California’s Condor Cuisinarts

Birds provide a gripping illustration of the hypocrisy of progressivism.
California’s Condor Cuisinarts
By: George Noga – October 6, 2019

        Progressivism is a bundle of inconsistencies, contradictions and outright lies, often taking opposite sides of the same issue when suiting its narrative. We have written on this topic before; visit our website www.mllg.us to see our posts of December 2, 2018 entitled Liberals Believe the Strangest Things and, if you have time on your hands, see our May 8, 2014 post www.mllg.us, Liberalism is for the Birds. Many other issues showcase liberal intellectual bankruptcy, but none finer than birds.

        Libs go gaga over birds whenever it suits their purpose. The Audubon Society estimated 2,300 birds were killed from the BP accident during which the media saturated us with photos of a pelican dripping with oil, only to later find the photo had nothing to do with BP. They hyped bird safety to try and kill offshore drilling.

        A pipeline leak, which killed a handful of ducks, became a progressive feeding frenzy to stop all new pipelines. Bird safety was a major part of the latte-left effort to halt the Keystone XL Pipeline and to oppose every fossil fuel project including fracking. Activists used the Endangered Species Act to list the prairie chicken and sage grouse as threatened species to try to stop all drilling on federal and private land.

          Now, let’s see how liberals regard birds when they don’t fit into their narrative.

         Saving the California condor was the holy grail of avian causes until condors ran afoul of an even holier progressive shibboleth – green energy. Over half the condors released in the wild have been killed, most by wind turbines; they are part of the million birds killed yearly by turbines, including bald eagles, hawks, golden eagles and owls. California wind farms have become veritable condor cuisinarts.

Liberals argue we must kill 126,000 eagles in order to save them.

        Just one wind farm (Altamont Pass near Oakland) kills 80 golden eagles each year. Progressives support the issuance of a federal taking permit to allow wind farms legally to kill 4,200 bald eagles each year for the next 30 years; that’s 126,000 eagles. In support of the taking permit, environmentalists argue climate change ultimately will kill even more eagles; therefore, we must kill eagles now in order to save them.

          In contrast, all fossil fuel activity kills about 1,000 birds a year versus 1 million for wind energy, i.e. 1,000 birds are slaughtered by wind farms for every bird killed by fossil fuels. Nonetheless, the Obama Administration filed criminal indictments against three oil companies for inadvertently killing 6 ducks. Liberals give the wind industry a get-out-of-jail-free card, while criminalizing oil companies for infinitesimally less.

          Solar energy projects also exterminate birds. The Ivanpah project, which covers five square miles (350,000 mirrors) in California’s desert, scorches birds, including peregrine falcons and great hawks, that fly overhead with its 1,000 degree heat. Solar farms also end up killing huge numbers of threatened desert tortoises. Just as with wind farms, progressives acquiesce while threatened species are savaged.

         Earlier this year in Scotland, a white-throated needletail was sighted for the first time in 22 years. Excited birdwatchers flocked to the Hebrides to catch a glimpse. While they were watching, the rare bird flew into a wind turbine and was killed. No doubt, progressives view this as a necessary avain sacrifice on the altar of wind energy. Imagine how they would have reacted if the needletail was killed in an oil spill.

         Progressivism is a lie and birds are but one way to showcase its hypocrisy.


Next up is our gloriously politically incorrect post honoring Columbus Day.
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us

Liberals Believe the Strangest Things

Liberalism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.
Liberals Believe the Strangest Things
By: George Noga – December 2, 2018

          It’s time to throw some red meat to our conservative readers and to challenge our progressive ones. The quote in the preheader above is from, you guessed it, Churchill. The liberal credo is sentio ergo sum, i.e. I feel, therefore I am. Liberalism is an emotional state in which obvious contradictions, disdain for facts, utopian fantasies, obsessive desires to control others and antipathy for all who differ – in various degrees and patterns – come to dominate a person’s thinking. For those who believe this definition is too long, it can be reduced to just four words: liberalism is a lie!

        Progressivism is antithetical to objective reality; it embraces dogma, mythology, political correctness, identity politics, unreason, ad hominem attacks and junk science. Progressives have corrupted politics, science, media, religion, government and even sports. It is the god that failed. Their ideas have gone bad: Obamacare, welfare, public housing, government schools, affirmative action and diversity programs. They have contempt for America, western civilization and all who differ. The failure of liberalism explains why progressives are eagerly turning to socialism as their next best hope.

       Liberals accept preposterous contradictions. They believe in manmade global warming but oppose natural gas which lowers CO2. They are against nuclear power although more people died at Chappaquiddick than at Three-Mile Island and Fukushima combined (from radiation). They tout Nordic nations as socialist successes even though they are capitalist, while ignoring real socialist states like Venezuela. They believe America is racist despite a two-term black president; they believe unions help workers even though 94% of private sector workers reject unionism as a bad deal.

       They believe in government health care despite its failure with the VA, Native Americans and in Canada and England. Sixty percent (60%) of Americans pay no income tax (net of credits), but they believe the tax system is not progressive. They demand organic food although there is no difference in taste, vitamins or pesticides and it uses 30% more land and costs much more. They panic over GMOs which feed the poor of the world and reduce the land required for agriculture. They believe in gender specific abortions because it is necessary to kill females in order to protect their rights.

       Progressives believe it is okay for a young girl to have an abortion without parental consent but not to open a lemonade stand; fifty million abortions are good but 1,000 executions are evil. They fanatically support choice but oppose a woman’s right to choose where to school her children, to own a gun, whether or not to buy health insurance or to join a labor union. They profess compassion and good intentions, but it is all virtue signalling. They oppose school choice, but not for their own kids.

        Liberals oppose corporate money and Citizens United, while vastly outspending their opponents. There was no blue wave this past election, but there was a green wave of money from unions, Soros, Bloomberg and Steyer. They supported Beto O’Rourke, who has an hispanic nickname but no hispanic heritage, over Ted Cruz, whose father was 100% hispanic. They believed Brett Kavanaugh’s uncorroborated accusers while dismissing much more credible charges against Keith Ellison. They use scare tactics about climate change while fiercely opposing common sense forest management.

       Progressives cluster in bi-coastal, bien-pensant tribes, living, learning, working, socializing and intermarrying, often for generations. Many don’t know even one Christian or anyone from flyover land. They live in intellectually vapid and isolated bubbles where their myths are constantly reinforced. Life in the liberal tribe is easy; tribal members never have to think; whatever the tribe believes is right; whatever others believe is wrong. Consequently, liberals believe the strangest things.


Next week’s posting contains a collection of short topics.
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us