Fracking Unbelievable

Presented for your cringe-worthy reading...well..."pleasure" just doesn't seem to fit, as you will see. 

Recently, a not-very-close relative (by marriage) whom I will refer to as "Moderate," (as she risibly refers to herself in her Facebook profile...though between pretty much her every position and that of the DNC there's not enough daylight to support the photosynthesis of a forest-floor fern) posted this NYT (Natch) story about hydraulic fracturing (and, the gods help me, I fear the day will never come when my BSG-loving soul will cease to chortle like Beavis when I hear the word, "Fracking," [huh-huh...see?!]). She commented thus:

"Moderate": Drill baby drill....our EPA Chief says there's no evidence of fracking threats to water. Anyway, who cares? It's Texas and no amount of scientific evidence will prevent them from drilling for black gold. Florida will even send over the Sweet Tea...just stay away from our Coasts. :-)  [Gee, I wonder how she feels about Texans...and why...]

NOOCYTE: Billions of dollars of domestic revenues, thousands of American jobs, more supply on the global markets (and so less gelt for glorified Bedouins and socialist nut-jobs), and thus far no convincing evidence of environmental damage. What's the down-side? Am I missing something?

“Moderate”: It's in Texas and, acknowledging all the upsides, as you've enumerated, I'm all for it. Where we differ is I don't believe for one minute that fracking is not a hazard, regardless of Lisa Jackson's testimony. It took Medical gurus decades to determine Eggs are GOOD for us. Seemed a no brainer to me, which is why we've always eaten them. Have the opposite, no brainer instinct on fracking, where scientific analysis is in its infancy. As long as it's not happening off the Florida Coasts, and my drinking water isn't being piped in from Houston, I'm happy to support it. ;-) [heart-warmingly altruistic, innit?]

Occam's Stubble (“Moderate's” husband [Note: English is not his first language, so no fair judging on writing skills...no fair, and hardly necessary, as you will see...]): There are 1000 "secret" chemicals used in Fracking.

Noocyte: It's a fairly straightforward matter to test groundwater on an on-going basis. The proprietary nature of the chemicals involved in the activities of companies engaged in highly competitive extraction procedures does not change that. If impurities are found, then investigations will ensue, and countermeasures implemented. It's not like there is any shortage of watchful environmentalist eyes on this (informed by the aesthetic, "instinctive" aversion to industrial development which is their stock in trade). Given the lack of evidence of harm thus far, and the immense benefits of the technology, it seems only sensible and sane to proceed. And, for once, that sense and sanity appears to be winning the day.

Occam's Stubble: Lack of evidence? So why all the secrets? Its not a competitive issue that IP ["Intellectual Property] can not cover. As a Chemical Engineer, I understand the process and there is much harm. There is marketable value and benefits, but there is much harm to the extent the industry was made exempt legal action. See the documentary GasLand on HBO. [BWAAAA-hahahaha!!!]

Noocyte: Thousands of wells, years of data, sworn testimony of numerous experts (from across the whole political spectrum), and the lack of ONE case of demonstrable harm tied to the process itself (as opposed to localized mishandlings of safety procedures).....versus one widely-discredited piece of cinematic agitprop. I'll take Door #1, thanx.

Not all secrets are conspiracies; industrial espionage is a real threat viz an emerging technology where any slim advantage can score a company (which is investing $tens of billions) critical market share.

Random Drone: gasland explains it all. It is devestating [sic{k}]

“Moderate”: If a substantial number of GOP members on the Hill had their way, there would be no investigations of anything and the EPA wouldn't exist, so who/what would be conducting investigations? We should trust the gas industry to police itself? <...lol>

To reiterate, Texas is welcome to Frack away and let's give them massive tax subsidies to carry out their environmental hazards. I'll be happy to reap the benefits and none of the health risks. ;-) [After all, they're only Texans!]

Occam's Stubble: [NOOCYTE], you surprise me. Pulverizing, liquefying the underground with water, mud and tons of "secret" chemicals, poisoning aqueducts [citation?], gas leaking all over the place [ibid], into the water wells, the air, etc, etc, [ibid, ibid]  there is harm [because I say so] . To say this is safe for the areas people around it, it is ludicrous. You probably also believe the Golf spill caused no harm as well [based on...]. No sea mammals dead. No pollution for years to come. Yes, when a secret group of oil, gas executive met with Cheney [I was WONDERING when he'd show up!] , hide their agenda, created new laws exclusive to them, bending existing laws, effectively making them exempt to the Clean Water Act and many other EPA mandates, then its corporate conspiracy to weigh the risk of benefits vs harm [HORRORS!]. To say, there is no harm is ludicrous [not necessarily...but then, I never did say that, did I?]. There is no corporate conspiracy, beside the fact IP is good enough, the land was divvy up even before they had the land deeds. And when it couldn't be taken for the cheap, they went in sideways underground to quicksand the earth [that is, there are fewer drill points, and a smaller above-ground footprint...and this is a BAD thing...]. There are clusters of environmental and health issues, and many close settlements. Hey, we live in the society and we all need the energy. But so suggest it is clean, no harm, you surprise me. Thought you were more smarter than that.

Noocyte: So, by way of arguing your point, you simply repeat your assertion, but include more adjectives, in order to make hydrofracturing sound more like rape (since everyone knows that the best way to make a scientific argument is to evoke an emotional/aesthetic reaction), and to throw in the perception of consensus/authority (technically known as the "C'mon! *EVERYBODY* knows this; whatsamaddawitchoo?!" mode of argumentation). And in a final flourish to make a logician leap with glee, you throw in the venerable "I thought you were smarter than this" variant of the "No smart people would disagree with me" argument. Real tour-de-force, there.

Let me try: These companies are engaged in a contest with each other to find the best formula for most effectively flushing the goopy black (and potentially explosive...can you *PROVE* that it's not a mortal danger down there?...) tarry stuff from between the layers of Mother Earth's otherwise pristine crystals, infusing these ingredients in such a way that spider-web-like filigrees of delicate fissures spread and grow to allow the toxins to flow out. What sensible and sensitive person would want to stand in the way of this cleansing ritual? It's perfectly *OBVIOUS* that this is so, regardless of what anyone (with questionable motives and uncertain moral fibre) might say to the contrary.

Better yet: Point me to a SINGLE conclusive bit of evidence that Fraccing has contaminated drinking water (hint: you won't find one), released levels of methane into the air and water that exceed what happens naturally (ditto), or had any other higher-than-error-variance effect on any natural system whatsoever (trifecta!). Talk to me about the results of the EPA study, when they come out in 3 months or so.

And please try to do better than "Gasbags" or whatever by way of supporting documents. If I had $100 for every documented falsehood and distortion in that sad waste of videotape, I could drill my own damn well.

Possibly Sensible Skeptic: [Noocyte].. ?: to what do you refer to to prove your point: an article, TV documentary, personal work experience or all of these? JA [Ed: “JA” = Just Asking”]

Noocyte: [Potentially Sensible Skeptic]: multiple sources. Can provide sample links later, but I'm on mobile at the pool, and wee keyboard is a PITA for such things. Suffice to say, I don't single-source anything, not even/especially not the things with which I agree. Multiple sources and layered vetting insulates me against...well...against things like Gasland.

Potentially Sensible Skeptic: [Noocyte]...Thx

“Moderate”: Science is not my strong suit [clearly] and I won't pretend to know this technology. That's why I married a chemical engineer. :-)) [Well, then....nah, I'll be good...] I'm convinced fracking is detrimental [what was that part about not pretending...?] but Texas is a state with a mindset that doesn't care about environmental hazards as evidenced by history. Let them frack away, and I'll be happy to be a recipient of more plentiful US Oil.

Noocyte: [Potentially Sensible Skeptic]: As promised, here is a slice of the sourcing I've done so far on this subject:

Scientific American article raises legitimate questions, debunks assorted “Gasland” myths, and indicates no evidence of groundwater contamination:

http://...www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-investigates-safety-of-natural

And here's a report from the Geological Society of London, drawing on both US and UK data, again showing no evidence of environmental harm from hydrofracturing:

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/pid/9936;jsessionid=BB88DCFA6E9CB1D16C42E5438165C91C

Here's a link to an EPA study from 2004, which actually deemed fracking to be sufficiently low-risk as to merit no further study (which it's subsequently getting anyway, which is a GOOD thing...but which paints a picture of the history of the subject's treatment):

http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/uic/pdfs/cbmstudy_attach_uic_resp_to_comments.pdf

Finally this article from Popular Mechanics discusses a fracking-related accident in PA, showing that the contamination which resulted from that accident was related to specific hardware problems at the site, and NOT to the process itself:

http://m.popularmechanics.com/science/8521/full/

That should do for now, as I have no wish to SPAM this thread. But it's a fair sample of the sorts of vetting which needs to be done on...well, ANY subject, but especially on one which partakes of such strong emotions and connects with so many fundamental (and generally unspoken/unacknowledged)
assumptions.

Occam's Stubble: [Noocyte], you're wrong and there is plenty of evidence [which I will now proceed to NOT provide], but more importantly, for any scientist, its common sense [Funny, here I was thinking that science was one of the ways we protected ourselves from the "Common Sense" of "Authorities..." What a silly peon I've been. To the Camps with me, then!]. I think my credentials as a chemical engineering [Hey, I wonder if this guy might be a Chemical Engineer or something...]  suggest I do know more about "pollution" than you do, so I won't bother wasting my time with such nonsense.[QED, GIGO]

Otherwise Smart Person: I have no comment on fracking; I simply don't know enough about the technology to say. *But* as for the downside, 4 words: burning more fossil fuels! In the short run, and for my lifetime...I'll be selfish and say let's do it and get off the Saudi, er, tit, as it were, and lower the fuel prices. However...in the (not so) long run, and I mean in another 50 years - after I'm gone hopefully - God help those on this planet who will be dealing with all the fallout from our ever worsening global warming scenario!...If we can plow $$$ into this, we can also plow money into alternative energies! The technology is there. ....and please don't ask me to provide sources for global warming due to burning of fossil fuels. That shipped sailed long ago. Basically 98% of the world climate scientists say so - that's good enough for me....!

[...]

Noocyte: [Otherwise Smart Person]: The fossil fuels are going to be burned anyway, within any reasonable time frame. The alternatives lack the reliability, energy density, and scalability to change that to any meaningful degree in the near term. The question, then, becomes: "who profits from them?" As you note, the Saudi udder leads back to a metabolism which adds nothing to the world but cultural and geopolitical flatulence. If instead that voluminous lucre were to flow into American coffers, it would serve to enrich a society which is unmatched for innovation and inventiveness. If *any* society stands a chance to take the increase in economic dynamism which such profits would provide, and leverage it toward the development of such things as core taps, tidal power, on-orbit solar generation, evolved fission (thorium and pebble-bed systems, as well as reprocessing+), and eventual fusion power, it's certainly NOT the Clown Princes of the dune states. And it's sure as shootin' not that basket-case Chavez and his sulfurous sludge (not to mention his oil).

+...and, alas, as I noted on another thread, we can scratch Germany from that pursuit!

Occam's Stubble: [Noocyte], Go visit a Petroleum Plant, geez, don't you smell that crap when you on 95 or near the airport [because everyone knows that nothing in nature smells bad, and everything that smells bad is a hazard]. This stuff is BAD and weighing it against the society gains/risk is a DIFFERENT matter altogether, but quit the bullshit that this stuff isn't harmful [ummm...No?]. You are talking to a Chemical Engineer and I've worked on Coal, Oil and Nuclear and the waste factor is the common problem and there is simply a long history of the cluster side effects. Pleezzzzz.

Occam's Stubble: And for the layman, Gas was also part of my work, including extractions from all known sources including COW MANURE! [Seriously, what could I possibly add at this juncture?!]



[Ah hell: So I threw in one more comment. What can I say: I'm a tinkerer...] 


Noocyte: Final note: I'm dismayed to have to point out that, were one to re-read my posts on this thread, nowhere would one find me making the definitive assertion that hydraulic fracturing is *harmless.* The reason for that is that.... I. Don't. Know.  What I *have* said is that scientific analysis had thus far quite failed to demonstrate harmfulness (that is, failed to disprove the null hypothesis), and, given this, it is sensible to proceed, with continued study and oversight, in light of the ENORMOUS benefits to our society of exploiting these PRODIGIOUS indigenous energy reserves.

But, if subsequent analysis were to show statistically significant evidence that fracking is as harmful as gargling plutonium at an outdoor Cher concert...without sunscreen, then I'd be first in line to demand substantial modification --or outright dumping-- of the procedure.

Funny thing about science: one of its chief benefits to our civilization is the degree to which it *protects* us against the "Common Sense" of those who cloak themselves in the mantle of one sort of Authority or another, and demand that we acquiesce to the "no-brainer" assertions which they deem themselves to be above having to support with such dreary minutiae as..you know...*evidence*.

Environmentalist Victory! One Step Closer to a Utopia of Stone Knives and Bear Skins!

I am authentically pissed about this!

It reveals a level of information processing for which a central nervous system is altogether optional, a primitive tropism more suited to algea than anthropos. It is just the sort of unreflective herd-'thinking' which led me to cease --with extreme prejudice-- referring to myself as an "Environmentalist" a long time ago.

Yah, let's turn a net energy exporter into a land of rolling brownouts (when the wind dies down) and imported Russian gas (when you don't offend them), because of the great risk represented by all of those infamous German earthquakes and tsunamis....oh...wait...

Agent K: "A person is smart. People are dumb, dangerous, panicky animals, and you know it!"

In-fracking-deed. Alas, Dr. Crichton, you left us too soon!

Afghanistan: They'll Cut (a deal) and Run

[by Mr.Hengist]

The initial reports had the casualties at 80 dead and 120 wounded in Charsadda, Pakistan, on May 13, 2011. The attack was loosely targeted at a training center for Pakistani security forces. One bomb killed cadets and, notably, bystanders at a nearby market. The second bomb, by design, killed first responders tending the victims of the first bomb. In this how the Taliban expressed their sympathy and anger, in deeds fitting their words, at the U.S. having sent ObL to sleep with the fishes. In deeds, how like ObL and Al Qaeda; their aims and methods make for a well-suited match. It's a timely and poignant reminder of why we unleashed our fury on them in the aftermath of 9/11, and a rebuke of our having let so many flee to safety. We should have done a better job of cutting off their escape routes and killed them in in far larger numbers.

POTUS Obama reluctantly fulfilled his campaign pledge by increasing our troop presence in Afghanistan by paltry numbers. Having done so, POTUS Obama is now once again looking for the exit. Instead of redoubling our efforts in response to Taliban atrocities, the Administration "has accelerated direct talks with the Taliban" and "U.S. officials say they hope [this] will enable President Obama to report progress toward a settlement of the Afghanistan war when he announces troop withdrawals in July." Let's hope the Taliban don't cut a deal until at least the next round of U.S. elections so that we can replace these Democrats before they can run away.

Two Shots and a Splash

[by Mr.Hengist]

The news came late and I was already visiting the Land of Nod, during which all I could dream about was making stock. Vegetable & meat stock in my slow-cooker. All night long, dream after dream. I kept waking up and thinking, "Augh, another one - why can't I have better dreams?" I've been planning on making that dream come true this weekend when I'll use my slow-cooker for the first time to make vegetable/meat stock, and I've been sort-of looking forward to it, but spending a whole night dreaming about is kind of lame.

When I woke up and checked the news I learned that another dream had already come true. A desire, really, not a dream - an angry, blood-lust desire for death upon that POS ObL. I read the banner headline and, as is typical of me, I had no reaction but an unverbalized need to read more, to learn more, to put the headline into a context into which I could weigh its veracity. ObL dead, they say, but we know that many of Al Qaeda leadership have been declared killed many times, only to pop up alive again whack-a-mole style. The more I read the more certain I became that it was a believable claim, although I will admit that when I read that the body had been dumped at sea I had my first verbal thought, which was "How convenient." I'm a skeptic by nature. I guess it just takes time to sink in when the news is big; further reflection elevated the probability of the truth status of this news to high. OK, look, I hadn't had any coffee that early in the morning and, in retrospect, it probably would have helped things along. The news started to sink in when I got into the shower.

ObL is dead. Well, good.


Surprisingly, that's all it's amounted to for me, in terms of the emotional resonance it's had on me. Not triumphalism, not jubilation, not even satisfaction. Pity, that; I'd hoped to get more mileage out of it. Granted, I'm not one for celebrations in general, but I've gotten more jollies out of finding a stray sawbuck on the sidewalk. I'm not sure why. I still feel anger and sadness at 9/11 when I think about the horror of that day, and I still feel the hot anger and bloodlust well up when I think about the jihadists and their evildoings. I don't know and I'm not going to dwell on it because it's not important. ObL is dead and that's a good thing, even if that's all there is to it for me.

Kudos to our combined intelligence and military which carried out the mission, with well-deserved accolades to follow. Surely the kill-team need never buy their own drinks again. Kudos to the Obama Administration for following through with the pursuit and having the cojones to execute when the opportunity was established. Really, you have to hand it to POTUS Obama: candidate Obama said he would go into Pakistan to get high-value targets, and, by Crom, he has. He's long-since stepped up the missile attacks inside of Pakistan, and with this mission he's ordered a boots-on-the-ground assassination of a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, highest value target. May the Cambodianization of Pakistan continue until we've reached a satisfactory outcome.

There's snark and criticism to be had at the expense of the Obama Administration, yes, but it's mostly persnickety. I will add the following thoughts:

- Assassination mission against ObL, not "kill or capture": good. The potential for intelligence gleaned from interrogation has little promise in this case. Let's face it: there's nothing we could offer to coax it out, and this administration would probably not extract it by force. The fiasco of trying to apply the due process of a civil prosecution which we've already seen with the Gitmo detainees would go to 11 for ObL; better to avoid it altogether.

- Burial at sea: good. For exactly the reasons given for doing it, it's good. Granted, my first impulse was far more excessive even than Glenn Beck's ("wrapped in bacon"), so much so that I will not sully this blog with my dark and profane fantasies, but I've reconsidered the matter and the disposal of the corpse as it was done was the correct strategic decision, IMHO.

- The ever-changing details of the mission: sadly, it's to be expected. I've come to the point where I note with a mental "Asterisk of Doubt" all information we get in the opening days of crisis. Even seemingly unmistakable chunks of a story can later turn out to be altogether wrong.

- Not releasing the ObL kill-photo: my loss. I'd like to add it to my collection, as a trophy. At any rate, the era of photographic "proof" has passed for this kind of thing, as everybody knows that, given enough time and a motivated forger with good photoshop chops, one can fake such a thing. It reminds me of a podcast to which I'd listened of an event at the Heritage Foundation, "The Role of Psychological Operations in Strategic Communications" in which one of the speakers describes talking to Afghan villagers after 9/11 and how they didn't believe it happened, even after being shown video. Oh, they knew about airplanes, sure, because airplanes flew over the skies of Afghanistan, but skyscrapers? Why, everyone knows you can't build a building that high! They were convinced it was some kind of Hollywood trickery. At any rate, there is an accounting to be made amongst the Leftists who oppose the release of the ObL death-photo yet clamored for the release of Abu Ghraib photos - another time, surely.

Not surprisingly, there's a chorus from Liberals that the death of ObL means we should get out of Afghanistan. As if that was ever the point. Well, I'll give the hippy-dippy peaceniks credit for consistency on this: when things go well, they see that as a reason we can finally leave, and when things don't go well, they use that as an argument for why we should leave. They did that for Iraq just as they're now doing it for Afghanistan; it's sort-of an unfalsifiable assertion in that regard.

This is why it's important for the Obama Administration to make it clear that our fight wasn't just against Al Qaeda, but rather it is against the jihadists who seek to destroy the West and subjugate the world under Sharia Law. Sadly, of course, he won't do any such thing, as neither he nor Democrats in general seem to believe any such thing.

At the very least there must be a dear price to be paid by Pakistan for their complicity and aid to Al Qaeda, and the jihidists who fight us and our Allies in Afghanistan and India and elsewhere. Perhaps Obama has the temerity to cut off aid; I suppose it possible he might more closely ally the U.S. with India. I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised - but not hopeful.

Thoughts on the End of Osama

I have just quaffed my last shot of Paddy's Irish whiskey, purchased in Ireland, which I've been saving (since 2002!) for this very occasion. It's been confirmed that Osama bin Laden has --at long last-- been removed from the equation.

Some of my friends have been expressing unease about the celebratory frame with which we greet the death of another person, however ghastly his acts in this life. This disquiet is to their credit, in a broad, humanistic sense...I suppose.

After all,  we all begin as infants, seeking milk and warmth and comfort, innocent and without stain.

But those who grow to make it their life's work to deny these things to others have parted ways with the mass of humanity to whom very much empathy is owed. I am not unmindful of the loss at the heart of Osama's loss of heart. But nor am I inclined to shed a tear for the stilling of that cold, twisted organ.

The world is now a fractionally better place.

 

Some expressed discomfort with the 'eye-for-an-eye' quality of Osama's death, expressing a preference for a more New Testament approach to such things. Maybe it helps to think of this more as a "render unto Caesar" thing than an 'eye for an eye' thing. It is not mere vengeance nor even 'retributive justice' to end the life of one who actively and passionately strives to end the lives of others. As I said, a while back, whatever one's narrative of how it arises, the chilling subordination of essential human empathy to the merciless logic of ideology must be resisted with every sinew of our civilization, for the sake of civilization itself.

This was less an act of  'payback' than it was an immune response.

 

Some have voiced misgivings about the potential for retaliatory strikes, to avenge the death of  'the Emir.'  This is not a concern which is lightly brushed aside. It is a very real possibility. However, one of the few things for which I all-but-unreservedly give credit to this Administration in its otherwise feckless and incoherent foreign policy is the blistering tempo of operations --via drone strikes, primarily-- against the command structure of al Qaeda within Afghanistan and (arguably more importantly) Pakistan. The capacity of that organization to mount operations has been very severely degraded compared to its past capacity to project force. By no means can the will of al Qaeda to inflict retributive damage be discounted. However, the logistical and command-and-control capacities of that organization have been scrambled quite devastatingly. This is not to say that the "franchise operations" which have come terrifyingly close to snuffing out countless lives in recent years will not land a blow, which they will attribute to revenge for their fallen leader. But can anyone seriously argue that such strikes would not have been in the offing in any case? If anything, timetables may be accelerated to seize the occasion, thus providing more opportunities for critical, actionable errors and breaches of OPSEC.

It's been a while since OBL could realistically be called the head of the snake. But this is one mortal coil about whose shuffling off I have no qualms in hailing most heartily.

The whiskey, after all, did age most deliciously!

Keynes/Hayek Throw Down

(H/T to Mike-The-Lone-Reader-Of-The-'Cyte)

I am in awe at the sheer density of awesomeness in this vid. I'd seen it linked elsewhere, but was deterred by the 10-plus-minute runtime. Silly, silly 'Cyte. It's a pugilistic rap-battle, pitting the top-down, interventionist Keynesian model against the free-market, Classical Liberal position of F. A. Hayek. Hilarious and well-produced, and informative, and surprisingly balanced.

Worth. Your. Time.

Failure To Launch

I was thinking today about how fitting it was for President Obama to be present at today's final launch of another Shuttle. After all, I thought, who better to preside over the end of an Endeavor? But I suppose this works, too.

Anyway, that scrubbed liftoff was very much on my mind as I read this piece from Investors about the Reagan Administration's recession recovery and that of 44 (H/T to Instapundit).

I remember in the 80s how righteous I felt as I poo-poohed "Trickle-Down Economics" (and isn't that just an infelicitous pairing of images!). The difference from then to now is akin to that from rocket fuel to corn-based ethanol.

We'll be lucky if we clear the gantry at this rate.

UPDATE: Bad link fixed.

Transparency

To borrow a formulation from Glen Reynolds:

They told me that if I voted for John McCain, freedom of the press would be stifled. And they were right!

UPDATE:  Well, if I'm gonna be scooped, it might as well be in as fitting a manner as this!

UPDATE: Grf! Fixed another bad link. Thanks to Mr H for alerting me to another installment of the Blogger Follies.

A Royal Flush

(Adapted from a Facebook reply to a friend who wondered: "Not to offend anyone, but why should anyone on this side of the Atlantic give a rat's ass about the royal wedding?")


In a few hours, millions of people --an uncomfortable number of whom reside in the US-- will be rising early from their slumbers to witness the pomp and pageantry of the wedding of Prince what's-his-face with what's-her-name.

The best answer I can give to my friend's query is this: Because Americans have, right from the start, exhibited a deep (and, I submit, deeply unhealthy) obsession with the very sort of aristocracy which, I seem to recall, we kinda fought a war to shake off.

We're always trying to turn our celebrities and politicians and "Robber Barons" into a kind of royalty, while we look on, agog with admiration (and envy) from our serf-tilled fields. The tabloids and tell-all documentaries are our modern guillotines.

It's almost as though we've not ever quite recovered from the collective trauma of eliminating an hereditary gentry from our culture and society, and substituting a truly egalitarian, meritocratic system.

But there's really nothing quite as UN-AMERICAN as the very notion of an aristocracy. Personally, I find the whole thing nauseating in the extreme.

Needless to say, I won't be setting my alarm.

Progressive Standards of Civility - both of them

[by Mr.Hengist]

Last night I was mulling over something VPOTUS Biden said regarding the current budget dispute: "The Republicans this time are totally, and I don't mean this in a pejorative sense, are out of the closet." It's an interesting use of that phrase. Biden did of course mean this in the pejorative; they are "out of the closet" in terms of their public plans for the Federal budget, and pejorative in the sense that Biden thinks they intend to do wrong and wishes to debate against their nefarious plans. Nevertheless, what struck me was that he would use that turn of phrase at all - and that Liberals have let it slide. Progressives see themselves as gay rights advocates and the defenders of gay dignity, so how is it that one of their own can use this turn of phrase in this way - referring to Republicans revealing their true and (supposedly) harmful intent? If he had said, "the monster's out from under the bed" it would have been a different matter, but "out of the closet" is strictly associated with homosexuals revealing their orientation, and it's considered a good thing. Using it to describe what Liberals consider to be evil Republican goals is oddly inappropriate.

What, I wondered, would be the Progressive response if Republicans had used this "out of the closet" phrase in a similar way but aimed at Democrats? If, say, VPOTUS Cheney had remarked that we now see the Democrats "totally out of the closet" in regards to their intent to dramatically cut DOD funding? I imagined the response would be swift and strongly condemning. As luck would have it, today we are treated to a real-life example - and even better, it's not just used by Republicans but it's also aimed at Republicans.

A college Republican group called upon conservatives in the student body to "come out of the closet." University of Iowa professor Ellen Lewin's response, in an email back to the students: "F--- you, Republicans."

Vulgar and uncivil, certainly, and weren't Liberals decrying the "incivility" of the Right only a few of months ago after the Giffords shooting (by a non-right-wing madman, no less)? In a NYTimes blogpost just last week the Nobel laureate NYTimes columnist Dr. Paul Krugman's mask drops, falls to the floor, and explodes (to lift a phrase from Steven Hayward at Power Line) when he informed us that "Civility is the Last Refuge of Scoundrels." This would be the same Paul Krugman who joined the Right-bashing party by blaming the Right for the Giffords shooting (see here, and here). Note well the double-standards to which Liberals hold themselves vs. their political opposition; they demand civility from the Right as they continue to fling poo at them.

Call it another example of The Pretext of Principles. If it weren't for situational principles, what principles would they have left? This one: What we do is good, what they do is bad - always, even when it's the same thing.