‘Math for Morons’

Economy, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Free Markets, Healthcare, Trade

Having just feasted on an excellent, fresh, Chilean orange, here is a reminder, via the one and only John Stossel, that eating organic, local produce must not turn into an irrational fetish. Read “Math Lessons for Locavores”:

the local food movement now threatens to devolve into another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas. Arbitrary rules, without any real scientific basis, are repeated as gospel by “locavores,” celebrity chefs and mainstream environmental organizations. Words like “sustainability” and “food-miles” are thrown around without any clear understanding of the larger picture of energy and land use.

The result has been all kinds of absurdities. For instance, it is sinful in New York City to buy a tomato grown in a California field because of the energy spent to truck it across the country; it is virtuous to buy one grown in a lavishly heated greenhouse in, say, the Hudson Valley.

The statistics brandished by local-food advocates to support such doctrinaire assertions are always selective, usually misleading and often bogus. This is particularly the case with respect to the energy costs of transporting food. One popular and oft-repeated statistic is that it takes 36 (sometimes it’s 97) calories of fossil fuel energy to bring one calorie of iceberg lettuce from California to the East Coast. That’s an apples and oranges (or maybe apples and rocks) comparison to begin with, because you can’t eat petroleum or burn iceberg lettuce.

It is also an almost complete misrepresentation of reality, as those numbers reflect the entire energy cost of producing lettuce from seed to dinner table, not just transportation. Studies have shown that whether it’s grown in California or Maine, or whether it’s organic or conventional, about 5,000 calories of energy go into one pound of lettuce. Given how efficient trains and tractor-trailers are, shipping a head of lettuce across the country actually adds next to nothing to the total energy bill.

MORE.

UPDATED: Lincoln Myth Busting

History, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Republicans, States' Rights, War

I was one of the folks who contacted Tom DiLorenzo asking him to dispel any developing myths about Bill O’Reilly’s new book, which deals with that killer, Abe Lincoln. After all, who better to dispatch O’Reilly and his Abe-adulating Killing Lincoln, than the Lincoln Myth Buster himself? Writes Tom at LRC.COM:

“Quite a few people have emailed me begging me to critically review Bill O’Reilly’s new book, Killing Lincoln, about the assassination. They do this not because they have read the book, which is a big, boring bag of nothingness, but because they’ve heard O’Reilly spout the neocon party line about ‘Father Abraham’ on his television show and they smell a rat.

I’ve read the book, and it really is a big bunch of nothing. All it is is a narrative of the events leading up to the assassination. Over 100 books are already in print on the subject, and all O’Reilly and his coauthor do is cut and paste what others have written on the subject, but without including a single footnote! The authors also have the annoying habit of writing things like, ‘in his mind, he was thinking that . . . ‘ as though they could know what Lincoln was thinking when he did this or that 150 years ago. This is a standard practice of the ‘Lincoln scholars,’ who also constantly claim to know what was ‘in his heart’ (nothing but love and kindness, of course) in their writings.” …

MORE.

UPDATE: Thanks, Mari, for the Salon link. Of course, liberals would never pan a Lincoln book because it lauds a mass murderer who sundered the Constitutional scheme forever and sicced brother against brother:

“A reviewer for the official National Park Service bookstore at Ford’s Theatre has recommended that Bill O’Reilly’s bestselling new book about the Lincoln assassination not be sold at the historic site “because of the lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication.”

Rae Emerson, deputy superintendent at Ford’s Theatre, which is a national historic site under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, has penned a scathing appraisal of O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever.” In Emerson’s official review, which I’ve pasted below, she spends four pages correcting passages from O’Reilly’s book before recommending that it not be offered for sale at Ford’s Theatre because it is not up to quality standards.

UPDATED: Football Scene Obscene (Getting Stranger)

Celebrity, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Law, Sex, Sport, The Zeitgeist

How did the noun “coach” ever come to be paired with the adjective “legendary”? To an outsider, the American football scene is obscene, starting with its incestuous fraternities, the rock-star status surrounding handlers and players, their pompom-waving, knickers-baring groupies, and the tantrum-prone fans who experience bare-fanged fury when their heroes let them down.

The problem with this freak show is that the participants have become pathologically invested in it.

Meanwhile, from NBC News’ vault comes this creepy footage of alleged pederast Jerry Sandusky:

“I must be a frustrated playground director. … I enjoy being around children. I enjoy their enthusiasm I just have a good time with them. Everybody needs people to care for them. Sometimes they don’t want it. Sometimes they don’t understand what you’re trying to do, but they want to be disciplined. Kids are growing up awfully fast today.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UPDATE (Nov. 15): As I said in an earlier post, I abhor the media-encouraged hysteria and hype over the Pen-State affair. “Let the man have his day in a court of law,” and all that stuff. But is this man helping his legal case?

In an “interview with Bob Costas, broadcast Wednesday night on NBC’s Rock Center,” the accused Jerry Sandusky manages to incriminate himself. I understand that Sandusky is here trying his best not to lie. Instead, he unintentionally injects a great deal of sensuality into talking about boys and what they mean to him.

MORE.

War-Party Prattle

Elections, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Republicans, War

Other highlights (or lowlights, rather) from the CBS/National Journal GOP Debate, which may elicit rhetorical reprisals from my readers:

IRAN: Newt Gingrich exercised his wit in suggesting that Obama had exhausted all the ways to be dumb about Iran. I disagree, but then I am not a neoconservative, and I do not experience a vicarious delight when my country’s military and government bombs, boycotts, and generally bullies barely developed countries. As a prelude to war, Newt was willing to entertain covert operations, co-operation with Israel, but war to break the Iranian regime would be best.

Ron Paul reminded all that war powers were vested in the congressional cockroaches, and warned against Iraq-like war propaganda against mad A-Jad. Still a peculiar idea, if to judge by the facilitator’s facial expression.

Rick Perry, who had taken his meds for the occasion, wanted to shut down the Iranian economy (all the better to starve its people). Good going for a goon.

The Other Rick advocated funding the pro-democracy movement. (With what? Monopoly money?) Santorum also believes that foreign aid creates jobs (although not in Iran). (By logical extension, RS, can you perhaps explain why Republicans assert that the assorted stimulus initiatives have failed to create jobs? How does their source of funding differ from that of foreign aid? Oops; you’re talking to the hand, Ilana Mercer. Not that his inquisitors would ever ask, but RS is incapable of explaining away that “minor” lapse in logic.) RS liked the idea of covert activity targeting Iranian scientists, and advocated the only thing with which I agree: the unleashing of computer viruses on nuclear programming. (See “Cyber-Warfare: Is It Libertarian?”)

Water-boarding babe Michele Bachmann warned of a nuclear conflagration involving Israel. As much as libertarians prefer to pretend otherwise, this is a reality the tiny country should entertain, as no one else is willing to face it, and many even delight in it.

MORE to come.