Email just received from Keith Burgess-Jackson: "I grew up in Michigan. It rarely snowed after my birthday, which is 7 April. You guessed it: It's snowing like mad in Michigan. It must be that global warming the liberals are always warning us about."



A NEW U.S. OIL REFINERY PERMITTED? FIRST SINCE 70S!

How absurd that the world's biggest industrial country has been forced to look overseas for much of the refinery capacity it needs!

Arizona regulators have granted an air permit for a proposed oil refinery that could be the first US plant of its kind built since the 1970s, the company planning to build the plant said Thursday. The permit, which sets emissions limits, was granted by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. The permit was first applied for in 1999. It removes a major obstacle for the proposed $2.5 billion, 150,000 barrels-per-day refinery. Arizona, one of the fastest growing states, has seen gasoline price spikes several times in recent summers, particularly in 2003. It currently relies on California refineries for its fuel supply.

The plant, which would be built by Phoenix-based Arizona Clean Fuels on desert land 100 miles southwest of Phoenix, still must obtain several more permits. "We will now focus on securing the remaining permit necessary in order to begin construction and ultimately begin serving the growing demand for fuel products in the Southwest," Ian Calkins, a spokesman for Arizona Clean Fuels, said in a statement.

The refinery would also need large amounts of water in a dry state and the proposed site may harbor significant Native American archeological remains, according to the science magazine Nature. Arizona Clean Fuels plans supply the plant with Mexican crude oil which would be transported in a yet-to-be-built pipeline to Arizona.

Source




HYPOCRITICAL GREENIES PROMOTE EARLY DEATH FOR POOR PEOPLE

A new MTV series features Hollywood celebrities praising the developing world's primitive lifestyles as earth-friendly -- despite those poor nations' high infant mortality rates and short life expectancies. The eco-tourism show, called "Trippin'," premiered on March 28 and was heavily promoted in the runup to Earth Day. The show encourages environmental awareness and lauds traditional tribal lifestyles, which lack running water, electricity and other basic infrastructure. The MTV series features actress Cameron Diaz and a rotating crew of "her close, personal friends [who] think globally and act globally." They tour developing nations, including Nepal, Bhutan, Tanzania, Honduras and visit remote villages in Chile.

Actress Drew Barrymore, who reportedly earns $15 million a film, told MTV viewers in one episode that after spending time in a primitive, electricity-free Chilean village, "I aspire to be like them more." Barrymore, apparently enthralled by the lack of a modern sanitary facilities, gleefully bragged, "I took a poo in the woods hunched over like an animal. It was awesome." The 32-year-old Diaz, who earns a reported $20-million a movie, boasted that the cow-dung slathered walls of a Nepalese village hut were "beautiful" and "inspiring," and she called the primitive practice of "pounding mud" with sticks to construct a building foundation "the coolest thing." Diaz also criticized the lifestyles of many Americans after visiting an indigenous village in Chile. "It's kinda gotten out of hand how much convenience we think we need," she said.

Despite the celebrities' praise for the primitive life, "Trippin'" shows them flying on multiple airplanes and chartering at least two helicopters and one boat to reach remote locations over the course of the first four episodes. The series also showed the celebrities being chauffeured to the airport in a full-size Chevy SUV -- despite several on-screen, anti-SUV factoids noting how environmentally unfriendly SUVs are. Diaz, who starred in "Charlie's Angel's" and "There's Something About Mary," travels the world "in the name of the Mother Earth" with a host of different celebrities including Barrymore, actresses Eva Mendez and Jessica Alba, rapper Redman, and rocker Kid Rock.

Environmental groups such as the World Wildlife Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council also are featured in the series, to provide commentary and analysis on environmental issues.

The first four episodes of the MTV series made scant mention of the difficult economic and social conditions of the countries visited. Bhutan, a country that received particular praise from Diaz for its environmental policies, has one of the highest infant mortality rates (103 infant deaths per 1,000 live births) and lowest life expectancies (54 years) in the world. By comparison, the United States, which Diaz described as having too much "convenience," has an infant mortality rate of only 6.6 per 1000 and an average life expectancy of more than 77 years.....

Diaz lauded the Nepalese villagers' practice of slathering cow dung as a form of wall plaster used to coat the walls: "Nothing goes to waste. It is beautiful. It is inspiring," she said. "It is incredible to see how in tune these people are with the environment; they are completely self-sufficient, Diaz added. Daily routines of the local citizenry are featured on the series, including pounding mud with large sticks for hours -- for the foundation of a new monastery in Bhutan. "I am going to go pound some mud, baby! Mmm," Diaz said to the cameras. "It was the coolest thing to be a part of," she added. As video of mud-pounding filled the TV screen, Diaz explained, "They (Nepalese villagers) continue to live in harmony with the world around them. It's a way of living very different than what we are used to. It seems to work."

But MTV viewers were not informed that Nepal has an infant mortality rate of nearly 69 deaths per 1,000 live births, about ten times the infant death rate in the U.S. Nor did they hear that life expectancy in Nepal is 59 years.....

A critic of the environmental movement condemned the new MTV series. "There's something perverse and immoral when multi-millionaire Hollywood celebrities head off on junkets in the jungle - and then preach to us lesser mortals about the joys of the simple life, and how we should protect the Earth, conserve energy, prevent global warming, and help the poorest people on our planet continue 'enjoying' their poverty, malnutrition and premature death," Paul Dreissen, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power/Black Death told Cybercast News Service. "Life in these developing countries is still nasty, brutish and short. And that there is a reason our parents and grandparents worked so hard to create modern homes and hospitals and technologies, so they could leave behind the unsafe water, dung fires, pollution, rotted teeth, infant mortality and life expectancies half or ours," said Driessen.

"This entire MTV series totally glosses over the hardships and premature death that is right before their eyes. Even mentioning these facts would obviously get in the way of their ideological message, and their determination to turn [MTV viewers] into little ventriloquist's dummies for the sustainable development movement," Driessen explained.

More here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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