Author: Moe_Lane

Greentech hurts poor people, pollutes land.

Business as usual, in other words. Remember, it doesn’t count if it’s not impacting the First World:

Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. The world’s dependence on these substances is rising fast.

Just one problem: These elements come almost entirely from China, from some of the most environmentally damaging mines in the country, in an industry dominated by criminal gangs.

That’s actually three problems, all of which are more or less independent of each other. Fixing any one of the three wouldn’t solve the other two, although fixing at least one probably certainly wouldn’t hurt; but, for example, the mines will still be ecological menaces even absent the criminal elements and single-source production.  All in all, chalk up another win for the Law of Unintended Consequences, although Law of Unconsidered Consequences may be more accurate here.  After all, a little bit of research beforehand would have easily warned would-be innovators that there would be road bumps on this particular road to Shangri-La.

Whether they would have cared is another question, of course…

Moe Lane

PS: This may be the best bit from the article:

“This industry wants to save the world,” said Nicholas Curtis, the executive chairman of the Lynas Corporation of Australia, in a speech to an industry gathering in Hong Kong in late November. “We can’t do it and leave a product that is glowing in the dark somewhere else, killing people.”

Actually, it’s much more accurate to say that’s what they’re doing now, only without the ‘saving the world’ part; they’re just being uncomfortable at being caught at it.

Crossposted to RedState.

Vacation all he ever wanted? (Or, educating POTUS.)

(Via JammieWearingFool, via Instapundit) Not to be unkind or anything – no, really, I’m trying not to be – but I have to ask:

Increasingly unloved and ridiculed from both sides, a new and embittered President Obama is emerging this Christmas season as he begins a badly needed vacation in Hawaii.

Why ‘badly needed?’ What, exactly, has the President done this year, besides calmly watch legislators from his party drain the treasury?

Moving along, while I recognize that the President’s in need of a serious attitude adjustment I don’t see any way of getting him to have one until the Democrats get smacked around a bit more.  Losing thirty House seats might do it: flipping the House may do it.  Flipping the House and getting more than five seats in the Senate back will almost certainly do it, particularly if there’s a discreet amount of payback afterward.  Admittedly, it would have been better for the country’s sake if the President’s party had cared enough about Obama’s personal development to teach him some limits as a state legislator, but the past is the past.  What’s important now is making sure that, going forward, he learns proper life lessons.

After all, we’re stuck with him for the time being.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Happy Boxing Day!

It’s a traditional holiday for our Anglosphere cousins: apparently it originated as being an opportunity for the upper class to both shower largess upon the lower class, and reinforce class distinctions via some Lord of Misrule activities*. This is, of course, why we don’t celebrate the holiday ourselves; if Americans wanted to reinforce class distinctions our ancestors wouldn’t have moved.

Ach, well, it’s also an opportunity to spend those Amazon.com gift certificates that you got for Christmas.  Have at it, and happy holiday!

Moe Lane

*Admittedly, I’m basing this latter observation on a M*A*S*H episode.

The good news about this attempted terrorist attack?

There’s only one bit of good news, but it’s reassuring: airline passengers haven’t forgotten the Flight 93 Lesson.

Jafry was sitting in the 16th row — three rows behind the passenger — when he heard “a pop and saw some smoke and fire.” Then, he said, “a young man behind me jumped on him.”

In short: you can’t always choose not to be a target, but you can always choose not to be a victim.

Al Franken bravely goes after GOP *staffers*…

So much for ‘Minnesota Nice.’

…apparently, the negative fallout from going after actual Republican Senators was a bit much for the man, and of course he can’t just act like a mature federal legislator.  Al Franken, remember?

Anyway, via Drudge here’s the latest loss-of-control:

Franken invited [Sen. Bob] Corker to his office to discuss an op-ed that Corker penned in a Tennessee newspaper opposing an amendment Franken offered to a defense bill. The measure gave the employees of defense contractors who suffer rape or sexual assault at the workplace the right to sue in court.

The meeting quickly deteriorated when Franken began berating one of Corker’s aides, according to GOP aides familiar with the incident. Franken’s sally was so harsh that Corker told Franken to lay off his aide and direct the comments at him instead.

Franken’s tough approach came as a surprise because Corker scheduled the meeting to mend fences after Franken confronted him about the op-ed during an angry exchange on the Senate floor.

Franken also went out after another GOP staffer – female, of course – for the supposed crimes of Republican Senators. You almost have to feel bad for the decidedly junior Senator from Minnesota: after all, it’s been an entire year since the election, and he’s still just Al Franken.  And he’s starting to subconsciously grasp that putting the title ‘Senator’ in front of his name won’t change that.

Moe Lane

PS: In the unlikely chance that he ever reads this: make me respect you, Senator Smalley.

Crossposted to RedState.

Call of Duty and the failure of Newspeak.

Alternative title: Thus Do We Refute Marshall McLuhan.  Via Instapundit, The Market Hath Spoken:

Hollywood churned out dozens of in-the-trenches, pro-America extravaganzas such as Wake Island and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo while World War II was being fought.

But the portrayal of the U.S. military during its current engagements has been more subdued and even critical.

Game makers have stepped into the breach. And they’re making huge bucks crafting patriotic entertainment pieces for which the movie industry used to be famous.

It’s actually fascinating to see the blind spot exhibited by Hollywood antiwar types, here.  If you had ask them whether they thought Prohibition worked, or whether Just Say No works, they’d immediately reply no, it didn’t.  Merely forbidding a behavior doesn’t make it simply go away, and someone would have to be an unsophisticated hick with a naive worldview to think that not talking about something is the same as suppressing it.  And yet, they’ve spent the last decades resolutely ignoring the fact that their attempts to tamp down patriotic and pro-military attitudes in the American population didn’t work, and has cost them a lot of money.

Incredible.  Then again, it’s not like Hollywood selects for critical thinking.

Moe Lane

PS: By all accounts, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is one heck of a game on its own merits.  Whether or not it’s what the above article portrays it as being.

Crossposted to RedState.