Hillary Pulls It Off

Hillary Clinton has won the Pennsylvania primary, CNN reports. The margin is slim at the moment with only an 8-point lead with about 50% of the precincts reporting. But she's aliiiiive.

Clinton's victory will make a dent in Obama's lead, but the size of the dent depends on the margin of victory.

"If she wins Pennsylvania by a hefty margin, she can prove she can win the traditional Democratic constituencies needed to win the election, mostly white working-class voters," said Gloria Borger, a CNN senior political analyst.

Could a double-digit victory make Clinton the comeback kid once again?

"If Clinton wins by more than 10 points, which was her margin in neighboring Ohio and New Jersey, her campaign will have new momentum and she will soldier on," said Bill Schneider, also a CNN senior political analyst.

The Obamaniacs will, of course, go postal over this. Is this enough for her to win? Probably not unless she sweeps the remaining contests. But she is still in. Obama did not get the knockout he needed. That should be making superdelegates worried. Obama has failed to get the knockout a number of times now in the primaries. How does that portend for the general election?

Not well, I think.

Funny, this is not up over at Memeorandum yet.

UPDATE: I guess those Catholics must have clung to Hillary;

Practicing Pennsylvania Catholics (weekly massgoers, by the canonical definition) made up 17 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. They went 71 to 28 percent for Hillary over Obama. Non-practicing Catholics made up 18 percent of the Democratic vote, and they went for Hillary 65 to 35 percent.

It would appear that the jinx held in Pennsylvania. Gaffes count.

Four Thousand Holes In Blackburn, Lancashire

What does that Beatles lyric have to do with this rather odd story from Britain? Nothing whatsoever other than location, but it came to mind when I read about the battling brothers and a Shepherd's pie.

After a day spent drinking, Michael Garvin cooked his brother John the traditional English dish for dinner, expecting a grateful response.

John, however, voiced his disquiet that the pie was not topped with a layer of sliced tomatoes.

His brother, a chef, claimed a layer of tomatoes was not the appropriate way to finish off a shepherd’s pie, and responded by hitting him over the head with a shovel.

As the argument got out of control, John threatened to petrol bomb his brother’s flat and was arrested.

Apparently, he wanted the pie well done. Forget the argument over a layer of tomatoes, however. The real important thing is whether the shepherd was fresh, isn't it?

Invasion Of The What Snatchers?

Apparently, men in Congo are very worried that someone may be out to steal their penis. No, we are not making this up.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
 
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Police also arrested 14 of the alleged victims before they could lynch the purported penis purloiners. From here on, we will collectively refer to all of the alleged victims of the organ snatching as "Ken".

Hot And Cold Running Gators

A Florida woman was somewhat surprised to find an unusual visitor raiding her kitchen. After all, it's not every night you have an eight foot alligator rummaging for a snack.

Sandra Frosti says the gator must have pushed through the back porch screen door and then went inside through an open sliding glass door at her home in Oldsmar, just north of Tampa. It then apparently strolled through the living room, down a hall and into the kitchen.

The gator was in search of a Frosti, apparently. (We could not resist that one.) Now you know why we have no interest whatsoever in Florida real estate. Or other areas, either. (Link opens a PowerPoint slideshow, you'll have to have Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.)

Dearth Day

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace who left the organization in 1986, explains why he has turned against Greenpeace. It's quite simple, really, it is the dearth of science in the hysterical warnings of the group. Many of those hysterical warnings are either baseless or completely self-serving.

But I later learned that the environmental movement is not always guided by science. As we celebrate Earth Day today, this is a good lesson to keep in mind.

At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.

The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.

My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure. Despite science concluding no known health risks – and ample benefits – from chlorine in drinking water, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have opposed its use for more than 20 years.

The latest hobbyhorse Greenpeace is riding is trying to force a ban on the common plasticizer diisononyl phthalate (DINP), which has been tested repeatedly, used for years and is perfectly safe. Greenpeace wants it banned and untried, unstudied compounds substituted. That and the opposition to chlorine points to more than a dearth of science. It also shows a dearth of compassion for their fellow humans.

Incidentally, I have posted about Patrick Moore in the past. He has become an eloquent advocate of nuclear power - which Greenpeace also froths unscientifically about. Greenpeace has, as Moore points out, become a politically-motivated organization more interested in its agenda than in really saving the earth. Or caring about the human beings who have to live here.

Slamming Bio-Fuelishness

I have been writing for quite some time about the biofuel scam and warning that the growing political demands to convert food into fuel would cause serious problems. It seems others are finally waking up to the facts.

The willingness to try, fail and try again is the essence of scientific progress. The same sometimes holds true for public policy. It is in this spirit that today, Earth Day, we call upon Congress to revisit recently enacted federal mandates requiring the diversion of foodstuffs for production of biofuels. These "food-to-fuel" mandates were meant to move America toward energy independence and mitigate global climate change. But the evidence irrefutably demonstrates that this policy is not delivering on either goal. In fact, it is causing environmental harm and contributing to a growing global food crisis…..

…..It is now abundantly clear that food-to-fuel mandates are leading to increased environmental damage. First, producing ethanol requires huge amounts of energy — most of which comes from coal. Second, the production process creates a number of hazardous byproducts, and some production facilities are reportedly dumping these in local water sources.

Third, food-to-fuel mandates are helping drive up the price of agricultural staples, leading to significant changes in land use with major environmental harm. Here in the United States, farmers are pulling land out of the federal conservation program, threatening fragile habitats. Increased agricultural production also means increased fertilizer use. The National Academy of Sciences reported last month that meeting the congressional food-to-fuel mandate by 2022 would lead to a 10 to 19 percent increase in the size of the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" — an area so polluted by fertilizer runoff that no aquatic life can survive there.

The authors of that piece from the Washington Post, Lester Brown and Jonathan Lewis are not rightwing extremists. They are the founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute and a climate specialist and lawyer with the Clean Air Task Force, respectively. They also point out the growing global food crisis and the extremely negative impact of diverting food into fuel. (Ahem, see previous post.)

This nation is diverting something like 20% of the national corn crop into ethanol production. That is projected to rise to around 25% this year. There is a wall looming and we are about to collectively hit it. The myth of ethanol is evaporating rapidly in the harsh reality of the laws of physics. Ethanol is an inefficient energy transfer scheme, not a new source of energy.

Panic Hoarding

The New York Sun reports on a trend that is not at all pretty. In some areas of the country, rice, flour and cooking oil are in such short supply that retailers are limiting the amount people can purchase. This is happening right here in the United States.

The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.

“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.”

Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of a new contract for foreign rice sales.

“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”

Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against future price hikes or a total lack of product.

“There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”

At the moment, large chain retailers seem more prone to shortages and limits than do smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores, perhaps because store managers at the larger companies have less discretion to increase prices locally.

What you have right now are the seeds of a panic being sown. This can be seen on a smaller scale when a bad winter storm is predicted and locals strip the store shelves of bread and milk. But when it is on a global scale, everything is suddenly in short supply as people begin to panic and hoard all they can afford to buy - making the situation even worse. Short supplies rapidly become no supplies. If the US does put on export controls, all hell is going to bust loose on world markets.