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COMMENT OF THE WEEK
Art Vandelay: “Only the left would be stupid enough to protest against the weather.” Meanwhile, following the weekend’s worldwide day of protest against global warming:
A sudden weekend surge in demand for electricity in Germany due to freezing weather plunged much of Europe into blackness as France and other power exporting countries found their grids overtapped.
Energy supply companies say the power outage nearly caused an unprecedented Europe-wide blackout.
(Via Chris S.)
UPDATE. Ron Hardin writes: “Global Warming protests work! They’re like rain dances.” They sure are:
For the first time in 10 months, Sydney’s catchment areas got their fair share of the downpour from a wet weekend.
“freezing weather plunged much of Europe into blackness”
Isn’t AlGore preaching Global Climate Apocalypse in Europe this week?
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 11 05 at 01:51 PM • permalinkLiving in France (Lyon) and no one here has lost power. Perhaps it is more isolated than reported, or maybe we are just lucky.
Posted by Villeurbanne on 2006 11 05 at 01:56 PM • permalinkkisdm001,
You forgot the third (and most likely) explanation:
The media is, once again, just talking out of its ass.
Posted by David Crawford on 2006 11 05 at 02:15 PM • permalinkWasn’t that an episode of Kim Possible? I blame Ricardo Montalban.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2006 11 05 at 03:21 PM • permalinkThe reason France exports electrons is their exploitation of nuclear power [>65%].
I reckon they would take care of their own first, and export only the surplus. The other Euro nations gone dark would be those who don’t have enough nukes.
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2006 11 05 at 03:22 PM • permalinkMaybe they just got the power Al-gore-rythms wrong?
Posted by curious george on 2006 11 05 at 03:34 PM • permalink#1—So this is what Churchill meant when he said “the lights are going out all over Europe”.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2006 11 05 at 03:34 PM • permalinkThe ersatz replacement for Marxism is Environmentalism, a potpouri of scientific socialism and paganism that has political nitwits of many different stripes all making noises like Chicken Little. Man made global warming is a joke. Anyone with half a brain can discover the climate has undergone drastic changes periodically, from time immemorial, without human agency whatsoever. What’s next, human sacrifice to appease the God Global Warming? If this rubbish weren’t taken seriously, or opportunistically in many cases, it would be grossly amusing. As it is it is hugely depressing that people have the capacity to believe religiously such drivel.
What’s next, human sacrifice to appease the God Global Warming?
well, yes.
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 11 05 at 04:22 PM • permalinkEnergy supply companies say the power outage nearly caused an unprecedented Europe-wide blackout.
I guess that means Germany will build more nuclear power stations instead of closing them as their Greenie coalition government has decreed.
But look at the ‘gem’ in the next line in the ABC news link:
“Authorities say it underscores an urgent need to create a coordinating agency for the entire continent.”
Huh? There they go again with yet another chance by the EU(SSR) to enlarge its (centralised) power base. A coordinating agency is needed? Oh indeed, and what would it do, especially when the power swings “all happened in several seconds”? Anyway the interconnected European power grid operates as a coordinated system for power flows and protection as any electrical power engineer can tell you ..... argh don’t bother to explain especially when there’s a political opportunity. Oh to live in the good old EUSSR!
So politics of the (hard) left again. The answer to any issue, no matter what, is regulation, intervention and control.
Europe is doomed until it scraps the EU and all its strangulating regulations.
But with global warming, to which the EU heartily subscribes in many forms such as the failed EU emissions trading regime, does it mean that the Germans can now freeze in hell?
So a cold weather-induced blackout? You mean global warming might have some benefits? Wow no one [on the left] has ever considered that!
Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2006 11 05 at 04:51 PM • permalinkThe real tragedy is that Art Vandelay once again won the coveted Comment of the Week, yet Bonjour Triteness owns all of the bold tags.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 11 05 at 04:57 PM • permalink#21 ushie
17—please, someone, anyone, explain to me why in the hell Europeans want BELGIANS to control their lives?
Be prepared to read a lot because it’s a long story. Eureferendum Blog has the full story and I’d particularly recommend Richard North’s book ’The Great Deception, Can the European Union survive?’ (see left side pane on his blog for details).
Do the Europeans want the Belgians to control their lives? I’d say not if only because both France and the Netherlands rejected the EU constitution at referenda held last year. However that has not stopped ‘The Project’, merely delayed it. In a nutshell it’s the theft of democracy by stealth.
What’s next, human sacrifice to appease the God Global Warming?
If so, I nominate James Wolcott. He ought to be eager for that, hating people as he does. Or the genocidal asshat described in the link in #14, Dr. Pianka.
Be the first to give your lives for Mother Gaia™, human haters!!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 06:29 PM • permalink#19 Some0Seppo, I must take umbrage (where to I do not know, and who wants it anyway?)
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/lakes_disappearing/ was the first to comment on the anti-weather demonstrations and the weather gods’ response to those demos.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 11 05 at 06:57 PM • permalink#22 Wand, I have purchased and read that book. I can recommend it as being a comprehensive history of the subject, although it is full of minutiae which may not interest non-Europeans, rather like the EU itself.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 11 05 at 07:02 PM • permalink#25 Wimpy
Wand, I have purchased and read that book. I can recommend it as being a comprehensive history of the subject, although it is full of minutiae which may not interest non-Europeans, rather like the EU itself.
Yes, it’s a well researched and written book. I think you’re right about non-Europeans not being interested much in the EU. The problem with that though is that EU thinking (geopolitik) and particularly concepts such as that grand piece of crock called ‘The Precautionary Principle’ affect the world. Their asinine regulations get imposed by stealth through trade (or more correctly non-trade). Take for example the recent ban on lead in solder… all because of the previously mentioned piece of crock. I could go on, but that would be O/T.
Anyway, I admit my interest is a little more than passing if only because I was born in England and have many relatives there. But to brighter things, I’m off to your part of the world in a couple of weeks time to Toronto for a family birthday. Could you please keep the heaters on or organise a global warmening protest to ease my transition from warm Sydney to Toronto? Thanks.
Be the first to give your lives for Mother Gaia™, human haters!!!!
Which only begs the question - why haven’t they done so already?Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 11 05 at 08:27 PM • permalinkWaddawewant?
Pleasant weather.
Whendowewantit?
Now!
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 11 05 at 08:29 PM • permalinkSeems like your poster boy has taken a left turn onto the road to Damascus. What will you do now?
Posted by Miranda Divide on 2006 11 05 at 08:57 PM • permalinkMiranda, thanks for asking. I’m leaning towards getting a piece of the Dairy Queen ice cream cake in the freezer. Maybe a diet root beer.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 11 05 at 09:08 PM • permalinkFrom your link, Miranda:
The meeting will be held in early September, and the election is expected to be called soon after. Around this Christmas the Prime Minister, John Howard, is also expected to promote the parliamentary secretary for water, Malcolm Turnbull, to the ministry with a portfolio that encompasses water and climate change.
[snip]
The Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, said that if Mr Turnbull was given the new super environmental portfolio he would in effect become “the minister for nuclear power”.
Sounds like a great plan to reduce carbon emissions. Not that I worry about carbon emissions, mind you, but if a government is going to address a non-problem, take the opprotunity to solve other problems as well. Like anticipating the need for more power generation stations to handle the increase in demand for electricity.
Ummmmm…...what was your point again, Miranda?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 09:09 PM • permalinkWhat’s everybody else going to do? Miranda wants to know.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 11 05 at 09:10 PM • permalinkwronwright, why a diet root beer? Go for broke, man!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 09:10 PM • permalinkOh, what am I going to do? Emit carbon, of course. Nuke me some supper, drive to a friend’s house for a visit, drive back, and get ready for work.
If I have a few moments, I’ll see about shooting a polar bear. Rumor control says there are a few hiding in the county park.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 09:13 PM • permalinkI’m just very very disturbed that our venerated Prime Minister is no longer taking his cues from the Blogmire. Don’t tell me your influence is on the wane?
Posted by Miranda Divide on 2006 11 05 at 09:17 PM • permalinkOh, and before I forget, Miranda, where were you when hundreds of Muslim men needed an expert apologist?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 09:20 PM • permalinkDon’t tell me your influence is on the wane?
What did I tell, people? Hmmmm? What did I tell you?
BUAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 09:24 PM • permalink#30 Miranda
Seems like your poster boy has taken a left turn onto the road to Damascus. What will you do now?
Firstly, JH is not my poster boy, but let’s not quibble. What will I do? I’ll just watch the wedge politics in action and wait for Australia’s first nuclear power station to be built.
What will you do? Vote for Johnny H?
*blush* Thanks Tim! All this is so unexpected, I didn’t prepare a speech or anything and there’s so many people to thank. Firstly, let me say that the design of this trophy is wonderful. Although it does look a bit like a Zulu spear.
Most importantly, I’d like to thank my family, I couldn’t have done this without them…
<music starts playing>
What? I’m out of time already? But, I haven’t had a chance to talk about fundraising for my latest cause… wait!
<escorted firmly off stage by TRJS and Andrea in sparkly dress>
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 11 05 at 09:26 PM • permalinkArt, Andrea was wearing the sparkly dress. I was in urban camies, thankyouverymuch.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 09:27 PM • permalinkAnd congrats on your award, BTW. ‘Twas well deserved!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 09:28 PM • permalinkOK, so when it’s on the left it’s looney tunes and when its on the right its just a political tactic. I understand now. Thanks for clearing it up. And help me, please, why is nuclear power so great again? Is “the science” clear on that, is it? I had no idea there was such a global consensus on the wisdom of addresing climate change by going “newcular”.
Posted by Miranda Divide on 2006 11 05 at 09:32 PM • permalinkMany thanks JeffS! I realised the sparkly dress line was a bit ambiguous but I decided to leave it just as it was ;)
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 11 05 at 09:39 PM • permalinkI had no idea there was such a global consensus on the wisdom of addresing [sic] climate change by going “newcular”.
Elementary, my dear Miranda! Thusly:
The assertion by Mother Gaia™ fanatics is that Gerbil Warmling is caused by carbon dioxide.
Saving Mother Gaia™ from overheating requires a reduction in carbob emissions, as per the Kyoto Treaty. Ask any greenie if you don’t believe me.
Nuclear energy effectively has zero carbon emissions.
Therefore, nuclear energy is an effective measure to save Mother Gaia™ from Gerbil Warmling.
Please note that the premise “Global
WarmingCoolingChanging threatens Mother Gaia™” is not necessary for this logic. Just that someone else sees Gerbil Warmling as a threat.Like I said, killing two birds with one nuclear power plant…..an excellent move, Mr. Howard! Capital!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 05 at 09:44 PM • permalinkHmmm.
The wierd thing about global warming is that it’s a raising of the world’s temperature that supposedly affects the entire planet. Except that it also results in some areas, mostly populated by socialists, to become vastly colder.
So from this we can infer that:
1. So it’s global warming that’s not quite global with many local variations in temperature.
2. It’s almost completely indistinguishable from our current weather.
3. Something about socialists and uber-liberal lefties somehow generates cold weather patterns a la Al Gore.
4. Calling it “global warming” is a marketing gimmick because calling it “freezing Europe” would make a lot of people in favor of it. And calling it “Slightly Dampening Brazil” wouldn’t elicit anything other than boredom.
Posted by memomachine on 2006 11 05 at 09:56 PM • permalinkWell Mindy, there’s a lot of gullible eejits out there called voters, who suck up any old blather spruiked to them by the likes of Mel and Kochie and other emptyheaded envirocranks, so to appease the fear created by the disinformation spread by the media (who thive on disaster and crisis, there’s no ratings in things going swimmingly*) smart politicians pretned to do something, even when they know the cuase of concern is fictional and any action taken futile.
Personally I’d prefer a leader who had the ‘nads to treat the electorate like adults, and when something is put up that is complete bollocks said issue be treated as such- pandering to the stupidity and gullibility of people is patronising, but unfortunately there’s plenty of Chicken Littles out there who are also on the electoral roll.
*Not so if you happen to be a polar bear.
Where was I today?
Let’s see…
I drove the EnviroWacker 3000 to the range and burned up 150 rounds of .22, 200 rounds of .45LC, 100 rounds of .45APC, 50 rounds of .30 Carbine, and 100 rounds of .38 special. The .45LC were especially dirty, and I added at least a pound of lead to the environment.
Then I drove the aformentioned EnviroWacker 3000 to Applebees and scarfed down enough food to feed an African village for a month.
Returning home, I turned on every electrical light and appliance in my house, and walked the belching farthound - thereby adding even more greenhouse gases to the enviroment.
Ahhhh. A good day.
Psst, Miranda my sweet, your neurosis is showing.
Hmm, what did I do for glottal worfing today? Well, it’s Sunday, so I only did two loads of laundry, and I ran the microwave once. Later I made dinner on a stove, and we had several lights on in the house. Um… right now, we’ve got both television sets going, and I’m not watching one of them. The computer is on. The furnace is kicking in every so often because, despite glottal worfing, it’s cold outside. The hot tub (necessary for two arthritic old fogies) is maintaining a nice, even 104 degrees F. Lessee… nope, I think that’s all. I hope my carbon footprint hasn’t overwhelmed the global ecosystem.
btw, Bolta quotes an article that is well worth reading for this line alone:
This week, I’ll show how the UN undervalued the sun’s effects on historical and contemporary climate, slashed the natural greenhouse effect, overstated the past century’s temperature increase, repealed a fundamental law of physics and tripled the man-made greenhouse effect.
Climate chaos? Don’t believe it
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 11 05 at 10:37 PM • permalinkAs for me I’m going to bed, under my glow-in-the-dark posters of John Howard and George W. Bush. Award ceremonies are so exhausting.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 11 05 at 10:48 PM • permalinkWell all I did was fill up my Holden with petrol, found a nice quiet car park and cooked my old tyres.
So I burned 4 steel belted radials (about 15 minutes - not including swapping the wheels over), and about 20 litres of 98 octane.
Then I went and bought a carton of beer and cooked a half kilo steak on the BBQ.
I hope I’ve made a good contribution to glowball womanising.
Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2006 11 05 at 11:07 PM • permalinkI think I understand this climate change stuff. For the past week I’ve had the worst flu of my life and my internal thermostat has been more confusing than a global
warming coolingclimate change conference. One minute I’m going through the ice age, the next its the medieval warm period. More confusingly this has sometimes occurred at the same time. Just yesterday morning I awoke bathed in cold sweat pouring from my head, whilst the rest of me roasted like a sauna in Hades.With all the confusion I became delusional and looking for relief at any cost I contemplated resting my testicles in the vegetable crisper. If it wasn’t for the awkwardness of the postion I was going to have to adopt I may well have done this. Luckily with rest and time things have returned to normal. The vegetable crisper remains meat free and guests can eat a fresh tossed salad without fear or recrimination. Let this be a salutary lesson not to act in haste to what may just be a passing phase.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 11 05 at 11:22 PM • permalinkI’m just very very disturbed that our venerated Prime Minister is no longer taking his cues from the Blogmire.
Let’s see - John Howard gets the ball rolling on nuclear power by using global warming as a pretext, thus putting the leftard warmenists in the position of saying that the planet is doomed, but they oppose safe nuclear power to help save it.
And Miranda crows about it like it’s a victory.
Good God, lefties are morons.
Don’t tell me your influence is on the wane?
Guess you missed that whole “record two million hits” post.
What will you do now?
Damn if I know, Miranda. I’m trying to install a Williams aperture sight on my Yugo SKS, but I can’t get the old sight off. It’s supposed to pop off easily when you depress the tension spring. I blame global warming for swelling the trunnions.
What do you think, Miranda? Should I bust out the Dremel and the cutting wheel?
Should I bust out the Dremel and the cutting wheel?
You might tapping it with a hammer and punch…..if you haven’t already. Even an SKS can take only so much abuse.
But if Miranda offers to hold the SKS for you, by all means, use the Dremel! ;-)
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 06 at 12:09 AM • permalinkHeh, today’s news seems to be that we evil Germans weren’t using too much power, but not enough. The two popular explanations in the regional press for what happened are:
- in Northern Germany, a major power line (380,000 volts) had been turned off in order to accomodate a cruise ship passing by underneath, putting unexpectedly large stress on other parts of the grid
- an unexpectedly large supply of wind power generated in Western Germany overloaded parts of the grid, leading to cascading failures
The latter would be especially hilarious, if true. (I’d probably be laughing in that case even if my area had been affected last night.) Anyway, they’re saying that, as usual for these things, several different problems likely all contributed and no single problem was ultimately responsible for the widespread failures.
I didn’t get to see the awards ceremony. A thousand Chinese lakes just don’t move themselves. How did Andrea look in her sparkly dress? Was it a short number with off the shoulder top? Or a long gown slit up the side with a plunging neck line?
(anxiously looks for Entertainment Tonight web site for glamour snap shots)
Posted by wronwright on 2006 11 06 at 06:01 AM • permalinkWronwright, Andrea looked fabulous in a black sparkly long gown (although the matching riding crop and spear were somewhat intimidating).
Most of the pics haven’t been posted yet, but here’s one of my date.
Hey, a guy can dream right?
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 11 06 at 06:25 AM • permalinkYou forgot the third (and most likely) explanation:
The media is, once again, just talking out of its ass.
Does that contribute to global warming gases?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 11 06 at 09:43 PM • permalink
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Wow. That’s some blackout. So Germany doesn’t have to invade other European countries anymore, they can just suck up all the energy! I just love the 21st century, don’t you?