New Threat

Warmons, ok, I like the term, have something new to worry about. It seems that NF3, nitrogen trifluoride, which is used in making flat screens TVs and monitors, is just horribly bad. OK, step one accomplished. Now we'll proceed to Step two: whipping up a frenzy. Step three: identifying Republican manufacturers of the offending flat screens, and throwing blood on their porches. Step four: Government regulation of flat screens, and Step five: Al Gore exempting himself, and selling indulgences, by establishing Ethiopian villages that are entirely flat screen free.

Course, the usual process might be short circuited if a study comes to light showing that NF3 pollution can be counteracted by incinerating vast amounts of corn or wheat.

And a side note: You've probably seen the articles on a World Bank study showing that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%. How did the poet, Gomer Pile, put it? "Surprise, surprise!"

Anyway, reading that this morning I was reminded of something I had read many years ago: A theory, maybe true, that Abraham Lincoln wouldn't necessarily have died from his wounds - that it was his overzealous doctors, who just had to do everything they could, that killed him. I mean, he was so important, what if they could probe, and remove the bullet? They just had to try. Getting shot was just the first injury.

So now we have climate "fixers" diverting food crops in order to make a fuel that still creates CO2, costs more in energy to produce than it gives back, and has the side effect of starving the most un-industrialized among us. Sounds like the overzealous doctors all over again, trying to fix a planet this time. Its only benefit is that it makes our "fixers", and their fools, feel good about themselves. Meanwhile the patient thrashes about on the table like an over-probed president from the 19th century.