I found an article debunking recycling, via Libertarian Home, via Samizdata.

The author visited a school. His description of the way 8-year-old children are brainwashed in science classes makes me want to puke:

“Why can’t we keep throwing out garbage that way?” Dittersdorf asked.

“It’ll keep piling up and we won’t have any place to put it.”

“The earth would be called the Trash Can.”

The garbage will soon, like, take over the whole world and, like, kill everybody.”

Dittersdorf asked the children to examine their lives. “Does anyone here ever have takeout food?” A few students confessed, and Dittersdorf gently scolded them. “A lot of garbage there.”

He goes on to describe what a load of garbage Dittersdorf, director of environmental education for the Environmental Action Coalition, a nonprofit group based in New York, is talking:

Dittersdorf had masterfully reinforced the mythical tenets of the garbage crisis: We’re a wicked throwaway society. Plastic packaging and fast-food containers may seem wasteful, but they actually save resources and reduce trash. The typical household in Mexico City buys fewer packaged goods than an American household, but it produces one third more garbage, chiefly because Mexicans buy fresh foods in bulk and throw away large portions that are unused, spoiled or stale. Those apples in Dittersdorf’s slide, protected by plastic wrap and foam, are less likely to spoil. The lightweight plastic packaging requires much less energy to manufacture and transport than traditional alternatives like cardboard or paper. Food companies have switched to plastic packaging because they make money by using resources efficiently. A typical McDonald’s discards less than two ounces of garbage for each customer served-less than what’s generated by a typical meal at home.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Enviro-Mentalism at 3:07 PM EST

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I was visiting a friend whose daughter had just won some kind of dance competition. “We were so proud,” she said. “We wanted to cheer but we weren’t allowed to. All the kids were supposed to get the same amount of applause.”

Posted by Rob Fisher as General at 5:57 PM EST

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I just had a conversation with Orange that went something like this:

Me: I’ve lost my SIM card. [I’d taken it out because the idiotic user interface on my Nokia N80 had led me to believe I was creating a new PIN when in fact it was asking me to enter a PIN (that I’d never set) and then locked the SIM card. I took it out so I could continue to use the PDA features of my phone and it was really small and easy to lose…]
Orange Lady 1: I need to put you through to the insurance department.
Orange Lady 2: Hello. I’m Orange Lady 2 from Orange Care.
Me: Hi. I’ve lost my SIM card.
Orange Lady 2:: Okay. What you need to do to process this on your insurance is contact the police and get a lost reference number.
Me: Oh. How much does a SIM card cost?
Orange Lady 2: £15.
Me: Okay, can’t I just pay that, then?
Orange Lady 2: Yes.
Me: Okay, I’ll do that, then.

Posted by Rob Fisher as General at 5:52 PM EST

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A 92 year old woman died heroically in a gunfight when men broke into her home. The fact that they were police looking for drugs is beside the point, except that if they were criminals they would likely have run away and she would have lived. Brent Rasmussen writes an excellent article about the events.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Civil Liberties, Self Defense at 1:42 PM EST

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We should cancel the Olympics. They’re going to be an unmitigated financial disaster.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 1:22 PM EST

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I recently noticed that a lot of my traffic was coming from Gun Culture, a British firearms blog. A bit like here, it’s not updated very often, but it is strong on the right to self defense, calling to account shooters who think guns should be controlled and used only for sport, and pointing out the cost of gun control.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Links, Self Defense at 2:11 PM EST

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And now for something completely different: Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport was closed in 1998 but the approach to its runway 13 was interesting:

Upon reaching a small hill marked with a checkerboard in red and white, which is being marked as a middle marker in the final approach, the pilot needed to make a 47° visual right turn to line up with the runway and complete the final leg. The aircraft would be just two nautical miles from touchdown, at a height of less than 1000 ft when the turn was made.

On YouTube is a cockpit video of the approach, and another from the hill of it going a bit wrong.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Aviation at 9:18 PM EST

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Rob Hinkley points out why we shouldn’t pay too much attention to news stories about

those vaguely scientific-sounding stories about what “a study has shown”, or “scientists have found”

First, fish reduces the risk of premature babies, but then, too much fish increases it. How much fish is the right amount of fish? We need to be told!

Posted by Rob Fisher as News at 1:45 PM EST

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From Boing Boing: Tonight’s episode of South Park features the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Richard Dawkins. FSM is a response to the Kansas School Board who want “intelligent design” taught in schools as science. Given South Park’s treatment of Scientology, this should make for entertaining viewing!

By the way, I’m all in favour of teaching “intelligent design” in schools. My lesson plan would go something like: this is “intelligent design”; it’s a hypothesis; why it can’t be tested; in science we need to be able to test our hypotheses; here are some examples of testable hypotheses; is “intelligent design” a scientific theory?; discuss.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Imaginary Friends at 2:13 PM EST

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Renewable Choice Energy have come up with a fantastic new way of making money. They sell you Wind Power Cards and invest the money in wind powered electricity. The Strange New Products blog is a bit disparaging of the idea, complaining that “it’s all going to make another company rich”.

But at least they won’t throw you in jail if you decide not to buy their cards, like, say, the UK government will if you don’t pay their green taxes.

I think it would be great if more environmentalists started companies that developed technology to solve the problems they say need to be solved, instead of lobbying governments to solve them with violence. Asking other environmentalists to hand over cash in support would be a good way to raise some extra money for such companies.

Link via Boing Boing.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Enviro-Mentalism at 1:04 PM EST

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