“[T]o see animals … slaughtered to be worn as fashion is awful to me, so I’m definitely against wearing fur.

…

I’d much rather go naked than ever put a dead animal on my body,” Beard said.

Deceiver.com did a little research about Beard and found that she’s a bit of a hypocrite. Beard told shoe blogger Meghan Cleary last year when asked, “What pair of shoes would you want to be buried in?”:

“Something that just screams ‘me.’ All of my friends would agree that it would be this pair of leather sandals that I wear all the time. I wear them on the pool deck, at the beach, and even sneak them into my wardrobe for dinners.”

Note to Amanda–leather is animal skin (not that I’m complaining). She also like leather jackets. She told Smart Money:

“You don’t take 50% off the leather jacket you use to ride on your motorcycle,” she says. “When you’re skidding across the highway you want something that fits.”

More from Deceiver.

Thank you Amanda for showing us how silly PETA’s campaign really is. If their spokes-bade doesn’t go animal-free, why should we?

All the books that I have seen about the science and economics of global warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.

Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.

But more interestingly Paul Krugman, who is much more sympathetic to the Democrats, and libertarian economists believe that speculation isn’t to blame. Krugman writes:

O.K., let’s talk about the reality.

Is speculation playing a role in high oil prices? It’s not out of the question. Economists were right to scoff at Mr. Masters — buying a futures contract doesn’t directly reduce the supply of oil to consumers — but under some circumstances, speculation in the oil futures market can indirectly raise prices, encouraging producers and other players to hoard oil rather than making it available for use.

…

What about those who argue that speculative excess is the only way to explain the speed with which oil prices have risen? Well, I have two words for them: iron ore.

You see, iron ore isn’t traded on a global exchange; its price is set in direct deals between producers and consumers. So there’s no easy way to speculate on ore prices. Yet the price of iron ore, like that of oil, has surged over the past year. In particular, the price Chinese steel makers pay to Australian mines has just jumped 96 percent. This suggests that growing demand from emerging economies, not speculation, is the real story behind rising prices of raw materials, oil included.

Libertarian economist Robert Murphy reaches the same conclusion. He writes:

• Record-high oil prices demand a target, and some politicians are increasingly pointing the finger at speculators in the commodities futures markets. But high oil prices are due to restricted supply, booming demand, and a weakening dollar.
• There is no hard evidence that speculators are responsible for high oil prices. If the price of oil truly were above the level that the fundamentals could support, we would see growing inventories of crude. But inventory levels show no such pattern.
• Speculators provide a vital function. By buying when prices are low and selling when prices are high, they actually make oil prices less volatile. Large investment funds provide liquidity to the commodities futures markets, and allow producers and consumers to concentrate on their core businesses.

It’s a weird world when libertarians and Krugman agree. Stranger still when the Republicans and Democrats agree. But when Republicans and Democrats agree, you know that it must be politically expedient. Too bad that politicially expediency doesn’t help the people.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a co-sponsor of the bill, has called it “the world’s most far-reaching program to fight global warming.” It is indeed policy on a grand scale. It would slow American economic growth by trillions of dollars over the next half-century. But in terms of temperature, the result will be negligible if China and India don’t also commit to reducing their emissions, and it will be only slightly more significant if they do. By itself, Lieberman-Warner would postpone the temperature increase projected for 2050 by about two years.

Politicians favor the cap-and-trade system because it is an indirect tax that disguises the true costs of reducing carbon emissions. It also gives lawmakers an opportunity to control the number and distribution of emissions allowances, and the flow of billions of dollars of subsidies and sweeteners.

Many people believe that everyone has a moral obligation to ask how we can best combat climate change. Attempts to curb carbon emissions along the lines of the bill now pending are a poor answer compared with other options.

Consider that today, solar panels are one-tenth as efficient as the cheapest fossil fuels. Only the very wealthy can afford them. Many “green” approaches do little more than make rich people feel they are helping the planet. We can’t avoid climate change by forcing a few more inefficient solar panels onto rooftops.

The answer is to dramatically increase research and development so that solar panels become cheaper than fossil fuels sooner rather than later. Imagine if solar panels became cheaper than fossil fuels by 2050: We would have solved the problem of global warming, because switching to the environmentally friendly option wouldn’t be the preserve of rich Westerners.

Please let me give you one piece of advice– when you ride a bike, make sure your seat is high enough. It is obvious in this picture that your seat is not high enough.Your seat height should be high enough that it allows full leg extension, with a slight bend in the leg at the bottom of the pedal stroke.

If you move your seat higher you will ride much more comfortably. Then again, if insist on riding a bike while riding jeans, I really can’t help you on the comfort front.

Your bike riding pal,

Daniel

P.S. The next time you are tempted to throw your Grandmother under the bus to protect a racist loser like Jeremiah Wright, think twice. Comparing your Grandma to losers like Wright is always a bad idea, as Wright proved no long after you displayed your lack of love for your Grandma.

If you don’t assume this kind of spontaneous decarbonization, reducing CO2 concentrations in half will cost between $255 trillion and $545 (far more than IEA’s estimate of $45 trillion). What will it cost to reduce CO2 levels in half? Who knows, but these estimate tells us that that IEA’s projections are very sensitive to these assumptions. This pretty sobering when we are talking about trillions of dollars of cost.

France’s 1960s screen icon Brigitte Bardot received a 15,000-euro (23,000 dollar) fine on Tuesday for inciting hatred against Muslims.In December 2006, the film star-turned-animal rights activist wrote a letter to France’s then interior minister, current President Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing that Muslims should stun animals before slaughtering them during the Aid al-Kabir holiday.

She outraged anti-racist groups by saying: “I’ve had enough of being led by the nose by this whole population which is destroying us, (and) destroying our country by imposing their ways.”

Countries are funny. In the US we do things, such as capital punishment, that shock the French. The French don’t care much for free speech when the speech is offensive. It’s a funny world.

And let me add that I found “Dreams From My Father” a perplexing read. For me, the most moving part is the introduction to the new edition, in which he says that he really ought to have written about his mother — as if her “dreams” have more to do with what he is. Certainly, they should. He lived with her (and her parents), and the father abandoned him. Why does his book consign her to the background? His narrative is based on the idea that that his absent father represents his true identity, and I had the sense that, for some reason, he decided that the story of embracing his patrilineal racial identity would make the best narrative. After all, he sold the book proposal based on the excitement created by his distinction as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. The story he tells culminates with a trip to Africa as an adult to meet the many relatives who had nothing to do with his upbringing. This he presents as the ultimate homecoming. From a feminist perspective, this troubled me. Had the introduction not reassured me that he knew he owed so much more to his mother, I would have felt downright angry.