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Wave this in the face of your health-freak friends.

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In some of this planet’s driest regions, where rainfall is rare or even nonexistent, a few specialized plants and insects have devised ingenious strategies to provide themselves with the water necessary for life: They pull it right out of the air, from fog that drifts in from warm oceans nearby.

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A new proposal from the Department of Energy proposes an unexpected target for President Obama’s climate plan: refrigerators. By targeting industrial walk-in freezers and restaurant fridges, the department explains, gradual increases in efficiency standards could have enormous effects on energy use, both saving money and reducing carbon emissions. President Obama’s climate plan had drawn criticism from environmentalists as toothless and ineffective, but these latest proposals would raise the stakes, cutting emissions by an estimated 350 million metric tons of carbon over the next 50 years.

The proposed standards would also effect smaller units, like the open-air dairy fridges found in modern supermarkets. Because of the large size of the units and their overall energy usage, the cumulative effect is expected to be equivalent to taking 109 million cars off the road for a year. More importantly, these regulations come direct from the Department of Energy, and don’t require congressional approval to take effect. They’re still just proposals, and would need to be adopted by the president, but given his previously announced climate plan, it seems likely the measures will meet with his approval.

This is the cornerstone of the enviro-nazi agenda: Everything touches the environment, therefore everything is subject to environmental regulations, therefore there is no limit to government regulation. None. There is no sphere into which the government — state, Federal, international — cannot stick its nose, its fingers, and its dick. Not one. That is why it’s vitally important to shut these people down, because the longer they’re allowed to play this game, the harder it becomes to draw the line.

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Presume that you want to do that sort of thing, of course.

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We’ve confirmed a report today that Android VP Hugo Barra is leaving Google for “Apple of China” Xiaomi.

The report was timed to coincide with another story about the dissolution of Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s marriage to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki. It also revealed that a person whom Hugo Barra had been in a previous relationship with was now dating Brin.

Barra’s departure was said to be “unrelated” to the above.

California. Need I say more?

Watch it.

Read it.

It’s not complicated at all. They can charge that because there is no competition, and no price pressure — the people receiving the service aren’t the people paying for it, and there is no political future for anybody advocating that people pay for their own health care when politicians roll over as soon as anybody whines ‘But what about the poor!’ Health care providers charge whatever they can get for every jot and tittle because the government and the insurance companies hammer them six ways from Sunday on everything they do.

What to watch out for in the coming weeks — and years.

Dependency, debt, and cronyism imperil our nation just as much as terrorists operating in Drone-free zones. That troika of hazards risks rendering the fabric of our democratic republic. It leads, ultimately, to a decline in economic strength and, ultimately, to a rise in totalitarianism.

With government consuming an ever-larger percent of GDP, economic growth becomes more difficult. Every day we witness signs of executive usurpation in Washington. While care for the poor, the disadvantaged and the elderly is noble (and necessary in many cases), we must be wary that government does not become overly paternalistic; for dependency weakens the moral fiber of society.

Debt is insidious; it creeps up on little cat feet, especially in an environment of artificially low interest rates. And cronyism is the consequence of bigness – in government, banks, corporations, media/entertainment and unions. Theirs’ is a symbiotic world, each feeding off the other.

Dependency is dangerous no matter the form it takes; it is antithetical to nature. The protective instinct of new parents gives way to the equally natural instinctive knowledge that long-term survivability depends, in some measure, on self-sufficiency. In the wild, animals understand that survivorship of their species means their off-spring must become self-reliant. Birds nudge fledglings from nests high above the ground. While man is societal, he recognizes his responsibility to himself and those who depend on him.

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First Law of Dealing With Introverts: LEAVE THEM THE FUCK ALONE. The rest is commentary.

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Sometimes the old ways are best.

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Why liberals always wind up indulging it in, however fervent their protestations of devotion to Peace.

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Words of wisdom from a Voice of the Crust. (Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.)

The obvious flaw with eating outside is that the weather is often unpleasant. That’s why people aren’t suggesting that we eat outside all the time. Only on special “it’s such a nice day!” kind of days do people want to go outside. But what’s a nice day? Well, it’s a day when the temperature outside approximates the results of indoor climate control technology.

And there it is.

NPR indulges in some wishful thinking.

Colorado’s politics have become positively Californian lately. There are new restrictions on guns. Pot is legal. The legislative agenda featured an expansion of alternative-energy use requirements for rural consumers. Gay couples can now enter into civil unions.

Notice how ‘Colorado’ has suddenly become ‘the rest of the West’. Gotta love that Blue State math. (I bet he went to government schools….)

Lots of Californians have moved to Denver and its environs, bringing a progressive strain of politics with them and angering more conservative parts of the state — so much so that 10 northeastern counties are planning symbolic but serious votes on secession this fall.

Conservatives have discovered that living on the far side of the Rockies is no longer far enough to get away from the influence of West Coast liberals.

“California migration, to a degree, has altered Colorado politics,” says Mike Krause, vice president of the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank in Denver. “I see California license plates in my neighborhood and on my commute all the time.”

So California isn’t so much a place as it is a breeding ground for ideological disease that can be transmitted to more rational areas of the country. (The same thing is happening in New Hampshire, which is being infected from Massachusetts and Vermont.)

* The Kennedy Assassination and subsequent coverup destroyed any trust the American people had in its government.

* The Beatles destroyed the indigenous American rock music culture.

* Vatican II effectively destroyed the Roman Catholic Church for going on fifty years now.

* Betty Friedan kick-starts modern feminist corrosion of American culture.

* Bobby Kennedy closed Alcatraz.

* Coca-Cola introduced Tab and started the fetish of paying good money for things that taste bad.

* The Ngo Dinh Diem assassination and coup in Saigon made the Vietnam war (and campus radicalism) inevitable.

* Harvey Ball invented the smiley face.

* PITA Andrew Sullivan was born.

It’s all been downhill since then.

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In November 2011 Lee Beaumont paid £10 plus VAT to set up his personal 0871 line – so to call him now costs 10p, from which he receives 7p.

The Leeds businessman told BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours programme that the line had so far made £300.

I think this is a great idea. Telemarketers want to call you? Don’t depend on the No-Call List, which doesn’t work anyway and only wastes taxpayer money; get a pay line and give that out to people who insist on knowing your telephone number. (I’m thinking banks, utilities, online merchants, and similar parasites — I’ve signed up to receive all of my bills electronically, so whenever I get a letter from Chase that says ‘Important Account Information’, I know that it’s actually an attempt to get me to charge stuff at a premium rate of interest, so off to the recyling bin it goes.)

Phone Pay Plus, which regulates premium numbers, said it strongly discouraged people from adopting the idea.

No doubt for fear of government interference, which happens every time somebody comes up with a scheme to interfere with the industries that lobbyists get paid big bucks to have governments regulate.

Once he had set up the 0871 line, every time a bank, gas or electricity supplier asked him for his details online, he submitted it as his contact number.

He added he was “very honest” and the companies did ask why he had a such a number.

He told the programme he replied: “Because I’m getting annoyed with PPI phone calls when I’m trying to watch Coronation Street so I’d rather make 10p a minute.”

He said almost all of the companies he dealt with were happy to use it and if they refused he asked them to email.

And there it is — FREEDOM, which is rapidly disappearing in America and is almost extinguished in Britain.

Because he works from home, Mr Beaumont has been able to increase his revenue by keeping cold callers talking – asking for more details about their services.

Hee hee hee….

Read it.

Conspicuously absent from recent discussion is the role and attractiveness of central cities for families with children. In the past, research and observation both indicated that suburbs provided families with cheaper land and housing, as well as safer neighborhoods and higher quality schools.

If you don’t have — and aren’t going to have — more than one or two kids, there’s no reason to move to the suburbs. If it’s just you and your current squeeze, living in an apartment is not a problem, and you’ve got plenty of free time for clubbing, art galleries, the opera, art films, coffee houses, and trendy parties; nobody needs a sitter, and your biggest problem is finding your way home while tipsy.

The New York Times indulges in some handwaving, hoping to point the finger of blame in some direction other than where it belongs, at their masters in D.C.

In the four years since the Great Recession officially ended, the productivity of American workers — those lucky enough to have jobs — has risen smartly. But the United States still has two million fewer jobs than before the downturn, the unemployment rate is stuck at levels not seen since the early 1990s and the proportion of adults who are working is four percentage points off its peak in 2000.

And who was responsible for the Great Recession? Why, the federal government, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and legislation sponsored by Democrat Congresscritters like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the sort of people who get endorsed for re-election like clockwork by … The New York Times. Funny how that works.

Are we in danger of losing the “race against the machine,” as the M.I.T. scholars Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue in a recent book? Are we becoming enslaved to our “robot overlords,” as the journalist Kevin Drum warned in Mother Jones? Do “smart machines” threaten us with “long-term misery,” as the economists Jeffrey D. Sachs and Laurence J. Kotlikoff prophesied earlier this year? Have we reached “the end of labor,” as Noah Smith laments in The Atlantic?

Is it the fault of government schools, who cripple the minds of our children so that they aren’t able to do anything other than things robots can do better? Is it the fault of Federal, state, and local government regulations that make it all but impossible for someone to afford to create and grow a small business? Notice which questions the Voices of the Crust ask, and which they do now.

Of course, anxiety, and even hysteria, about the adverse effects of technological change on employment have a venerable history. In the early 19th century a group of English textile artisans calling themselves the Luddites staged a machine-trashing rebellion. Their brashness earned them a place (rarely positive) in the lexicon, but they had legitimate reasons for concern.

And the fact that their ideological heirs, the Unions, support the Crust and its Voices (like the New York Times) is purely a coincidence. Nothing to see here, move along, move along….

At one end are so-called abstract tasks that require problem-solving, intuition, persuasion and creativity. These tasks are characteristic of professional, managerial, technical and creative occupations, like law, medicine, science, engineering, advertising and design. People in these jobs typically have high levels of education and analytical capability, and they benefit from computers that facilitate the transmission, organization and processing of information.

These are the sorts of people who good schools produce. We don’t have a lot of such schools, although we used to.

On the other end are so-called manual tasks, which require situational adaptability, visual and language recognition, and in-person interaction. Preparing a meal, driving a truck through city traffic or cleaning a hotel room present mind-bogglingly complex challenges for computers. But they are straightforward for humans, requiring primarily innate abilities like dexterity, sightedness and language recognition, as well as modest training. These workers can’t be replaced by robots, but their skills are not scarce, so they usually make low wages.

These are the people that government schools are turning out in impressive numbers, even though we’re spending more tax money on education than ever before.

Read it.

Carbon nanotubes, tiny tubes of rolled up graphene that measure just 1 nanometer across, are super-strong structures that could someday be used in solar cells, batteries, electronic circuits and everyday objects. While researchers are getting better at making large batches of carbon nanotubes, producing them uniformly has been elusive.

Famed scientist and science-fiction author Isaac Asimov attempted to predict, in 1964, what the future would be like 50 years down the road.

I always love reading these sorts of articles. (Did you know that they still have ‘world’s fairs’? I didn’t. I don’t recall hearing anything about them in the news since about 1970. Remember the ‘Motreal Expos’?)

The saddest thing is that Isaac Asimov was a typical Other Left Coast Liberal, as his autobiography makes clear, and a lot of what he predicted would come to pass (Moon colonies! Fission power!) have been made politically impossible by people who believe just like him.

Ti2 Para-Biners

The Silverback

Tuls credit-card sized multitools

Zeus multi-tool

Infrared Pain-Relieving Wrap. I am not making this up.

iDoor camera

Motion-Activated Sprinkler

Heated Towel Warmer. Live like the 1%.

K-Bar Zombie Chopper. Just in case.

Dr Jeffrey Singer turns over a rock.

So we canceled the surgery and started the scheduling process all over again, this time classifying my patient as a “self-pay” (or uninsured) patient. I quoted him a reasonable upfront cash price, as did the anesthesiologist. We contacted a different hospital and they quoted him a reasonable upfront cash price for the outpatient surgical/nursing services. He underwent his operation the very next day, with a total bill of just a little over $3,000, including doctor and hospital fees. He ended up saving $17,000 by not using insurance

This process taught us a few things. First, most people these days don’t have health “insurance.” They have prepaid health plans. They pay premiums to take advantage of a pre-negotiated fee schedule arranged for and administered by a third party. My patient, on the other hand, had insurance.

Second, even with the markdown for upfront “cash-pay” patients, none of the providers was losing money on my patient. Otherwise they wouldn’t have agreed to the prices. With the third-party payer taken out of the picture, we got a better idea of the market prices for the services. It is the third-party payment system that interferes with true price competition, so “market clearing prices” can’t develop.

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Kaeding was performing ACL surgery on a woman who had hurt her knee while playing softball. Glass apparently didn’t hinder Kaeding’s performance or concentration in any way. “To be honest, once we got into the surgery, I often forgot the device was there,” he says.

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These laws include a ban on magazines over 15 rounds (rifle or pistol), background check requirements for every sale in the state, and a new tax–described as a service fee–for those background checks. The background check requirement effectively ends private sales within the state.

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St. Peter’s Prep was the victim of a racism hoax this week, when a black student running for student president claimed that he had been sent racist texts warning him to drop out. It now turns out that the 16-year-old student sent himself the text messages.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Two, actually. Watch them.

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And why not?

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All over America, government officials enjoy privileges that ordinary citizens don’t. Sometimes it involves bearing arms, with special rules favoring police, politicians and even retired government employees. Sometimes it involves freedom from traffic and parking tickets, like the special non-traceable license plates enjoyed by tens of thousands of California state employees or similar immunities for Colorado legislators. Often it involves immunity from legal challenges, like the “qualified” immunity to lawsuits enjoyed by most government officials, or the even-better “absolute immunity” enjoyed by judges and prosecutors. (Both immunities — including, suspiciously, the one for judges — are creations of judicial action, not legislation).

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Kinda late to the party, arent’ you, Professor West?

Guess it doesn’t take much more than black skin and a loud mouth to get tenure at Harvard any more. Pity. Used to be a pretty good school.

Read it.

I suspect that it’s only a matter of time before the U.N. declares American citizenship an ‘essential human right’, the denial of which can lead to prosecution for war crimes or insufficient hygiene or something.

Camp of the Saints is not afraid to ask the obvious question.

Let’s see…

On one side is a Muslim regime that supports terrorist organizations.

On the other are Muslim terrorists who want to erect a more ‘pure’ Mohammedin regime.

Each side is killing the members of the other side.

Nations of The West are saying The United States should get involved in the conflict.

Hmmm……Why?

Let the barbarians kill each other — and I say let them do so with impunity.

Sometimes it best if the policeman [of the world] looks the other way.

And that says about everything that needs to be said on the subject.

Read it.

The two major political parties claim that their policies will lead to better outcomes. What does the data show?

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govBack in 2006, when President Obama was still a Senator, he spoke at a summit on lobbying reform. His remarks were quite critical of Republicans, noting that “we’ve seen the number of registered lobbyists in Washinton double since George Bush came into office.” He condemned the practice of letting lobbyists write legislation, and slammed Republicans for their ties to the lobbying world. “For years now, [the GOP has] openly bragged about stocking K Street lobbying firms with former leadership staffers to increase their power in Washington.”

These days, Obama and his fellow Democrats aren’t exactly bragging about ties between his party and the lobbying industry. But his administration, along with Democrats in Conrgess, have helped facilitate it all the same.

The 2010 health care overhaul, in particular, has meant big business for well-connected lobbying firms—and numerous trips through the revolving door for the former administration and congressional staffers who can help make those firms even better connected still.

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Of course, they have nothing to say about the ‘diplomats’ who are spying on the U.S., certainly not during the Cold War.

Proper U.S. response: ‘Oh, yeah? Just what do you plan to do about it? Pick up your ball and go home? Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.’

Read it.

This week, the movement stands to get a shot in the arm with the release of a new book, Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama From Office. Co-author Aaron Klein, a reporter for the website WorldNetDaily, says preorders of the book by retailers and book clubs were “approaching six figures” prior to its release Tuesday, and the publisher plans to deliver copies to the offices of members of Congress shortly after they return to Washington on September 9.

Read it.

Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility announced Tuesday a successful test of its ultrapowerful laser system, which melds 192 laser beams into a single incredible burst of energy. On Aug. 13, the facility was activated for 14 billionths of a second and aimed at a tiny capsule of fuel. The result: approximately 350 trillion watts of power — hundreds of times more than the entire United States consumes at any given instant.

We have the technology … or soon will.

Read it.

We have the technology.

The Forth & Clyde Canal was opened in 1790 to provide a coast-to-coast (firth to firth) route as a shortcut for seagoing vessels as well as intra-Scottish trade. It was bankrolled by cash borrowed from the government, but it made money on tolls and taxes.

The Union Canal came 30 years later and spurred off from the Forth & Clyde to link up with Edinburgh, connected with the aforementioned stairway of 11 locks. It too was profitable, carrying horse-powered cargo and travellers on steam-driven “swifts” that featured a projecting scythe to slice through row ropes of cargo craft too slow to move aside. It linked Glasgow to Edinburgh in less than seven hours. But the railways put paid to their profitability, cutting journey time and cost.

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Read it.

We have the technology … and the indolence.

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Not bad for something that is ‘just a clump of cells’. Abortion Barbie, call your office.

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My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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In two species — the white-footed mouse and the meadow vole — the brains of animals from cities or suburbs were about 6 percent bigger than the brains of animals collected from farms or other rural areas. Dr. Snell-Rood concludes that when these species moved to cities and towns, their brains became significantly bigger.

As with ‘global warming’, the default assumption seems to be that if anything significant happens in the world, it’s the fault of humans. George Carlin must be spinning in his grave.

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Every year, in one of nature’s great spectacles, a staggering 1.3million wildebeest and 200,000 zebra migrate north from the Serengeti plains in search of fresh pasture, negotiating the potentially deadly river on their way before returning later in the year.

Throw some crocodiles in there, and that’s entertainment.

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We have the technology.

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I am not making this up.

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We seem to be approaching a consensus…. And of course these were the very people who supported Obamacare, and voted for the Magic Negro who pushed it.

When the wallet comes out, you find out what people truly believe, because that’s what they’re willing to pay for — and the Left demonstrates that it’s full of hot air.

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Guess they’re feeling the hot breath of automation on the backs of their necks….

‘Handloom weavers, meet Ned Ludd. Ned Ludd, meet handloom weavers. Now I’m sure you folks have a lot to talk about….’

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Los Angeles recently elected a new head, so former high-living mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is taking a common step for former politicians. He is joining the staff of an elite university. It will be fascinating to discover what he plans to teach Harvard’s young scholars.

The Crust take care of their own.

Alex Tabarrok (a Real Economist)

More than anyone else, Winthrop Aldrich, representative of the Rockefeller banking interests, was responsible for the separation of commercial and investment banking. With the help of other well-connected anti-Morgan bankers like W. Averell Harriman, Aldrich drove the separation of commercial and investment banking through Congress. Although separation raised the costs of banking to the Rockefeller group, separation hurt the House of Morgan disproportionately and gave the Rockefeller group a decisive advantage in their battle with the Morgans.

This is the same reason behind the Crustian .01% cry “Raise my taxes!” — it will ‘hurt’ them in ways that they won’t really notice, while crippling the ‘almost rich’ with whom they compete for luxury goods.

Here’s the big picture. Under certain conditions, free markets channel self-interest towards the social good – that is the meaning of the invisible hand theorem. Unfortunately, there is no invisible hand theorem for politics. There are institutions, such as democracy, checks and balances and an independent judiciary, which help to channel political self-interest if not to the public good then at least away from the public evil. Even given the right macro institutions, however, breaking the iron triangle of politics is difficult. Industry self-interest and the public interest will typically align only accidentally. Universities are not less self-interested than any other actors but support for basic research is (arguably) in the public interest. The usual situation, however, is that industry self-interest pushes well beyond the point of alignment with the public interest. At current spending levels, lobbying by defense firms does not benefit the public even if national defense is a public good.

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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case in which George Zimmerman was found not guilty on all charges was “questionable.”

And of course Colin Powell is a famous lawyer and judge … oh, wait….

Powell was the country’s first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and first black secretary of state.

And still feels that racism is a problem. (Well, he’s right, but not the way he thinks….)