Puke and Snot in the San Luis Valley

As an off and on visitor to the Renaissance Festival, I was saddened to learn of the untimely death of one of the members of the Puke and Snot show shortly after their last performance in Larkspur last month.

It is nice to see that Puke and Snot fans Mark Udall and Ken Salazar were doing a revival in the San Luis Valley this week although news reports didn't say who was playing Puke and who was playing Snot. We'll improvise.

Puke:

[ Mark ] Udall added, “I’ve always supported drilling — I’m opposed to destroying the environment.”

Those are code words for "I'm opposed to the use of fossil fuels in any form, so I have always opposed drilling, but I'm too much of a liar to acknowledge my record. For the next 60 days, I'll pretend to have always supported drilling and hope no one notices."

Puke again:

“Democrats aren’t against oil and gas exploration,” he [Mark Udall ] said, “but they just want it done right.”

Those are code words for "Oil companies can 'explore' all they want. We Democrats oppose 'development' and low gas prices." Nancy Pelosi said it best when she let the House adjourn without a vote on drilling (Mark Udall wasn't there, remember?): "I'm trying to save the environment."

And Snot piped up:

Asked about the use of corn in energy production and the belief that this is making food prices rise, [ Ken ] Salazar said less than half of the corn produced goes into corn-based ethanol.

He contended that the oil and gas industry is “actually demonizing green technology.”

If we remember correctly, it was the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times who first pointed out negative impact of ethanol on corn and food prices, not the oil industry. Before this author realized what a consistent liar Mark Udall was, we called him "cornfused" because he had a different story for every audience interested in ethanol. Now, he stands in silence while Ken Salazar pulls the same stunt.

Pure Vaudeville.

It's Nice to be Read

This blog and blogger works on themes that Mark Udall, his staff, and his helpers, paid and unpaid hand us.

One of the themes that has emerged is the willingness of Democrats (The Big Blue Lie Machine) in general and Mark Udall in particular to lie to the public. We've even caught Udall telling other members of Congress that his bill allowing forest thinning near ski resorts does something it is not intended to do.

At first, we were polite about what was going on, calling it "cornfusion" because the first few examples were about corn ethanol. When it became obvious that Udall seldom felt an obligation to be truthful to the public about any subject, we created the tag "Udall as a Liar." We became a bit less polite and more direct.

Yesterday, we caught what might be a Udall staffer, janus303, doing a "Digg" on each of Mark Udall's web pages. We considered what was happening to be another Udall deception and said so.

The response we got was a "Digg" on our essay and:

Bob Schaffer's Bloggers Admit They Don't Understand Digg

We're not going to claim that we understand the Digg process," they say, using the royal "we." No kidding. But that doesn't stop them from baselessly accusing Mark Udall of engaging in "just another form of deception, of lying." Ignorance is bliss, I suppose. Question: In the infinite wisdom of Bob Schaffer's illuminati, is the NRSC also guilty?

There are multiple things to respond to here and lessons to point out:
1) This is an almost childish response similiar to what you might hear from third graders - "but...but...but... that kid way over across the playground told a lie today, so I should be able to lie, too!"
2) Last we heard, Mark Udall is running against Bob Schaffer, not the NRSC, and while Schaffer might have his own character flaws (doesn't everyone), routine lying is not one of them.
3) "We" is also a form favored in modern editorial writing, and much of what we do is editorial in nature - but you knew that and were once again trying to mislead the public.
4) It cost much less to admit that we don't understand the Digg process than to pretend that we did and be embarrassed in the future - that is a lesson Mark Udall and his staff might take from this exchange about the value of truthfulness and the cost of untruthfulness.

Once you get believeably tagged as a liar, it is hard to shake that tag.

Oh, and janus303 was still "Digging" new Udall pages today.

On Kittens and Grooming

When a kitten is taken from its mother before it learns to groom itself, it never learns to groom itself.

Mark Udall is in need of a comb. This isn't the first time we made that observation. It is said that you dress for the job you want. Our garbage men show up with combed hair more often than Mark Udall does, and they only come once a week.

Today's fashion statement picture was in the Grand Junction Sentinel.

The accompanying article has an interesting quote in it that is very likely another lie from the Mark Udall camp:

“This is solely about bolstering the base,” [ Mike ] Melanson said. “This is indicative of what we’ve been seeing in our research that Bob Schaffer has been having problems in his own base and this is about trying to scare Republicans back into the fold.”

Udall's minions are telling the left wing blogosphere in response to the latest poll showing a toss-up that their internal polls always showed the race to be close. Ok, Melanson, which is it? It reminds one of Mark Udall's Cornfusion, where he told three different audiences what they wanted to hear about corn ethanol.

Renewable Science Uncertain

Al Gore claims that the science is settled, but is it?

Using biofuel instead of gasoline in cars is generally considered to cut carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, although some scientists say greenhouse gases released during the production of biofuel could offset those gains.

And new studies question the impact on water quality.

More scientists are looking at the entire corn-to-fuel life-cycle of ethanol production and trying to assess the impacts. Researchers at the National Research Council are concerned that growing more corn for ethanol production could harm local water quality, according to a new report released in October

From MIT:

“Agricultural shifts to growing corn and expanding biofuel crops into regions with little agriculture, especially dry areas, could change current irrigation practices and greatly increase pressure on water resources in many parts of the United States,” the committee said in its report. “The amount of rainfall and other hydroclimate conditions from region to region causes significant variations in the water requirement for the same crop.”

The report also urged big agriculture to adopt new technologies that can increase crop yield while conserving water and reducing negative environmental impacts, such as soil erosion and runoff pollution.“We must recognize that the current state of the U.S. agroecosystem is not sustainable,” said Entekhabi, an hydrologist who studies land-atmosphere processes and is director of MIT's Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering.

“The use of energy-intensive and industrially produced fertilizers and pesticides are finding their way into water and food supplies for humans and animals. Soil erosion and loss of soil fertility is continuing unabated. U.S. agriculture needs to shift to more ecologically sound and sustainable conditions.”

Udall Committing a Crime Against Humanity?

Cornfusion isn't the only problem with corn ethanol:

A U.N. expert on Friday called the growing practice of converting food crops into biofuel "a crime against humanity,'' saying it is creating food shortages and price jumps that cause millions of poor people to go hungry...

The world price of wheat doubled in one year and the price of corn quadrupled, leaving poor countries, especially in Africa, unable to pay for the imported food needed to feed their people, he said. And poor people in those countries are unable to pay the soaring prices for the food that does come in, he added.

''So it's a crime against humanity'' to devote agricultural land to biofuel production, Ziegler said a news conference. ''What has to be stopped is ... the growing catastrophe of the massacre (by) hunger in the world,'' he said.

OK, it is time to put some names to these perps. Who would have guessed that Mark Udall, Ed Perlmutter, Ken Salizar, John Salazar, Bill Ritter and Diana DeGette would stoop to commit a crime against humanity-against the poor in Africa and South America?

One wonders if, when they go to the dock to answer for their crimes, they will use that famous and unsuccessful defense used in Nuremberg "We were just following orders - this time, the orders of the environmentalist lobby."

[ Jean ] Ziegler, a sociology professor at the University of Geneva and the University of the Sorbonne in Paris, presented a report Thursday to the U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee saying a five-year moratorium on biofuel production would allow time for new technologies for using agricultural byproducts instead of food itself.

Even the NYT is (was) Cornfused

Today the Gazette had a short editorial (scroll to the bottom) on the insane rush to biofuels and mentioned a recent NYT editorial on the subject.

We’ve been warning for a couple years that American politicians need to be enrolled, en masse, in an Ethanolics Anonymous 12-step program, because massive government support for the corn- and plant-based gasoline alternative would raise food prices and have uncertain environmental benefits. But we know a few readers won’t believe anything unless they read it in the editorial pages of the left-leaning New York Times, so we refer them to Wednesday’s edition, in which the gray lady finally awakens to ethanol’s adverse impacts

Mark Udall has shown himself to be "nimble" on this issue-"enthusiastic" to farmers, "skeptical" to energy executives, and calling it "a bridge" when CSU scientists criticize it-and now we know why. The Grey Lady isn't saying nice things about corn ethanol any more.

So far, Americans haven’t really caught on to what is happening to the price of products such as soybean or corn-based foodstuffs. But that may change if and when this rush to all fuels allegedly more environmentally friendly affects the price of beer...

Where will this all stop? Actually, it has barely even begun; most ethanol and bio-fuel production is merely in the planning stages, or under construction (as in the case of refineries to produce this stuff), and years from coming on-stream. At what point might it dawn on people that the “cure” for reducing our dependence on foreign oil is worse than the original disease?

Udall is Still Cornfused

A month ago, we wrote an essay about Mark Udall's Cornfusion. Today, a report in the Durango Herald that was generally uncritical of Udall described this exchange at a meeting called to tout renewable energy:

The one question Udall seemed to stumble on concerned the downsides of corn-based ethanol, an alternative fuel that has been criticized for taking almost as much energy to produce as it produces. However, corn ethanol is strongly supported by agricultural interests and politically influential Iowa voters.

Ali Sabeti, a retired senior adviser of the World Bank who lives in Durango, asked Udall how long it would take Washington to end subsidies for corn ethanol.

"If anybody wants to help me out with this question, I'd appreciate your help," Udall joked. The congressman recovered quickly, saying the government should promote research into cellulosic ethanol to provide a greater balance.

Would it be too much to ask Mark Udall to be consistent when he talks about corn ethanol? When he talks to knowledgeable energy executives, as he did in Durango, he is skeptical. When he talks to farmers, he is enthusiastic. When scientists at CSU criticize it, he calls it a "bridge."

He is a green extremist whose positions don't make sense, even to him. Regardless, he wants to shove the Colorado economy into an uncertain future of his own design.

Energy Questions for Mark Udall

The left is already complaining that Udall is working with Musgrave. They hope to beat her in 2008 and think Udall's cooperation doesn't help their cause. The two recently held a joint forum that will doubtless stir comments in the left wing blogosphere. Even so, the subject was of more interest than the format.

We have energy questions for Mark Udall:

If the lack of water resources is a serious problem in Colorado, and it is, why are we providing incentives to grow a crop that will gulp water when it is turned into biofuel? Do you plan to ship the corn to another state with more water and ship the fuel back? Has anyone really thought this one through?

Wind farms in Colorado are a great idea! Have you talked to Ted Kennedy about why he hates the thought of wind farms outside Martha's Vinyard? Better yet, sponsor a bill that provides Federal funds and a mandate for farms in both places and see how many of your environmentalist left friends in Congress vote for it.

Wouldn't Colorado provide more energy independence by developing gas wells on 350 acres of the Roan Plateau at a time?