seMissourian.com: Story: Proposed ethanol plants would produce 690 tons of pollutants

re: By Sam Blackwell ~ Southeast Missourian: "Ethanex Energy and Renewable Power of Cape Girardeau are working out plans to build ethanol plants along Nash Road along the border of Cape and Scott counties. A third company, First Missouri Energy, has applied for an air permit from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. /If built, Ethanex and Renewable Power will add 690 tons of pollutants annually to the nearly 8,600 tons currently produced by the area's industries. Buzzi Unicem, the cement kiln, is by far the largest producer of pollutants at 8,500 tons annually. More than 7,000 tons of the pollutants Buzzi Unicem produces are in the form of carbon monoxide. /The largest percentage increase in emissions from the new plants will be in the form of hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs./ ...[snip]... Renewable Power continues to work on acquiring financing, said Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Magnet. He doubts whether all three ethanol plants will be able to locate here because of the high demand for corn. "That is why companies are locating on the river or rail or both," he said. "There is concern that if there was a blight situation that they would be able to bring corn in from outside the region."..."...

OpinionJournal - John Fund on the Trail: 'Fairness' Is Foul

re: "It wasn't that hard for Indiana's Rep. Mike Pence to build media and congressional support for his Free Flow of Information Act, which would protect the confidentiality of contacts between reporters and sources. It passed the House this month by an overwhelming vote of 398-21. His next battle will be a lot harder--to permanently ban the Fairness Doctrine, the regulation many liberals are now actively trying to revive in an effort to silence their critics..."...

OpinionJournal - The Return of the Thought Police

re: Wendy Kaminer on "hate crime" legislation and how it assaults civil liberties...

Captain's Quarters: A Complication of Imprecision

re: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter -- and the State Department finally has discovered this truth. In a long-overdue act, State has forgiven the "terrorism" of the Hmong and Montagnards who fought so bravely beside us in Southeast Asia, allowing them to enter the country and allowing those already here to become legal residents. Not for the first time, imprecise language in war and government created unintended consequences... [snip]... This springs from the central conceit in the current war we face. We have used "war on terror" as a label because it allows us to avoid the more accurate -- and more provocative -- descriptor of a war against radical Islamist terrorists. Using that phrase clearly identifies our enemies, but we have avoided it to keep those enemies from twisting it into a war on Islam for their own propaganda purposes./ Unfortunately, this declaration of war against a tactic leads to a lot of conclusions, many of them self-defeating... [snip]... / We could avoid all of this by simply talking straight with the world. Radical Islamists declared war on us through several terrorist acts over the last 30 years, culminating in the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Instead of pretending to be the global supercop representing everyone's interests in ending terrorism as a tactic, why don't we just explain that we're at war with radical Islamist terrorists because they started the fight -- and why it's in everyone's interest to join in beating them?"...

Cafe Hayek: Progress

re: "In 1970, according to the American Housing Survey (from HUD and the Department of Commerce ,then called the Annual Housing Survey, Table A-1, p. 32), 36% of the 67 million households in America had air conditioning, 11% had central air. This is the earliest data available from this survey. /In 2005, the most recent data from the same survey, (Table 2-4, p. 66) 82% of the 15 million households with income below the poverty line had air conditioning, 52% had central air."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Prying Pediatricians

re: David Mills: "While I'm reading Lydia McGrew's posts, here is a shocking one: No Pediatricians. She reports, from an article in the Boston Herald (link in her article) that the American Academy of Pediatricians //start quote//has issued "guidelines" to its doctors suggesting that they ask scary-crazy questions of children during routine checkups. And in the case of teenagers, these questions are to be asked if possible without parents present. The questions include how much the parents drink, whether they have a gun in the house, and (this is the worst of all) whether teenage girls' fathers "make them feel uncomfortable." Let me emphasize: These are not cases where there is probable cause of abuse. The doctor is supposed to ask these questions routinely of girls who come to him for, say, a sports checkup for school. // end quote //She expresses, as a "proto-anarchist," "some sympathy" with a father who decked the doctor. I have every sympathy with a father who decked the doctor, because that doctor has assaulted his child. He has assaulted her mind, her understanding of the world and the family, and he has assaulted the relation with her father crucial for her health and growth. /And he does so from a position of authority and trust that the poor parents have taught their children to give him. Which means, now that I think of it, that he has betrayed their trust as well. Not honorable. And no more honorable because he thinks he's doing a good deed..."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Wenders Away from God

re: James M. Kushiner: "Image journal, published by Gregory Wolfe, has "Why Believe in God?" for its Fall 2007 cover story. German film director Wim Wenders has a brief entry in this symposium of artists and writers. In it he writes: //start quote// I've been away from God for a large part of my life, so I remember his absence. No, that's the wrong way to say it. He wasn't absent, I was. I had gone into exile of my own free will. I meandered through all sorts of philosophies, surrogate enlightenments, adventures of mind, socialism, existentialism, psychoanalysis (another ersatz religion). Some of these I won't deny or badmouth. I'm happy to have been there--and back. /I remember how tentatively I started to pray again. I remember how that slowly changed me. I remember how I wept when I realized I had finally come home, when I felt that I was found again. /And how that feeling slowly transformed into a certainty..."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: The Rise of the Pornogogue, II

re: Anthony Esolen: "...Our schools have perversely chosen to permit their moral windows to be smashed. More: administrators and teachers have taken up the hammers and done plenty of smashing themselves. It isn't only that they have permitted students to dress like knaves and hookers. Nor that they habitually teach a moral relativism that justifies knavery and whoring. Nor that they pride themselves on running down their nation, turning American history into one vast criminal enterprise. All these things undermine trust. But there's one thing that blows it sky high -- and that is their decision to set themselves essentially at enmity with the family, arrogating to themselves the rights of parents. I may trust a friend, or, upon a friend's recommendation, a stranger. I may make a pact with an enemy. The enemy may be a fine person. But a relational enmity remains. Therefore I cannot trust the enemy. I must always watch for the knife..."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: The Brother Many Ignore

re: David Mills: "In Like a slave, is an unborn child not a brother?, published in the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore reflects on the opening of a museum exhibition on the history of slavery and asks how curators will see abortion in 200 years... [snip]... He ends with an argument that "with the passage of time, abortion, especially late abortion, is slowly coming to be seen as a "solution" dating from an era that is passing. It will therefore be discredited." I hope he is right, but the drive (need/desire/addiction) for sexual license is so strong, and therefore the need for abortion so great, that abortion's coming to be seen as outdated strikes me as unlikely. /What may happen is that the social disorder and chaos created by a society consumed by sexual license will encourage a harsh reaction, and continence will be socially and perhaps legally required and as a result abortion made illegal, but that it is not the same thing..."...

Aggie Catholics - aka "Mary's Aggies": Guttmacher Stats

re: a statistician looks at recently published stats from a pro-abortion group, and claims that their use of data is "like stitching a quilt from fish nets." He goes on to give details.

hat tip: Happy Catholic

Considerettes » Scouts Are Victims of the Culture War

re: "They couldn’t win in the courts, so the Left is attacking the Boy Scouts any other way they can. Sometimes the Scouts win, but sometimes, as in this case, the Left gets cities and organizations to back out of agreements..."...

Considerettes » Electoral Vote Allocation - The Liberal Double Standard

re: "Republicans in California are trying to change the way electoral votes from California are distributed..."...

The Mad Tea Party: Another Anniversary

re: "After DS#1 was born I asked Hubs to bring me a copy of that day's San Francisco Chronicle. My mom kept a copy of the paper on the day we were born and I wanted to continue the tradition. / Little did I guess the headlines would read "241 Marines Killed in Lebanon."..."...

Oregon Books Reviewed Webpage

re: "These reviews originally appeared in the newsletter of the Oregon Library Association, the "OLA Hotline." The idea is to let librarians know what books on and related to Oregon are available, and to give a capsule summary of them..."...

The Scotsman - Business - Legume and doom as floods force vegetable prices up 65%

re: "THE price of peas and other vegetables have soared by as much as 65 per cent because of this summer's floods, according to the latest industry figures. /The sharp price rises in legumes, including peas and beans, as well as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts, have been sparked by disastrous UK harvests..."...

Is The BBC Ready To Hear A Serious Answer? « Expat Yank

re: "...For what the Beeb naturally misses is that Sen Obama appears to suffer not so much from the racism of whites but from unreasonable expectations from African-Americans. /That’s because the U.S. president (and vice president) is the only office chosen by voters from across the country. If, say, a Californian-bred candidate announced that his main concern were always to be California-focused issues, such sectionalism would be hardly be likely to lead to his winning much support outside 30 million or so Californians. Similarly with what could be called “ethnic sectionalism”. /The office requires someone with wide enough national appeal to allow as many voters as possible to see some little bit of themselves as being represented by that prospective presidential officeholder..."...

Phi Beta Cons: Hamline U. Student Suspended for Beliefs Regarding Guns

re: George Leef: "FIRE has a really Orwellian new case. A student at Hamline University responded to an official school pronouncement regarding the Virginia Tech shootings by saying that he thought that lifting the prohibition against allowing students to carry concealed weapons might help to prevent such tragedies in the future. For having written that, he was declared to be in violation of the university's judicial code for his "threatening" behavior. The student was told that he'd face suspension unless he agreed to a "mental health evaluation. / Brian Doherty of Reason discusses the case here..../ ..."...

OpinionJournal - On the Boardwalk

re: more on the efforts to force Methodists to host a civil union that is against church teaching. Includes info on Ocean Grove, N.J.'s, history...

Brandywine Books: Sold Out Audience for "The God Delusion" Debate

re: from Friday: Phil: "It appears the debating Oxford fellows had a warm reception in Birmingham. Recordings of the debate will be available soon from Fixed-Point Foundation, and it will be rebroadcast tomorrow on WMBW at 3:00 p.m. eastern. You can listen online, if you are not in southeast Tennessee during that time. / Editor Naomi Riley reports on her experience at the debate in today's Opinion Journal..."...

Dr. Sanity: UNDOING: The Healing of the Traumatized Left Has Begun !

re: "Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize? I'm amazed. I thought Cindy Sheehan had it all sewn up. Or Hugo Chavez. / I guess it just goes to show how much their cachet with the left has dropped in the last year or so; or, how much Gore's has risen in the pre-2008 election cycle... [snip]... Scott Ott has, by far, the most psychologically satisfying take on the announcement; a scenario that in a fair, just, and compassionate world (or, at least one consistent with reality, anyway) might have been. / But seriously, folks, Glenn Reynolds has the absolutely best understated quote: "I think he makes a fitting addition to the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize holders." Indeed... "...

Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize in Literature - New York Times

re: "Doris Lessing, the Persian-born, Rhodesian-raised and London-residing novelist whose deeply autobiographical writing has swept across continents and reflects her engagement with the social and political issues of her time, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday... [snip]... Ms. Lessing, who turns 88 later this month, never finished high school and largely educated herself through voracious reading. She has written dozens of books of fiction, as well as plays, nonfiction and two volumes of autobiography..."...

Death reveals harsh side of a 'model' system in Japan - International Herald Tribune

re: "...Japan has traditionally been hard on welfare recipients, and experts say this city's practices are common to many other local governments. Applicants are expected to turn to their relatives or use up their savings before getting benefits. Welfare is considered less of an entitlement than a shameful handout. /"Local governments tend to believe that using taxpayer money to help people in need is doing a disservice to citizens," said Hiroshi Sugimura, a professor specializing in welfare at Hosei University in Tokyo. "To them, those in need are not citizens. Only those who pay taxes are citizens." /Toshihiko Misaki, head of the city's welfare section, did not refer to the three deaths as from starvation, but called them "solitary," and he defended the system. /"On the one hand, there are people who've done their utmost to remain standing on their own feet," Misaki said. "On the other hand, there are those who've gotten into trouble because they've led idle lives and are now receiving welfare. That's taxpayers' money. We get criticized by people who are trying their best, so we have to find the right balance." /With no religious tradition of charity, Japan has few soup kitchens or other places for the indigent. Those that exist — run frequently by Christian missionaries from South Korea or Japan's tiny Christian population — cater mostly to the homeless. /Like the diarist, the other two men were sickly, and they seemingly starved after their applications for welfare were rejected..."...

Britain's Doris Lessing wins 2007 Nobel Literature Prize - International Herald Tribune

re: "Doris Lessing, Nobel laureate. This year's winner of the literature prize should inspire a fresh look at the long, prolific career of the author of "The Golden Notebook" and dozens of other works, and a fresh debate about the taste of Nobel judges. /The 87-year-old Lessing, whose novels, short stories, memoirs and plays have reflected her own unexpected journeys across time, space and ideology, was praised Thursday by the Swedish Academy for her "skepticism, fire and visionary power."..."...

Gore and UN panel are awarded Nobel peace prize - International Herald Tribune

re: "The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Al Gore, the former vice president, and to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its work to alert the world to the threat of global warming. /The award is likely to renew calls by some of Gore's supporters for him to run for president in 2008, joining an already crowded field of Democrats. Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, has said he is not interested in running but has not flatly rejected the notion. /Gore "is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted," the Nobel citation said. The United Nations committee, a network of 2,000 scientists, has produced two decades of scientific reports that have "created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming," the citation said. /Gore, who was traveling in San Francisco, said in a statement that he was deeply honored to receive the prize and planned to donate his half of the prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit climate group of which Gore chairs the board. /"We face a true planetary emergency," Gore said in the statement. "The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."..."...

Common misconceptions about the Nobel Peace Prize - International Herald Tribune

re: "OSLO, Norway: An award that generates as much interest as the Nobel Peace Prize is bound to be surrounded by mystery, myth and misconceptions. /Geir Lundestad, secretary of the secretive committee that awards the prize, once outlined for The Associated Press some of the most common misunderstandings..."...

just muttering: Peace (????) prize

re: "Putting aside for the moment whatever one thinks of Al Gore and his theories of human causes of climate change, please tell me what does it have to do with peace?? The core of his message - and please note that all he has done is send a message - is that humans caused climate changes that are violently dangerous. He dismisses any other cause for climate change such as geological cycling or solar aging. Why is that so meritorious as to earn him international acclaim, adulation, money and the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize? Genuine peace-seekers who did or did not win the award must be spinning and frowning a lot... [snip]...Alan Sullivan at Fresh Bilge puts the case strongly and aptly, that if Gore's "fixes" are implemented, there will be more poverty and disease, and less food, globally: "The victims won’t be blown to bits [by Nobel's dynamite]; they will die early of malnutrition, disease, and the strife endemic in many poor lands, which will get poorer under the global government our international elite is attempting semi-consciously to create."..."...

Joust The Facts: Not The Guy In The Firehat?

re: "...There's something wrong with someone who consistently thinks being annoyed is grounds for legal action."

Joust The Facts: Say, That Is Inconvenient!

re: "A British court was forced to fully assess Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" after the government decided to distribute it widely as an "educational" film. The verdict is .. how shall I say it ? ... rather inconvenient, I suppose. There were 11 major inaccuracies, from polar bear deaths to sea level rises to Hurricane Katrina. In short, all of the most notable points in the film were knocked down..."...

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

re: numerous links related to the author and his works...

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Home Page from Eldritch Press

re: "...This WWW site is dedicated to enhancing our understanding and appreciation of Hawthorne's writings and life..."...

No Left Turns: Sabato revisted

re: Joseph Knippenberg: "Almost exactly three months ago, I posted on Larry Sabato’s (bad) ideas for revising the Constitution and holding a constitutional convention to do so. (I’m all for civic education, but that strikes me as a singularly bad means of accomplishing it.) /Today, my father-in-law waved yesterday’s Atlanta paper in front of me. It had this announcement of a series devoted to Sabato’s proposals, and this interview with Sabato.../ ...[snip]... / It seems to me that the small states look quite a bit like the big states. And it seems to me that Sabato’s theoretical concern is so far-fetched as to be almost ridiculous. He hasn’t convinced me that anything is broken here, or that his "fix" (more "democracy") is in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution..."...

No Left Turns: A Third Way to end the culture war?

re: "...on "framing" the abortion debate... One immediate takeaway from the memo is that the Third Way folks would like people to think that pro-lifers are interested in putting those who seek and those who provide abortions in prison. I’d be happy to yank the medical licenses of those who provide abortion on demand and in other ways make it difficult for them to operate, without necessarily imprisoning anyone."

American Thinker: The evidence for Neocommunism

re: James Lewis: "There is a compelling factual case to be made that the contemporary radical Left can properly be called "Neocommunist." The Hard Left is grounded in Marxist vision of creating a "new man" under a system led by a vanguard that knows best what the rest of society needs. And Neocommies behave in patterns with startling parallels to Old Communist tactics..."...

San Francisco Nimby’s « Bookworm Room

re: "...One of the big ACLU and liberal lawyer triumphs of the 1960s (and one they’re still working on at irregular intervals today) was to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill. (You can get a taste of that battle here.) The ACLU’s point was that it was a denial of civil liberties to force the mentally ill into institutions when many of them (most notably the paranoid schizophrenics) so obviously didn’t want to be there. I remember vividly when Reagan, while still Governor of California, signed off on Legislation deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill... [snip]... /The immediate and obvious result of Reagan’s “freeing” of the mentally ill was a huge influx of people on the streets living in filth and talking to themselves... [snip]... /These new homeless, who often coupled substance abuse problems with their mental illness, were appalling. They ate out of garbage cans; lived in their own filth; had all their worldly goods piled in stolen shopping carts; had terrible lesions on their bodies; were tubercular; harbored contagious vermin (such as lice); lunged at people walking by; and occasionally killed people. That sentence was in the past tense. It needn’t be. As the above shows, these street people are still appalling. While I don’t live in the City anymore, I only have to head to a major urban downtown (New York, S.F., Phillie, wherever) to see them again./ ...[snip].../ All I can say is that, if you measure a society’s humanity by how it treats these helpless people, our current laws allowing them to descend into the Seventh Circle of Hell on our own streets is a striking example of inhumanity. The fact that some who are profoundly mentally ill can still function at a minimal, animal level, doesn’t mean that we’re doing them a favor by allowing them to avoid health care, mental health treatment, decent food, and some level of physical safety..."...

Townhall.com::Nietzsche Would Laugh::By Chuck Colson

re: "...It’s important to understand what is not in doubt: whether an individual atheist or agnostic can be a “good” person. Of course they can, just as a professing Christian can do bad things. / The issue is whether the secular worldview can provide a basis for a good society. Can it motivate and inspire people to be virtuous and generous? / ...[snip]... / One atheist understood the moral consequences of his unbelief: That was Nietzsche, who argued that God is dead, but acknowledged that without God there could be no binding and objective moral order. /Of course, the “New Atheists” deny this. Instead, they unconvincingly argue that you can have the benefits of an altruistic, Christian-like morality without God. /Nietzsche would laugh—and wonder why they don’t make atheists like they used to."

hat tip: Brandywine Books

Not only gorgeous (he is, really), but smart, too. « Bookworm Room

re: "From NewsBusters’ Paul Detrick: //CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano clapped his hands and exclaimed, “Finally,” in response to a report that a British judge might ban the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” from UK schools because, according to “American Morning,” “it is politically biased and contains scientific inaccuracies.” /“There are definitely some inaccuracies,” Marciano added. “The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming.”... [snip]...//While I’m on the subject of global warming, I came across these gemlike paragraphs written about the huge benefits to the medieval world from global warming around the year 1000...[snip]...From: The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger (a book I can’t recommend highly enough, along with Lacey’s other books about British history)..."...