View From The Porch: Just when you think you've heard the dumbest thing ever...

Monday, February 16, 2009

Just when you think you've heard the dumbest thing ever...

...you're proven wrong.

"Wind Turbine Syndrome", my ass.

Folks, I think we've finally found people who are actually too dumb to qualify for a new career as Soylent Green.

25 comments:

Home on the Range said...: Now Tam - if it weren't for the wind turbines, the Mother ship wouldn't be able to get a hold of them. :); 10:37 AM, February 16, 2009
MedicMatthew said...: This wind farm project is in my part of the state. Within 30 miles of this project there are three paper mills that are practically sitting right on top of ginormous ledge seams, one of which runs right under my house. These paper mills, you know, cause low frequency noise and vibration and I'm (relatively) normal.

There are companies trying to establish more renewable electrical generating sources in this state (the vast majority of our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams) and these tree hugging hippie whack jobs are trying to tell us that wind power is bad because the setting sun could shine through the turning blades and cause a strobe effect and induce a seizure. I hate stupid.; 10:52 AM, February 16, 2009
Frank W. James said...: Are these the same folks you don't mind letting grain spoil and rot, but protest NO FOOD FOR FUEL?

Sounds like it...

All The Best,
Frank W. James; 11:30 AM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: I think the real danger is that all those windmills in one place spinning the same direction could cause a serious disruption in the coriolis effect. Toilets in the northen hemisphere swirling around the bowl counter clockwise could stop the earth's rotatation..... Or at least make people say "huh, weird"; 11:43 AM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: This is the REAL reason Teddy the Swimmer didn't want wind turbines at Cape Cod.; 11:54 AM, February 16, 2009
closed said...: I guess they don't want to hear about my plan for running steam powered wind-turbines with burning depleted Uranium?; 12:00 PM, February 16, 2009
Joanna said...: Barring a documented case of turbine-caused seizures, I'm retaining my skepticism. For the record, though, my dad's seizures can be triggered by something as small as a psychedelic background effect on TV, so I can see where people would be concerned.

As for the rest of it, these are the same people who freaked out about living under the power lines. One hundred years ago, they would have put shoeboxes below outlets to catch the electricity and keep it from rolling around the house getting underfoot. It's the classic "I read half an article somewhere about something scientific and now I think I'm an expert."; 12:53 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: Correct me if I'm wrong, but ISTR that wind power was one of the Holy Grails of the environmentalist movement back in the day--non-polluting, renewable, all that jazz. However, now that wind power is becoming more prevalent, environmentalists are turning on it like a pack of wolves, complete with the same sort of Chicken Little arguments they made about nuclear power.

It's almost like they really aren't serious about clean energy sources, and are just trying to drag us all back to the Stone Age.; 1:15 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: Absolutely Right!
Wind turbines are dangerous.
Nuclear Power is out of the question.
Coal and gas and oil are destroying the planet.
Solar panels cause planet cooling and another ice age.
The only solution is for all who truly care about environmentalism to kill themselves, NOW!

word verification bantardi - the musicians are late.; 2:17 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: Oh no, we're setting ourselves up for global fan death!; 2:31 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: I worked around a bunch of turbines out in western Oklahoma and Texas. Yes they make a low thumping sound but in the end, how do you hear it over the howling of the wind.

There is an issue that no one talks about. You can't get something for nothing so if you are taking energy from the wind, you are taking energy from someone else. Eventually the climate change folks will clue in that we are changing the climate by taking away the wind with the turbines.

Think about it.; 2:37 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: YOU ARE CORRECT! Anything we do to generate or use any kind of power causes climate change!
Thus, my contention that the only people who truly care about the environment have already committed suicide. I hope all liberal environmentalists will join them!

Word Verification - trater - a misspelling of Democrat; 2:59 PM, February 16, 2009
Rich in Ohio said...: A significant - and vocal - part of the environmental left only supports techonology that hasn't been invented. In this way they are just like "gun safety advocates" who only approve of guns that don't exist.; 3:06 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: The reason to bann windo turbines is not any airy-fairy medical effects, it's that in MOST places they are hopelessly un-economical.

They are a waste of money.

In addition they kill birds by the truck load, if they are near people have been known to shed small to large chunks of ice at high-enough V in winter, and most aren't too pretty to start with.

Ok for isolated water pumping duty, not much else.; 4:26 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: The Kennedys apparently complained that a wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard would screw up their view. I say it is the Kennedys who are screwing up my view of Martha's Vineyard.

Besides, I admire wind turbines for the elegance of their engineering, and in any event, composite structures subject to cyclical loads such as these should keep me employed til I'm bored of it.

Jim; 5:51 PM, February 16, 2009
BobG said...: "The only solution is for all who truly care about environmentalism to kill themselves, NOW!"

That sounds like a good solution to me; then we won't have to hear their constant pissing and moaning.

Word verification: teditfan; 6:24 PM, February 16, 2009
Mark said...: Put not your faith in humans.

For they are mainly thick as planks.; 6:56 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: Hmmm....What other colors of Soylent do you have? Anything in puce, or maybe a light pink?; 7:17 PM, February 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: Obviously, no one remembers the episode of X-Files where people's inner ears were explosively decompressing due to exposure to ULF (Ultra-Low Frequency) radiation brought on by Navy equipment [snarkasm off].

These friggin' idiots complain just to complain. It makes them feel like they're doing something - anything - to make their worthless lives seem like it has any kind of value. They would protest their own protests if they knew what they were protesting.; 10:45 PM, February 16, 2009
Don M said...: We have lots of wind turbines in the Mojave desert. They exist to suck in income tax write offs. After one bird gets wacked, they begin to rot, and the odor attracts others, which in turn get wacked.

Also, the wind turbines only make some marginal sense when there is a energy storage mechanism. Here we pump water up a hill when the temporary generators are working, then let it flow back down through generator turbines when the wind is quiet, or the peak demand is high. In this case buying power from the Hoover dam, and paying for the losses in sending it through wires for hundreds of miles can sometimes almost break even, if you don't count the cost of setting up the infrastructure.

Because it is not economical, the electric companies are required to buy a certain amount at high rates. The electic companies give people the opportunity to buy more of that, at higher rates, to show how public spirited they are. If not enough people are public spirited, CA will mandate greater shares from this uneconomical and environmentally unfriendly source.; 1:40 AM, February 17, 2009
closed said...: They aren't economical. Hence my call for steam-powered Wind turbans.

We can burn coal in them for now.; 8:20 AM, February 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: I recall that the strobe effect of driving with trees along the roadside with sunlight filtering through can bring on seizures in some epileptics. Sounds like good reason to cut the trees down along roadsides. Or ban driving. Or something. There aught to be a law in any event. Somehow.; 9:38 AM, February 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: Why is epilepsy still legal? I mean, wasn't it like an Egyptian cult, or something?

And those peanut allergies.
And salmonella? On a cracker?
Jeeze.

Shana, they bought their ticket...; 11:15 AM, February 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: I'm surprised they aren't claiming these turbines generate the brown note.; 1:26 PM, February 17, 2009
closed said...: They do generate the brown note.

Fear them.; 3:03 PM, February 17, 2009