Category: Politics

Chemical & Engineering News, June 18, 2007

The final piece in the above linked pdf file is yet another instance of the Bush Administration’s failure to reclassify certain activities ostensibly in order to embellish or to hide its failure or to appease its supporters.

In this instance, the EPA had reclassified waste incinerators as less polluting devices. Thus, it had exempted them from stricter emission standards and, presumably, saved the companies that operate such incinerators considerable time and money. Fortunately, a panel of Federal judges overturned this reclassification.

The agency had argued that it could set less stringent controls for these incinerators by treating them as though they were “boilers” or “process heaters” that burn only fossil fuels. The court rejected that argument, stating that facilities that burn waste are incinerators and must meet the Clean Air Act’s strictest emissions standard. The panel denied petitions by EPA and industry groups for a rehearing, and sent the incinerator rule back for “wholesale revision.”

It is difficult to frame such a reclassification in anything other than politics. After all, the reason something that boils water is called a boiler and something that burns non-flammable organic materials at absurdly high temperatures is called an incinerator is that these are fundamentally different processes. If burning oil was the same as burning trash, then engineers would certainly not have gone through the trouble of re-engineering a new operation and Christening it with a different name.

Furthermore, the chemical signatures of these two devices are radically different because the boiler only uses hydrocarbons as fuel but the incinerator uses, well, anything. This is why they come under different emission rules.

This reclassification is as absurd as the reclassification of fast food jobs (such as assembling a burger at McDonald’s) as manufacturing jobs by the Economic Report of the President in 2004. It’s enough to make one want to shout “go reclassify yourself, pal”.

Defence ministry apologises for gay discrimination | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

In the US, “don’t ask don’t tell” has merely turned explicit institutional discrimination into soft, implicit institutional discrimination. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom has progressed from the complete decriminalization of homosexuality in their military in 2000 to a sincere apology today.

At the present rate, the only apology the Pentagon is likely to issue is “We’re sorry we asked”.

Cheney claims a non-executive privilege – Los Angeles Times

The United States Constitution is a remarkably multi-faceted document. Scholars have studied it for centuries, and they continue to find surprises therein. Read the above Los Angeles Times article to find the latest revelation of the Constitution.

This revelation was discovered by the staff of Dick Cheney, and it states that Dick Cheney is a heretofore forgotten fourth branch of government. A branch that is part of both the Executive and Legislative branches defined in the Constitution, but beholden to neither. This Cheney branch of government is free to dominate the CIA and to doctor its intelligence findings and to award unlimited contracts to Halliburton. This latter provision was, of course, a personal request from George Washington for the wonderful job Halliburton did delivering his wooden teeth on time and under budget.

At least, the Cheney branch would argue that such quid pro quo is perfectly legitimate.

DNA – World – Arafat’s Peace Prize stolen in month of Nobel thefts – Daily News & Analysis

The man, Arafat, squandered unprecedented opportunity for peace. His legacy is one of a shattered, a deeply fragmented and a hopelessly confused Palestinian people. Once they had hope in fighting for themselves. Now, they don’t know who that “self” is. Hence, there is nothing left for which to fight. They are a people born of an artificial identity foisted upon them by the West, and now, the reality of this ersatz identity is manifesting itself with spectacular violence.

And, nothing captures the Palestinian hopelessness better than the purloining of the Nobel Prize Arafat was awarded for attempting a political solution with Israel. Of course, the Nobel committee members who elected to resign rather than to award Arafat the prize are now completely vindicated: they said that Arafat’s attempt was not sincere, and now they have been proven right, irrevocably. The man’s reputation as a thief, an incorrigible power monger and a selfish brute is now indisputably established by the nightmare of his legacy.

To be sure, Hamas will blame Israel for everything, but the evidence, for those sane enough to read it, condemns nobody except Palestinians themselves.

No Nobel prize. No hope.

If you don’t trust Indian sources, here are over 5,000 others that Google News cited.

Putin suggests new missile defence site | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

This is perhaps the final chapter, the climax, the coup de grace of post cold war political evolution. The US has survived by sheer economic power and unchallenged military might, and its rivals have survived by becoming supremely cunning, as demonstrated by Baathists in Iraq, by Iran in Lebanon and Iraq, and today, by Vladimir Putin in Germany.

The Iraqi war displayed America’s military might yet again. The aftermath of the war, however, has showed America’s impotence in the face of clever propaganda perpetrated by Iran and guerrilla warfare being executed to perfection by Baathists that the Coalition Provisional Authority foolishly disenfranchised. By developing incredible cunning, the Baathists, the Taliban and Iran have engineered a spectacular opposition to the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The US did indeed win the battle on the ground, but the opposition has thus far made a spectacular showing in the fight for the hearts and minds of the people in the middle east. We can claim no political victories there. Not in Iraq, not in Iran, not in Afghanistan, not in Syria and not even in Lebanon, who was humiliated by a brazen war started and effectively won by a rogue faction, Hezbollah, i.e., Iran and Syria.

Similarly, just when George W Bush’s White House was thinking that it had succeeded in its campaign to place a “missile defense shield” in Poland and the Czech Republic unilaterally, without soliciting any reaction from Russia, Putin responds with the most cunning, the most devilishly clever of retorts: Russia wants to suckle on America’s teat, too. Coupled with Russia’s posturing of the previous weeks–that it will target its missiles at Europe if this shield is deployed in Eastern Europe–Putin has completely neutralized the American argument, and he has entangled Bush with the absurdity of Bush’s assertions that it is an America at peace with a defeated Russia that desires to protect Europe from “rogue regimes”.

By accepting this proposition on face value, Putin has flipped this argument on its head. First, Putin asserts the US is the victor. Second, he posits the obvious fact that Azerbaijan is a better geographic location from which the US may intercept missiles from Bush’s favorite rogue regimes. Third, the US will be protecting Europe by preventing Russia from targeting European cities. It is the trifecta that the US has been salivating to get, and Russia takes home the purse!

Germany’s influence is expanding at an unbelievable pace. Iran exercises near hegemony in the middle east. Now, Russia is hanging George W Bush with Bush’s own arguments. In the face of such cunning, one must wonder if evolution is favoring the US.

Only a Bush-appointed EPA chief can claim progress in reducing green house gases (GHGs) when the report issued by the agency he heads states pointedly that GHG emission had risen 16% by 2004, relative to emissions in 1990. Here is a direct link to the report at the EPA:

EPA : Global Warming : Resource Center : Publications : GHG Emissions : US Emissions Inventory 2006

Here is a local link to the “Fast Facts” document, which is also accessible through the above link:
US Emissions Inventory 2006
One wonders why GHG generation was down 1.3% in 2001. Could it have anything to do with airplanes not flying for a few days after 9/11? Or the economic slowdown that followed?

After examining the document, one might find it interesting that carbon dioxide emission increases as auto fuel efficiency decreases, and that emissions for electricity generation hold relatively steady. Clearly, regulations have an effect, and when cars–SUVs, specifically–aren’t regulated, the results are unsurprisingly dismal.