Bats versus wind energy — I'm rooting for the bats

Wind energy as a renewable energy source not only requires a back-up power source that neutralizes all its supposed energy benefits, but also requires installing tall, hideous turbines in large numbers — it cannot be justified as a source of green energy not only because it destroys the environment, kills birds and insects, but also just does not produce energy efficiently enough to justify its costs:

Then there is the insurmountable engineering problem. The wind cannot be relied on to blow all the time within the operating parameters of the wind turbine. If the wind is not sufficient to turn the turbine blades no power is produced. If the wind is blowing too hard, the unit shuts down to protect itself and no power is produced. Therefore, the utilities are required to have 100% backup available for the wind generation because the power has got to be there when demand increases. Why? Because if the voltage is pulled down enough on the grid due to an increase in demand, the entire grid will collapse. Best case projections allow for wind systems to be available 35% of the time. Those projections are actually not accurate because they do not take into account time of day loading. In other words, the wind systems may be capable of producing power at night when demand is lowest, not during the day when it is most needed.

Basically, although some amount of fossil fuel is not used when the wind farms are actually on line, these projects can never be cost justified from an engineering standpoint due to the 100% backup capacity required. This is going to apply regardless of how high fuel prices go. There may be other justifications for construction of such a system, but the fact is that if one system is so unreliable that it requires a 100% (reliable) alternate backup, it makes no engineering sense to install the first system. Economically, you are spending more than double what you actually need to, to achieve the desired result.

This is an area I know rather a lot about, having spent my career in the utility business.

The installation of every, single utility-owned project has been a purely political decision. I limit it to utility-owned because that is my field. But it is no different for any other project.

Bottom line – wind power cannot ever be economically or engineering justified. Any system that is so inherently unreliable as to require an installed 100% backup system cannot be justified.

One of the most coveted spots for these indefensible outrages against life, beauty, efficiency, prudence and reason IS THE RIDGES OF MOUNTAINS.

So, while browsing at Red State, I happened on news of a battle of endangered species vs. wind energy where environmentalists want to replace the trees on a West Virginia mountaintop with over 100 wind turbines even though they know the turbines will kill tens of thousands of birds and bats. They have been sued by a local bat lover and I pray to God the endangered bats win. In a previous post I discussed research showing that the turbines for wind energy kill birds and insects by creating powerful vortices that overwhelm them, make it impossible for them to return to their homes, or just plain chop them up. The Washington Post’s story on the West Virginia battle reveals that researchers have shown that bats are killed along with birds and insects (boldfacing mine):

GREENBRIER COUNTY, W.VA. — Workers atop mountain ridges are putting together 389-foot windmills with massive blades that will turn Appalachian breezes into energy. Retiree David Cowan is fighting to stop them.

Because of the bats.

Cowan, 72, a longtime caving fanatic who grew to love bats as he slithered through tunnels from Maine to Maui, is asking a federal judge in Maryland to halt construction of the Beech Ridge wind farm. The lawsuit pits Chicago-based Invenergy, a company that produces “green” energy, against environmentalists who say the cost to nature is too great.

The rare green vs. green case went to trial Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.

It is the first court challenge to wind power under the Endangered Species Act, lawyers on both sides say. With President Obama’s goal of doubling renewable energy production by 2012, wind and solar farms are expanding rapidly. That has sparked battles to reach a balance between the benefits of clean energy and the impact on birds, bats and even the water supply.

At the heart of the Beech Ridge case is the Indiana bat, a brownish-gray creature that weighs about as much as three pennies and, wings outstretched, measures about eight inches. A 2005 estimate concluded that there were 457,000 of them, half the number in 1967, when they were first listed as endangered.

(snip)

Indiana bats hibernate in limestone caves within several miles of the wind farm, which would provide energy to tens of thousands of households. The question before the judge: Would the bats fly in the path of the 122 turbines that will be built along a 23-mile stretch of mountaintop?

Eric R. Glitzenstein, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in his opening statement that both sides agree the windmills will kill more than 130,000 bats of all types over the next 20 years.

(snip)

The case probably will come down to a battle of bat experts.

There is no question turbines in other locations have killed tens of thousands of bats. Some strike blades. Others die from a condition known as barotrauma, similar to the bends that afflict divers. It occurs when the swirl of the blades creates low-pressure zones that cause the bats’ tiny lungs to hemorrhage. Scientists and the industry are seeking ways to lessen the kills, including stopping the turbines at certain times or using sound to deter the bats.

But the habits of Indiana bats largely remain a mystery to scientists. They are so small that only recently has the technology been available to produce devices small enough to track their movements.

You know what energy source we REALLY need more of? Nuclear power plants. Also oil: drill, baby, drill! Not only should not one single additional wind mill be erected, every single one that has been installed should come down. When you consider both their inefficiency and the destruction they wreck on birds, bats, bees, other insects, the local microclimates, the fact that they threaten our food supply due to their destruction of beneficial insects and what an eyesore they are, they do not survive the cost-benefit analysis. If you disagree, would you be willing to debate while standing a few feet from a fan that is generating a vortex powerful enough to force you to cling to something for dear life? If you do, whatever that is, I’m sure I will have no idea how it came to be so liberally greased. I assure you, from the personal experience of being sucked down a whitewater river while trapped under the canoe, you never forget the feeling of being overpowered like that. Assuming, that is, that you don’t hit the fan.

'I'm your social media guru'

H/T Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason magazine’s Hit-and-Run blog.

In August The Bloggess, whom I love pure and chaste from afar, wrote “How not to get fired for using social networking” — speaking of which, while you’re in the neighborhood, I also recommend her post, “Get my husband off Facebook” — I adore her husband, Victor, too. Where was I? Oh, right — the link from The Bloggess’s social networking post led me to the following two pieces at Mashable, which I found sobering because blogging is about as much obsession as I can handle right now, although I love how Facebook is giving Gov. Sarah Palin access to the marketplace of ideas whenever she wants it, and while I seldom tweet, Dooce (via Instapundit) recently made the power of Twitter electrifyingly clear to me — which I also experienced, come to think of it, when I was part of The Bloggess’s Twitter army — see The Bloggess Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four — which besieged William Shatner until he unblocked The Bloggess. (We tweeted absurd accusations against William Shatner marked #unblockthebloggess for a week before he and/or his Twitter amanuensis/proxy figured out that that army was only going to keep growing and yet would be satisfied and call truce with one simple click.)

Jennifer Van Grove at Mashable (boldfacing mine) writes that new research shows 45 percent of employers check out prospective employees on social media sites to screen candidates:

This according to research firm Harris Interactive, who was commissioned by CareerBuilder.com and surveyed 2,667 HR professionals, finding that 45% of them use social networking sites to research job candidates, with an additional 11% planning to implement social media screening in the very near future.

According to the study, “thirty-five percent of employers reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them not to hire the candidate.” The big lessons you can learn are quite obvious, but bear repeating. Provocative photos and info are a bad idea (53% of employers won’t hire you), shared content with booze and drugs is also highly dangerous (44% dismissed candidates for this reason), and bad-mouthing former employers is very risky behavior (35% reported this a the main reason they didn’t hire a candidate).

We also think it interesting that emoticons, those friendly smiley faces you see everywhere, are actually big no-nos in direct communication. 14% of surveyed employers disregard candidates for that single lapse in judgment alone.

[However] there’s still opportunity to use your social presence to land that job. The survey also found that, “eighteen percent of employers reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them to hire the candidate.”

If that freaks you out, here’s advice at Mashable from on how to pass the social media recruitment test:

So in today’s world of information overload where talent is literally available by the truckloads, I thought it would be relevant to write a post about how we evaluate a candidate’s social media footprint to determine (when all else is equal) which candidates we would contact and which ones get left by the wayside. I posed the following question to make it simple:

If all else were equal, like education, work history and general skill set, and I had to evaluate the social media footprints of two candidates to determine which one of them I would contact, which one would I contact and why? In my experience, I would contact the one who:

On Linked In

  1. Has genuine recommendations from peers, managers and colleagues
  2. Has the more complete profile
  3. Is a member of more groups pertaining to their respective field
  4. Has a picture
  5. Lists interests, hobbies and other information related to their life outside of work
  6. Participates and highlights their involvement in non-paid projects related to their field (open-source, community, volunteer, conference)
  7. Updates their status more often
  8. Asks and answers more questions
  9. Links to their employer, blog and other projects of interest
  10. Has the larger network

On their blog

  1. Has interesting things to say about their respective profession and industry
  2. Provides glimpses into their life outside of work – family, friends, hobbies, etc.
  3. Does not bad-mouth their current or previous employer
  4. Provides links to their other social networking profiles
  5. Includes a link to their current resume
  6. Updates with new posts regularly
  7. Keeps it non-controversial – minimal discussion of sex, politics, religion and other such controversial topics.
  8. Is more genuine and honest
  9. Has a blogroll with link to other interesting blogs

On Facebook

  1. Respects the overlap between their personal and professional lives
  2. Updates often
  3. Posts pictures of friends and family but keeps them pg-13
  4. Keeps it non-controversial – doesn’t take extreme positions on sex, drugs, religion, politics or other topics that could cause an employer to be wary of hiring
  5. Is a member of groups relevant to their profession

On Twitter

  1. Tweets often (between 2-10 times per day is considered reasonable)
  2. Has a healthy followers/following ratio
  3. Has the biggest network
  4. Keeps a healthy balance between personal and professional tweets
  5. Doesn’t just update, but also responds to others and generally seems to get Twitter

When Googled

  1. Does not lead to something controversial like arrests
  2. Leads to profession-related discussions and commentary on other social media sites
  3. Leads me to their online blog, webpage or social media profiles
  4. Doesn’t come up blank

Do go read the rest of the post on why all this matters and what to do if you’re a newbie. Also, the author recruits for the software development industry — other industries may not need this level of skill with social media.

Obama aggressively defends 'don't ask, don't tell' just 13 days after promising to end it

Just 13 days passed between Obama telling the A-list homosexuals assembled at a Human Rights Campaign fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., on October 10 that he will get “don’t ask, don’t tell” repealed so that homosexuals can serve openly in the U.S. military — see the video above — and his latest betrayal of that pledge. On Friday, Oct. 23, the Obama administration filed a vigorous defense of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that apparently was being drafted at the same time Obama was stating his opposition to “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Of course, no one who follows Obama closely is even a little surprised to find that he stoutly maintains mutually exclusive positions on an issue simultaneously.

I received the following notice on Saturday evening from the Facebook group of the Log Cabin Republicans (see below for the description of the group) — this happened Friday, 10/23, and I can’t find a peep about it in the news or blogosphere on Google in the first few minutes of Sunday, Oct. 25 (the boldfacing is mine and I fixed some punctuation):

Obama Administration Aggressively Defends ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy in Court

UNUSUAL MOVE GOES BEYOND GOVERNMENT’S ‘DUTY TO DEFEND’

Christian Berle, October 23 at 6:42pm

(Los Angeles, CA) — In a move consistent with other contradictory behavior on LGBT issues, the Obama administration has directed its Justice Department to file an extraordinary motion to get Log Cabin Republicans’ lawsuit against the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law thrown out of court, despite a federal judge’s ruling that it can proceed. The 11th-hour move for interlocutory appeal, which seeks to stay proceedings and block discovery, was surprisingly formulated at the same time that President Obama was reassuring LGBT activists that he still firmly opposes the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner earlier this month in Washington, DC.

“After President Obama clearly stated that his highest priority for the LGBT community was to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, it is quite troubling to see this ‘about face,'” said Terry W. Hamilton, national chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans. “This aggressive move by President Obama’s Justice Department seriously undermines not only his commitment to our community and to the defense of our nation, but it also casts doubt on the motives of those at the highest levels of LGBT leadership in Washington who refuse to criticize the President over this double speak.”

The case in question, Log Cabin Republicans vs. the United States of America, is the first direct challenge to the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law filed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas. It is also the only contemporary legal challenge to this law to succeed at the district court level. One of the injured parties named in the case, Alexander Nicholson, is a former U.S. Army Human Intelligence Collector who speaks multiple languages, including Arabic, and who was fired because of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law just six months after 9/11. Another injured party in the case, listed simply as ‘John Doe’ currently serves in the Armed Forces and would face a discharge if his identity were revealed.

“These continued obstructions launched by the Obama Justice Department are as insulting to the LGBT community as they are a serious threat to our military readiness,” remarked Log Cabin Republicans spokesman Charles T. Moran. “The constant delay tactics and attempts to have this case hurriedly dismissed without any discovery or argument would be a disservice to all those who have been involuntarily and abruptly fired under this law.”

District Court Judge Virginia Phillips of the Central District Court of California will consider the defendant’s motion on November 16th, 2009. The law firm of White & Case LLP has been representing Log Cabin Republicans since the case was initially filed over 4 ½ years ago

###

Log Cabin Republicans promotes legislation to provide basic fairness for gay and lesbian Americans and works to build a more inclusive GOP. The 30-year old organization has state and local chapters nationwide, a full-time office in Washington, DC, a federal political action committee and state political action committees.

Inspite of the dizzying speed of Obama’s about-faces on issues regarding homosexuality equality, the Senate Armed Forces Committee will be holding hearings on “don’t ask, don’t tell” in November, according to a spokesperson for the committee’s chairman, Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, who supports repeal of the policy.

Update, 10/25/09: HillBuzz included this story in their Saturday, 10/24, open thread — here’s a sample, but I recommend reading the whole thing (if you do, the reference to “Man’s Country” is about a gay bar that a tall, thin black man, who boasted about being an Illinois state senator, frequented for gay sex):

… here’s word from the Log Cabins that while Dr. Utopia has been lying to the LGTBQ community at events like that Human Rights Campaign dinner, his Attorney General, notorious race-baiter Eric Holder, has been ordering the Justice Department to aggressively dismiss lawuits Log Cabins have filed against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT).

Yup, Dr. Utopia is saying one thing to his gay audience — that he wants to end DADT — while his minions do the exact opposite. The operative case is Log Cabin Republicans vs. The United States of America, which is currently the only active legal challenge to DADT to make it passed the district level. One of the complainants is an Army Human Intelligence Collector who speaks multiple foreign languages, including Arabic, and was booted from the Army after 9/11 because he likes guys. With Islam trying to destroy the West and kill Americans, declaring war on us, the United States is wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars training specialists in intelligence gathering and Arabic only to boot them once some rival outs them and gets them tossed out of the service.

That’s just poor business and money management at its core.

And it’s also ridiculous because all of us here have dated at least one service man each…and we can assure you none of them ever turned up on anyone’s Gaydar. We live in Chicago near the Great Lakes Naval Base and meet sailors out just about every night in Boystown. For every gay man or woman (and it’s actually lesbians who are tossed out the most) who gets booted under DADT, there are probably hundreds of other LGBs who serve their full tours of duty…so long as they don’t run against some nemesis who outs them for their own reasons.

Which is what seems to be happening. Is someone in your unit making you look bad because they work harder than you and do a better job than your lazy sorry ass? Want them gone so you can be the cock of the walk? Tell Sarge how much he loves the Santa hat scene in Jarhead.

And Instapundit pounced on the story Saturday evening, so it is starting to get some traction.

Update, 10/25/09, 4:05 pm EDT: Pam’s House Blend quotes the transcript of Obama’s address to the Human Rights Campaign from two weeks ago promising to end DADT and asks WTF, which strikes me as a far too muted reaction. The Progressive Puppy has gotten his teeth into the story here. John Aravosis at AmericaBlogGay just quotes Pam’s House Blend, so no link for him. Mostly, I hear crickets.

World War II veteran and father of a gay son, 'We must have equal rights for everyone … let gay people have the right to marry'

I continue to be amazed at conservatives who oppose homosexual equality without thinking that they may be working for inequality for their own children. I am amazed that in the name of God and family values these anti-gay activists so demonize homosexuals that they drive parents to abandon or disown their own children.

Well, on April 22, 2009, Philip Spooner, an 86-year-old World War II veteran who was in the Battle of Normandy and the liberation of Paris, addressed a group in Maine to tell them that he fought for the equality of all of his children, including his gay son. Just two weeks later, Maine’s legislation legalizing same-sex marriage was signed into law on May 6, 2009. However, now there is a measure on the Nov. 3 ballot to invalidate the law. Perhaps that is why the video of Mr. Spooner’s speech in April suddenly has become very popular on YouTube — he is still a father fighting for the equality of all of his sons:

Spooner, 86, spoke out in favor of marriage equality during hearings in Maine on gay marriage Apr. 22. But his remarks are only now being noticed online. The World War II vet, and father of four, says he didn’t fight in World War II for his gay son to be treated as a second class citizen.

“I am here today because of a conversation I had last June [2008] when I was voting [in the presidential primary election],” Spooner says. “A woman at my polling place asked me, “Do you believe in equal, equality for gay and lesbian people?’ I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her, ‘What do you think our boys fought for at Omaha Beach?’ I haven’t seen much, so much blood and guts, so much suffering, much sacrifice. For what? For freedom and equality. These are the values that give America a great nation, one worth dying for.”

Mr. Spooner is so eloquent that I expect his speech will bring tears to the eyes of most people who watch him speak. But I have to tell my straight gentle readers that there is an additional effect his speech has on lesbians and gays. Because of all the ways religions work to get parents to disown or distance themselves from their homosexual children, without realizing it, I think the vast majority of us, in many important ways, feel motherless and fatherless from a very early age. So hearing Mr. Spooner speak, for too many homosexuals, will be their very first experience of what it would feel like to have a loving and supportive father. Imagine that.

Seriously — take a moment and imagine that. What would be different about your life if one or both of your parents demonized you, or even just affirmed you do not deserve to have equality simply based on your preference to marry a same-sex spouse and the speculation that you won’t be raising children? Imagine: would your life be better or worse if your parents denounced you and refused to stand up for your equality for ANY reason?

I’ve been fortunate to have my father’s support, but even I was astonished by the flood of emotion that poured over my parched heart when I felt Mr. Spooner’s support for his gay son’s equality. I was absolutely astonished at how loved he made ME feel. I wonder if straight people are conscious of the love and support and validation they get from every direction simply because they might have babies. I wonder if straight people are conscious of how consoling and empowering the reality of that network of support is.

I’m with Mr. Spooner, who is still fighting so eloquently and valiantly at the age of 86 for equality and liberty, “We must have equal rights for everyone … let gay people have the right to marry.”

Equality Maine has more videos here and more information here.

Tales of Hoffman

From YouTube:

Jeremy Kaine and Tony Maglione from Doug Hoffman’s Plattsburgh, New York, campaign office tell America what is at stake in the Nov. 3 Congressional special election in upstate New York.

Dear Stacy McCain just got back from his trip to NY-23 to check on the campaign of Doug Hoffman, who is the Conservative Party candidate, and I recommend a visit to The Other McCain for his insights. Hoffman was endorsed this week by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin because the Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, supports liberal policies, including big stimulus spending and an end to the secret ballot in votes on whether or not to unionize.

What interests me about this race is the uproar among conservatives and Republicans over the choice of Scozzafava by the local Republican committee over Hoffman based on their belief that her liberal positions would ensure her victory. Like the grassroots organizing behind the Tea Parties and the town hall healthcare reform meetings this summer, it shows the disconnect between Republican and conservative leadership and pretty much everyone they are supposed to be leading, but aren’t. However, in 2009, for the first time ever, the grassroots have tools they can use to find other like-minded people, communicate, develop a consensus, create a plan of action and implement it easily and cheaply — using just e-mail, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — with almost no leadership required.

The sweetest thing about this right now is that the Alinsky tactics that Obama and his team employ are founded on a now-obsolete model where there’s a leader to personify, isolate, demonize and destroy. It’s just as well there’s no leader to attack — and they are making themselves look foolish by attacking Fox News, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh while appeasing America’s real enemies.

Another element that Alinsky’s model of destruction depends on, which is now obsolet, is the presence of media gatekeepers who decide who gets into the marketplace of ideas and who is denied. So — in the summer of 2008, Sen. John McCain was denied space on the op-ed pages of the New York Times to answer an op-ed by Obama. The masters of the universe in his campaign who later fragged Gov. Palin — who was weeks from being considered for the VP slot then — were not bright enough to post Sen. McCain’s op-ed on Facebook. However, now, in the fall of 2009, Gov. Palin is using Facebook to pwn both Obama AND the clueless among the Republican Party such as Newt Gingrich, who endorsed Scozzafava for NY-23. The gates have been trampled down by a stampede and it’s looking like Gov. Palin is the first one to figure out the new rules of how this game is played in the era of the Internet and social media.

Go, Sarah!

P.S.

How is it I’m the first one to make a play on Tales of Hoffmann? Where are the other opera lovers in the right-wing blogosphere? The clip below is Montserrat Caballé and Marilyn Horne in concert singing the duet “Belle Nuit,” also known as “Barcarolle,” from Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Tales of Hoffmann) by Offenbach. I swear Joss Whedon adapted a plot from this opera for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” if that piques your interest.

Lyrics:

Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour,
Souris à nos ivresses,
Nuit plus douce que le jour,
Ô belle nuit d’amour!

Le temps fuit et sans retour
Emporte nos tendresses,
Loin de cet heureux séjour
Le temps fuit sans retour.

Zéphyrs embrasés,
Versez-nous vos caresses,
Zéphyrs embrasés,
Donnez-nous vos baisers!
vos baisers! vos baisers! Ah!

Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour,
Souris à nos ivresses,
Nuit plus douce que le jour,
Ô belle nuit d’amour!
Ah! Souris à nos ivresses!
Nuit d’amour, ô nuit d’amour!
Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!

Translation:
Time flies by, and carries away
our tender caresses for ever!
Time flies far from this happy oasis
and does not return.

Burning zephyrs,
embrace us with your caresses!
Burning zephyrs,
give us your kisses!
Your kisses! Your kisses! Ah!

Lovely night, oh night of love,
smile upon our joys!
Night much sweeter than the day,
oh beautiful night of love!
Ah! Smile upon our joys!
Night of love, oh night of love!

How to learn to be lucky

Richard Wiseman is a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire  in the U.K. who researched how to be lucky and wrote a book about it called The Luck Factor. He published a piece giving highlights of his research findings on Jan. 9, 2003, at the Web site of the British newspaper, the Telegraph:

… unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and as a result miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.

My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

I wondered whether these four principles could be used to increase the amount of good luck that people encounter in their lives. To find out, I created a “luck school” — a simple experiment that examined whether people’s luck can be enhanced by getting them to think and behave like a lucky person

I asked a group of lucky and unlucky volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.

One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier. While lucky people became luckier, the unlucky had become lucky. Take Carolyn, whom I introduced at the start of this article. After graduating from “luck school”, she has passed her driving test after three years of trying, was no longer accident-prone and became more confident.

In the wake of these studies, I think there are three easy techniques that can help to maximise good fortune [note: boldfacing by CY]:

  • Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as an alarm bell — a reason to consider a decision carefully.
  • Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety.
  • Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. They imagine how things could have been worse. In one interview, a lucky volunteer arrived with his leg in a plaster cast and described how he had fallen down a flight of stairs. I asked him whether he still felt lucky and he cheerfully explained that he felt luckier than before. As he pointed out, he could have broken his neck.

FYI — the book I advertise on this site, How to Get Lots of Money for Anything — Fast by Stuart Lichtman, includes information on how to become much luckier. It covers far more than generating and attracting money and while I may not be wealthy, Stuart’s book has, literally, been a life-saver for me. For more information, including how to buy it, see the advertisement below this post.

Thanks to Stuart’s book I am able to recognize that Dr. Wiseman makes sound observations about the differences between the lucky and the unlucky and his principles to apply to become luckier — and since you, my dear gentle reader, are lucky enough to be reading this, I thought I would share the infomation to give you some tools you can use to make yourself even luckier.

Ex-ex-lesbian tells why ex-gay books should be banned

I was an ex-lesbian for almost eight years during most of my twenties. Except for one thing. I was just celibate. I was still sexually attracted to women. I could not force myself to be attracted to men. I could not will myself to be attracted to men. All I could manage was to be very shut down emotionally and always on guard. As an ex-ex-lesbian, I don’t believe there’s any such thing as an ex-homosexual.

It is wrong in every way for any society, or any religion for that matter, to force homosexuals to become heterosexuals for any reason whatsoever. It was devastating to me in every way to believe I had to do that to myself to be a good person. If I had had any relationship with a man under those circumstances, it would not have been good for him, either. I would have been faking my whole life, not just the sex.

I bring this up because today Van Helsing over at Right Wing News is wringing his hands over the banning from public school libraries of books with a religious agenda of destroying the self-confidence of homosexuals and manipulating them into becoming ex-gay heterosexuals:

One reason liberals hate Christianity so frenetically is that it teaches us that we can overcome sin and find redemption. According to moonbat ideology, we are hapless victims who cannot be held accountable for our own behavior. The idea that we have free will is heresy to progressives, so it is no surprise that books about ex-gays are getting banned by public school libraries ….

If you want to see your book on school shelves, you have to take a very different point of view — i.e., you have to promote homosexuality to children.

PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs turned to the American Library Association for help. After all, the ALA has been promoting its annual Banned Books Week, devoted to shining a light on “the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States” …. But these principles only apply to books that advance the degenerate agenda. Consequently, the liberal establishment’s ALA blew off Griggs, refusing even to issue a statement opposing bans on ex-gay books. When Fox News tried to learn more, the ALA blew it off too, no doubt pleasing The Anointed One immensely.

First, the best reasons to ban the books is that they are religion masquerading as science. As science, they are on a par with books asserting that the earth is flat and the moon landing was a hoax.

Second, there are plenty of very religious liberals so it is just crazy to paint all liberals as hating Christianity. And the founding of a Christian church that accepted gays was one of the first things that happened when the modern homosexual equality movement began in 1969 — it is the Metropolitan Community Church and it was founded by ex-heterosexual gay pastor Rev. Troy Perry. When homosexuals act rudely about religion, it is worthwhile to remember that the religions started it and encourage parents to throw away their homosexual children, even the dependent teens; tell the most vicious lies about homosexuals; and openly have an agenda to destroy the lives of homosexuals, deny us equality, keep us as second-class citizens and stigmatize us in every possible way. Case in point — see above, “degenerate agenda.” There are not many people so saintly that they can endure such comprehensive violence and hatred directed against them, even as vulnerable children, and extol the virtues of the religions that actively promote their persecution NOT because of anything they do but because of what they ARE.

And another thing — I first came out in 1972 when I was 18 and attending the University of Michigan. I began to speak to classes there about what it was like to be a lesbian when I was 19 or 20. So I have a rather long perspective. And I have observed that only people who are forcing themselves to be heterosexual believe that this can and should be done, plus the people they have browbeaten into believing them. So I find it VERY interesting that Van Helsing seems to be saying that sexual orientation is subject to free will — very interesting indeed.

Ross Douthat bets on the future of gay marriage

From the New York Observer, 10/22/09, via Memeorandum:

Ross Douthat, conservative op-ed columnist for the New York Times … indicated that he opposes gay marriage because of his religious beliefs, but that he does not like debating the issue in those terms. At one point he said that, sometimes, he feels like he should either change his mind, or simply resolve never to address the question in public.

He added that the conservative opposition to gay marriage is “a losing argument,” and asked rhetorically if committed homosexual relationships ought to be denied the legal recognition accorded without hesitation to the fleeting enthusiasms of Britney Spears and Newt Gingrich.

After the panel, Mr. Douthat told the Observer: “If I were putting money on the future of gay marriage, I would bet on it.”

He added: “The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren’t just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don’t find purchase in American political discourse. I say, ‘Institutional support for reproduction,’ you say, ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.’ Who wins that debate? You win that debate.”

I wish that we were winning the debate. The Courage Campaign reports that polling in Maine shows a dead heat, 48-48, for and against the ballot measure to overturn Maine’s law allowing homosexual marriage equality.

Shepard Fairey and the Left's hope-destroying double standard

I was reminded of the YouTube video, “The Patti Lupone Audience Freak-out Re-mix,” by the post today by Stage Right at Big Hollywood, which explains why Shepard Fairey’s appropriation of the work of an AP photographer for his famous “Hope” poster of Obama is plagiarism and threatens the foundation of artistic compensation, yet Left-wing Hollywood is not outraged:

Any director, writer or actor interested in making long-term money in the entertainment industry should be calling Fairey what he is: A plagiarist. But they won’t. And they won’t protest for an end to the Afghan war even though casualties are mounting under President Obama’s watch. And they won’t claim President Obama is taking away their freedoms even though he extended President Bush’s declaration of national emergency this past September 10th (something the left continually criticized President Bush for).

One wonders what fault, if any, the left will find in this President or his loyal supporters like Fairey.

Well, speaking from experience, the Left’s ideals are all about duping the vulnerable and the idealistic into giving their labor, money and unquestioning support. God help the fool that takes any of those ideals seriously and tries to get the Left to make good on them itself. All animals may be equal on the Left, but the Left only truly works for those divinely-appointed few who are more equal than all the others.

About Patti Lupone — when she was in Juilliard she toured with their company to the University of Michigan when I was a student there and double-majoring in English and theatre. Theatre students were required to do a certain amount of ushering for various shows and I remember ushering for something she was in and circling her name in the program so I could prove I recognized her as a star from the very beginning of her career. I’ve been delighted to see her achieve great success. Oh — and I think she was right to go off on the audience member who was taking photos — although I appreciate the irony that the only reason we have the recording of her righteous wrath is that the person making the bootleg audio didn’t get caught.

Stand on the chair and use my binoculars

The story today of a Virginia man who was arrested for walking around inside his own home naked based on the complaint of a woman who saw him when she was trespassing on his property reminds me of an old joke that I read as a child, I think in a Bennett Cerf book of jokes:

An old maid calls the police to complain about a man in a nearby home who keeps exposing himself. So a police officer comes to her home to investigate her complaint. “Where is the man who is exposing himself?” the officer asks her. The old maid takes him to a window and points in the direction of the offender. The police officer looks and looks and finally tells the old maid, “I’ve looked as hard as I can and I don’t see anyone.” To which the old maid replies, “Stand on the chair and use my binoculars!”