions of carbon dioxide (the main man-made greenhouse gas) - or other profligate consumption, such as driving a gas-guzzling car, by paying an offset firm to fund the cutting of CO2 production elsewhere, for example by planting trees.

In a world, where money fixes everything. Money gets you a good lawyer to get out of jail, money buys your way into a club, money buys you beauty; it’s not surprising that money cures your sins and lets you indulge in destroying a planet you are supposed to love.

In fact, we have colleges and countries becoming “carbon neutral” through buying indulgences - and proud of it to boot.

The achievement means that the campus has reduced emissions of the gases that contribute to global warming to 7 percent below what it produced in 1990. The reduction was achieved through the purchase of carbon dioxide offsets.

So, what we have here is a college claiming to be more “environmentally friendly” by buying offsets, which actually raise the theoretical carbon footprint of the country where it bought them. So there is no real “reduction” - just the purchasing of continued indulgences. What this means, is that, if you are a country that sells indulgences - and this, buying someone else’s sins - your future prosperity is limited, because your carbon footprint cannot surpass the Kyoto limitations.

Is that what environmentalism is now? Buying indulgences to pay for your sins? And forcing third world countries into perpetual misery in the future because you cannot stop sinning?

Related: Al Gore and the New World Order. Capitalism; that isn’t quite. Very Atlas Shrugged, actually.

Manufacturer Descriptions and Spam?

Unique Content. How Many Times Must it be Said?

Written on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 by lorien1973 :: 1 Comment so far

A forum topic the other day brought something to my attention something that I did not realize was so pervasive. We all know that if you sell a Garmin GPS Device, you are going to have a set description for it - probably provided by the manufacturer. The only difference will be - where does it appear on the page and what font are you using. The question is - is this spam?

In Google’s eyes, I’m pretty positive the answer is “yes”. In another sense, I want to make the point that simply using manufacturer description is a terrible way to build your new webstore.

Let’s start with point 2. I went to shopping.com, and searched for a Garmin product. I’m not in this field, I don’t sell these products, I just know that a product most likely to have the generic manufacturer description is an electronic device. (Obvious reasons).

So I come up to this page. As of this post, 48 stores sell this same product. Seems like a good start. Let’s take a little bit of the product description.

The StreetPilot c-series GPS navigators feature a simple touchscreen interface

And search Google, Yahoo, and MSN and see how many sites have that exact phrase on it. We’ll search using quotes. Google shows 629, Yahoo shows 544, MSN shows 318. Again, as of this writing. So, if you are new to selling this particular product, you are up against -at least- 300 other websites with this same description. And they were here first. You are immediately in competition with homedepot.com, shopping.com, ebay.com etc for this product with absolutely no unique reason why a shopper could come to you first. Price? Hah! You’d do much better for yourself to completely rewrite this product description to be more tailored to your site. It can take a little bit of time and a good writer who knows what they are doing, but it is worth it in the long run. Make yourself unique.

On this same topic, I noticed that many splogs (spam blogs) also use these manufacturer descriptions for their spam content. Which will lead me to my next point.

Is this spam? I define spam as useless content that is not unique and appears all over the internet. Article submission is spam. Copying DMOZ is spam. Reusing Google SERPs to make a scraper site; that’s spam. So, using manufacturer descriptions? Spam. That’s a little gray for me and I’ll let Google/MSN/Yahoo decide for sure; but, if you were a budding ecommerce store, do you want to play the game? Let’s say Google decides one day that these mass produced, easily available descriptions are spam. You’re done. If you prepare ahead and rewrite your stuff now, you’ll be ahead of the game - which is where you want to be. Stay out of any future crossfire.

Play it safe now; safe in the future.

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