The carbon credit catastrophe is a really inconvenient truth

But...but...Al Gore said!

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.

Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway.

If you ever thought that these carbon credits were worth a damn, you’re probably the kind of person that likes to make gestures just so it looks like you’re doing something rather than actually solving a problem.

Which is a long way of saying “Washington Democrat” or “liberal blogger.”

Also, Al Gore is profiteering from this farce.  Look for that story to be in your local paper or the evening news real soon. /sarcasm

Posted by JimK at 08:43 PM on April 26, 2007
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Categories: Entertainment,  Celebridiots,  News,  Politics,  Natural Disaster
Tags: carbon credits global warming

Two criminally negligent crooks fight over who gets to be more crooked

Looks like a big fight is brewing over money for Chocolate Town.

Blanco: Put state in charge of buyouts
But Nagin’s panel wants city control

BATON ROUGE—A state housing trust would be in charge of doling out money for buyouts or reconstruction of flood-damaged homes under a plan by Gov. Kathleen Blanco, setting up a possible conflict with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s recovery commission.

While state officials say local planning processes will determine where people can rebuild, the governor’s legislation makes it clear that she wants the state to retain the authority to dispense whatever grants or loans will be available to homeowners.

That is at odds with Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission, which has proposed creating a city-controlled entity to oversee the spending of federal money used to buy, sell and redevelop houses and neighborhoods.

It doesn’t matter who wins: New Orleans loses.  Blanco and Nagin are as corrupt and incompetent as two leaders have ever been.  One of them is even a racist.  Ahh...Louisiana politics.  Ain’t nowhere else like it on earth.

Posted by JimK at 02:30 AM on February 10, 2006
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Categories: News,  Politics,  Natural Disaster

More on the Egyptian disaster

Egypt has thus far declined offers of search and rescue assistance from the United States, Britain, and Israel.

Umm...OK I guess.  Good luck.

I feel bad for people who are just trying to get along and raise families and work and get caught up in this religious and political nonsense.  Shame on the Egyptian government.

I still don’t think the people who died deserve to be laughed at and treated like sub-humans.  When we all laughed at certain images coming out of New Orleans, like that guy with a tub full of beer or the guy with the plasma screen...those were individual idiots who deserved derision.  No one has any evidence that the Egyptian ship was full of radical Muslim terrorists.  They were people and it’s sad.  Let it end there.

Posted by JimK at 03:18 AM on February 04, 2006
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Categories: News,  Politics,  The Middle East,  Natural Disaster
Tags: Egyptian+cruise+ship natural+disaster

Egyptian cruise disaster

Horrible.

An Egyptian passenger ship carrying about 1,300 people sank in the Red Sea overnight during bad weather, and rescue ships arriving at the scene Friday pulled dozens of bodies from the water, an official said. About 30 survivors were rescued, some in lifeboats.

An Egyptian Embassy spokesman told the British Broadcasting Corp. that “dozens of bodies of victims” had been pulled from the choppy waters between Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The 35-year-old ship, Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98, went down 40 miles off the Egyptian port of Hurghada, the head of the Egyptian Maritime Authority, Mahfouz Taha Marzouk, told The Associated Press. The cause was unknown.

Britain’s top naval officer said he had diverted a warship to the north Red Sea site and it will arrive within two days.

But Ayman al-Kaffas, a spokesman for the Egyptian Embassy in London, told the BBC that “a massive search-and-rescue effort” was underway, and “dozens of bodies of victims” had been pulled from the water.

“We have spotted several lifeboats with live passengers that we are trying to get to,” al-Kaffas said. “It’s a challenging operation due to the bad weather conditions.”

Here’s to hoping that more lifeboats will be found...this is a pretty big disaster.

*UPDATE*

I’m seeing some cheering and laughing from some folks on the right.  That’s pretty shameful.  It was wrong when certain Muslims cheered on 9/11.  We all condemned it.  Now you want to become them?

That’s the very definition of hypocritical. 

Perhaps more of you need to read Michael Yon’s work and fucking learn something.  There’s a lesson in this one in particular that some of you could stand to learn:

Over lunch with Chaplain Wilson and our two battalion surgeons, Major Brown and Captain Warr, there was much discussion about the “ethics” of war, and contention about why we afford top-notch medical treatment to terrorists. The treatment terrorists get here is better and more expensive than what many Americans or Europeans can get.

“That’s the difference between the terrorists and us,” Chaplain Wilson kept saying. “Don’t you understand? That’s the difference.”

I see for some of you, there is no difference.  If I were some of you, and you know who you are, I would be ashamed of myself.

Posted by JimK at 12:33 PM on February 03, 2006
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Categories: News,  Natural Disaster
Tags: Egyptian cruise ship natural disaster

Louisiana turned away help

As if anyone needed more proof that Louisiana state officials were hugely responsible for the deaths after Katrina , Wuzzadem has it.

Posted by JimK at 07:23 AM on February 01, 2006
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Categories: News,  Natural Disaster
Tags: Louisiana corruption Katrina

What about white chocolate, Ray?

Click play for blatant racism. Requires Flash.



Hat tip (and source of video): The Political Teen

*UPDATE*

In the comments, wallywest80 points out Ray's backpeddling on Hannity.

He said he had not meant that it should be an all-black metropolis, asking: "How do you make chocolate? "You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about," he told CNN.

Watch that video again. He says 'We as black people." He didn't say "We as A people" or "We as people from New Orleans" or anything like that. He specifically and pointedly excluded anyone who wasn't "black people." And who the FUCK has ever used chocolate to describe a mix of white and black? EVER IN HUMAN HISTORY?

No one, that's who. Ray Nagin is a lying racist that is responsible for many deaths and much corruption.

Posted by JimK at 04:28 AM on January 17, 2006
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Categories: News,  Politics,  Natural Disaster,  The Stupidity Of Man
Tags: Ray Nagin racism New Orleans

The West Virgina mining disaster

In case you’ve been under a rock or ignoring the news for the last few days...let me summarize this for you:

Explosion in a West Virgina coal mine leads to workers being trapped.  Rescue attempt ensues.

Late last night, the men were reached.  Word spread like wildfire that only one of the men died and the families were folmed dancing and celebrating.

Three hours later it was confirmed that only one man survived, and the families were told.  Media people, Anderson Cooper in particular, lashed out at the company for not correcting the media’s mistake of telling the world that everyone save one made it out.

Caught up?  If not, feel free to dig around at Malkin’s for backstory and round-ups of the media’s unbelievably fucked-up handling of this story.

Now...Someone posted to TotalFark that Geraldo, the anti-journalist, was at that moment hosting a 30 minutes special that, among other things, played the footage of the families of the dead miners celebrating when they thought most had made it out alive.  Why?  What purpose does that serve?  You can discuss the fact that the media blew it (again) without playing that footage over and over.  You could wait 30 days to do this “hard-hitting” story.  You could just shut the fuck up and not do the useless piece of shit “story” to begin with.

Not Geraldo.  He’s in there unearthing every morsel of human suffering from this story, playing off the tragedy and tears and serving it up to the unwashed masses like he was Shakespeare and the world was his personal Globe Theatre.

In the comments to the TotalFark thread (no link, you have to be a paid member) someone posed this question:

Considering all of Geraldo’s fark ups, why is he still employed in journalism?

Here’s my answer:

Because we all know him by his first name. Some idiots think that has value, and apparently it does to some extent, because he and his face fur get on TV and some farking idiots must watch...he at least shows up in ratings.

No one cares about journalism anymore. Fake but accurate, Gore wins Florida, no, Bush, no, Gore...they’re dead, they’re alive...it’s a miracle! No, wait they’re dead. Al Capone’s vault will be amazing, imagine all the secrets...like this empty bottle and all this dirt. QUICK! NEWS ALERT! ANOTHER WHITE GIRL RAN AWAY FROM HER RICH, OVERBEARING PARENTS! TAP WATER IS KILLING YOUR CHILDREN...SEE HOW YOU CAN PROTECT YOUR BABIES FROM A VIOLENT DEATH. More at 11.

Hate the state of TV news? Stop watching it. Hate Wal-Mart? Stop shopping there. Hate Microsoft? Stop buying Windows and Office. Hate Republicans or whatever milquetoast lamb the Democrats will sacrifice in ‘08? Vote for another party. Hate cable? Buy a dish.

*UPDATE*

Wizbang has a nice list of the media outlets that got it right versus who screwed the pooch.

Posted by JimK at 07:13 PM on January 04, 2006
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Categories: News,  Natural Disaster,  The Fourth Estate
Tags: West Virginia coal mine International Coal Group

A different look at the latest Blanco outrage

A lot of bloggers are calling Kathleen Blanco on the carpet for her latest gaffe, the renovation of some staff offices after Hurricane Katrina.

I’d like to quote a part of the story that I have not seen a blogger use yet, then give you my take:

Jimmy Clarke, Blanco’s chief of staff, said Friday the governor’s top aides considered not fixing the 6th floor.

But the sixth floor project was bid six days before Hurricane Katrina came ashore near Buras on Aug. 29. Clarke said he became concerned that the state could be sued successfully if the restoration project were shut down.

“We certainly would not have initiated this work post-Katrina and Rita,” Clarke said. “Given all that the state faces at this time, these renovations would be a very low priority.”

The floor had not been improved since the early 1980s and the space needed to be upgraded to meet safety codes, Clarke said.

Well, that seems reasonable.  These people have to work, and the offices weren’t up to code.  It shouldn’t take much to bring them up...some re-wiring, the right materials to meet standards, that sort of thing.

The newly refurbished office space on the sixth floor of the State Capitol includes hookups and mounts for two flat screen televisions, Swedish granite countertops, walnut paneling and frosted laminated glass. The floor, which will not be accessible to the public, was redesigned to add three new offices, a conference room and file storage areas.

What the hell?  Swedish Granite?  Flat screens?  Walnut paneling?  That’s bringing a building up to code?  What frigging planet is this idiot living on?

The project cost $564,838.

How many families could that feed?  How many cops, to be used to track down the 2,000 sex offenders she released into the nation, could that money pay for?  Why isn’t the media all over her?  Why is she getting a pass?

Oh.

Democrat.  That’s right.  I forgot.  You can forget about the networks and major papers covering this.  They’re too busy inventing scandals and advertising their BDS .

Hat tip: Malkin via Snarkbait.

Posted by JimK at 05:26 PM on January 02, 2006
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Categories: News,  Politics,  Natural Disaster,  The Fourth Estate
Tags: Blanco New Orleans Katrina Louisiana

Katrina killed without regard to race

As most rational people (who in this case happened to be on the right side of the aisle) have been saying since August 28th, the Katrina disaster didn’t have a damn thing to do with race or economic power.

The analysis contradicts what swiftly became conventional wisdom in the days after the storm hit — that it was the city’s poorest African American residents who bore the brunt of the hurricane. Slightly more than half of the bodies were found in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, with the remainder scattered throughout middle-class and even some richer districts.

“The fascinating thing is that it’s so spread out,” said Joachim Singelmann, director of the Louisiana Population Data Center at Louisiana State University. “It’s not just the Lower 9th Ward or New Orleans East, which everybody has heard about. It’s across the board, including some well-to-do neighborhoods.”

Because New Orleans was one of the nation’s poorest cities, where more than one in four residents lives below the poverty level, many of the victims were still found in neighborhoods that were impoverished by national standards. But by the standards of New Orleans, those neighborhoods were economically stable, and deaths citywide were distributed with only a slight bias for economic status.

Of the 828 bodies found in New Orleans after the storm, 300 were either recovered from medical facilities or shelters that offer no data on the victim’s socioeconomic status, or from locations that the state cannot fully identify. Of the 528 bodies recovered from identifiable addresses in city neighborhoods, 230 came from areas that had household incomes above the citywide median of $27,133. The poorer areas accounted for 298 bodies.

“A lie is halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots on.” Maybe Winston Churchill said it, maybe he didn’t.  The fact remains that it is a universal truth.  The lies about Katrina will never be lived down in full, and we all know who is to blame for that sad fact.  You don’t need me to list the politicians and the media outlets that started these lies in order to try to capitalize politically on the emotions of the average Joe who doesn’t have the time to track this stuff down online.

In the meantime, the best we can do is try to spread the truth as we learn it.  Make sure you tell someone the next time NOLA comes up in conversation...the race allegations about Katrina were completely and utterly untrue.

Posted by JimK at 02:41 AM on December 19, 2005
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Categories: News,  Politics,  Natural Disaster
Tags: Hurricane Katrina media bias

Impeach Blanco

Just read it.  You know what I’m going to say about that image-conscious, talentless hag.  Talk about having blood on your hands…

Speaking of deaths...turns out that black people weren’t targeted (PDF) by either Bush or Mother Nature.

That being the case, Kanye West can suck my dick.

Posted by JimK at 01:59 AM on December 14, 2005
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Categories: News,  Politics,  Natural Disaster
Tags: Katrina Blanco New Orleans Kanye West