The Navy intends to deploy an energy efficient “Great Green Fleet” carrier strike group consisting of ships powered either by nuclear energy or biofuels with an attached air wing of fighter jets fueled entirely by biofuels.

As Professor Reynolds would say ::: “Faster please!”

The following is more “food for thought” on the subjects addressed by Gore’s film:

Instapundit — “SO I GUESS KYOTO WORKED, THEN: “Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase.” (from the Telegraph, UK)

“UPDATE: Canada is abandoning Kyoto. Just when it was starting to work!”

On the “Inconvenient” Movie itself:

From _Slate_:

“…This raises the troubling fault of An Inconvenient Truth: its carelessness about moral argument. Gore says accumulation of greenhouse gases “is a moral issue, it is deeply unethical.” Wouldn’t deprivation also be unethical? Some fossil fuel use is maddening waste; most has raised living standards. The era of fossil energy must now give way to an era of clean energy. But the last century’s headlong consumption of oil, coal, and gas has raised living standards throughout the world; driven malnourishment to an all-time low, according to the latest U.N. estimates; doubled global life expectancy; pushed most rates of disease into decline; and made possible Gore’s airline seat and MacBook, which he doesn’t seem to find unethical. The former vice president clicks up a viewgraph showing the human population has grown more during his lifetime than in all previous history combined. He looks at the viewgraph with aversion, as if embarrassed by humanity’s proliferation. Population growth is a fantastic achievement—though one that engenders problems we must fix, including inequality and greenhouse gases. Gore wants to have it that the greener-than-thou crowd is saintly, while the producers of cars, power, food, fiber, roads, and roofs are appalling. That is, he posits a simplified good versus a simplified evil. Just like a movie!”

“The Moral Flaws of Al Gore’s _An Inconvenient Truth_”

Brief “Inconvenient” responses (video):

(60 second spot questioning the science behind Gore’s film):

“Glaciers”

“Captain Planet”

“If you don’t fly commercial, don’t talk to me about greenhouse gases or conservation.” (Instapundit, again)
A comprehensive and humorous look at “Inconvenient” that (among other things) questions the moral congruence of Gore promoting “Inconvenient” by flying all over the country in his private Gulfstream jet (which on a single one-way LA-DC trip burns as much fuel as a Hummer does in a year). Also looks at some of the recent Hollywood Celeb “Environmental Ads” featuring Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow and others…

Video Here.

More writings:

A second look at Climate Change data in the WSJ.

Finally, here is Michael Crichton who posits that Environmentalism is our modern, western fundamentalist religion.

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, famed for the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes that flew higher than anything else in the world in their day, is trying for a different altitude record: an airplane that starts and ends its mission 150 feet underwater. The Cormorant, a stealthy, jet-powered, autonomous aircraft that could be outfitted with either short-range weapons or surveillance equipment, is designed to launch out of the Trident missile tubes in some of the U.S. Navy’s gigantic Cold War–era Ohio-class submarines. These formerly nuke-toting subs have become less useful in a military climate evolved to favor surgical strikes over nuclear stalemates, but the Cormorant could use their now-vacant tubes to provide another unmanned option for spying on or destroying targets near the coast.

One thing’s for sure–no one wants to meet us in the traditional battlespace. No one sane.

More gorgeousness here.

UPDATE: Instapundit has more on this, including what might be further fallout if the allegations turn out to be true, and the report of the vehement denials and promises to produce proof by the researcher in question, Hwang Woo-suk: “South Korea’s best known scientist said Friday he stands by his breakthrough stem cell research despite a barrage of fraud allegations, and vowed to prove the findings within days.” – updated by rich 12/17/05

Take this excerpts from today’s column “Paralyzed by Collectivism” (see, right there — fantastic title):

The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society’s balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism — of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America — is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals’ lives. This is done in the name of equality.

People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources.

Therefore, one of the collectivists’ tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern — the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. They stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.

Will’s piece today addresses environmentalism and energy production. It’s a very worthwhile — if brief — read. So by all means, go read the whole thing.

A Google engineer has warned that if the performance per watt of today’s computers doesn’t improve, the electrical costs of running them could end up far greater than the initial hardware price tag.

Check it here.

Well, look out, because now The Wall has entered the blogosphere. I’d encourage anybody with even a passing interest in San Francisco politics and/or culture to go give it a look right now.

Able Dart’s most recent post on the new Wall blog concerns the puerile San Francisco Police Video Scandal that’s the obsession of the moment for our local media outlets. Local pols, journalists and “activists” are foaming at the mouth and spinning around in frantic little circles, while prognosticators are taking odds on which heads will roll and when. Here’s the lead from The Wall:

It seems that this city has to have a police scandal of some kind every few years, which is then used to try and pry some changes inside a hidebound department, but usually only ends up with the replacement of a politically hapless police chief.

The newest scandal, of course, is about a series of blue humor videos produced for a Christmas party at Bayview station. The videos feature a number of sociocultural stereotypes reinforced by the basic nature of police work. The police officer/videographer made the mistake of putting some of the more humorous clips on a website, and then the leaks to the press and Mayor’s Office came-a-flowing.

There is nothing new about this phenomenon, nor about political bluenoses making a scandal out of it. What is truly unfortunate about this particular case is the timing, which seems rather deliberate.

Many people who are not police officers will find some of the imagery in these videos offensive. The question comes however, whether it should even be judged by standards outside the environment of what police work has become…

So check out The Wall and read the rest of this excellent piece, which has a lot to say about “Community Policing” and what gets noticed by the media. You’ll probably want to make The Wall a regular stop. I can see myself linking to them on a fairly regular basis — if their first few days of operation are any indication, The Wall will soon be essential reading for any SF observer.

Plus, you gotta love a guy who uses the term “hidebound” in the very first sentence one of his inaugural posts.