The
Olympics start today. Will I turn on the TV and watch what Danny Boyle has been
up to or will I try to think about something else despite the UK media barrage?
One thing that’s grazed my brain of late is the way that I turn on the local
news and find groups of middle-aged folk – seemingly both conservative and
green – protesting the building of windfarms. Frankly I don’t get it. Okay, so
birds do fly into the blades, but I have to figure that there will be a
Darwinian solution to this, and also the number of birds killed by windmills is
a fraction of a percentage point of the number of birds killed by cats. The other
complaint is that they are unsightly – ugly even – but I find them rather
beautiful. When I lived in Los Angeles, the windfarm out along the I10 near
Palm Springs was a joy to behold.
Click here
for All Angels, about the scariest cover of Bob I have ever encountered.
Click here
for the GTOs by way of an antidote.
The secret
word is Gust
so do i,they make me think i`m living in the future & i do think they look beautiful.you`re right about the cats,my little thugs leave no end of bits of birds,shrews,mice & ?others? on a nightly basis.us next!
ReplyDeleteMind you, they probably said similar about pylons in the '50s. What sucks is the politics and the energy companies that lie behind them, rather than how they look or the numbers of gulls and crows that they dispatch (I'm of course referring to windfarms rather than All Angels or the GTOs).
ReplyDeleteI suspect at least 50% of the protest arises per initiation of force against the working poor to fund grants for windmill projects. When an idea isn't good enough to sell, it gets jammed down someone's throat. That way the politicians don't miss out on their obligatory bribe(s).
ReplyDeleteI've always enjoyed seeing them when riding my Kawasaki W650 from Phoenix to New York. Love to have one on my farm. Would never allow the Government to put one there. Got no use for blood money.
Woodchuck Pirate
aka Raymond J Raupers Jr USA
Clearly none of you have stood under one or near one. Instant headache that takes days to fully subside.
ReplyDeleteYes, they look nice at a distance but these are not the kind of windmills farmers used to have. These are heavy duty motherfuckers. Bird death is the least of it. In parts of eastern europe they have been built too near neighborhoods that have had no say to myriad health problems.
be careful what you wish for, woodchuck.
don't ya just love a liberal..we live in a world with an exploding population..need more power.. ok most of 'em will either be Chinese or South Americans, does that matter..??bitching about a 'wind-mill' ain't gonna help..are u part of the solution ..?? hahaHa
ReplyDeleteI've got an electrical technology degree, and a basic understanding of generators. I have no intuitive insight as to how passing a conductor through a magnetic field causes headaches. Being that I reject faith in all forms, I'll not reject or accept anyone's claim to have windmill headaches. Neither am I an altruist, so I don't seek anyone's conversion. Regarding faith in finding a solution for civilization, it's blatantly obvious that civilization is not sustainable. Civilization is largely insane. The sooner it expires the better. There are no victims. "Civilization" insists that the only acceptable scenario for survival is the ever-expanding consumptive economy. In that it insists upon its destruction. Good riddance.
ReplyDeleteWoodchuck Pirate
aka Raymond J Raupers Jr USA
Woodchuck,
ReplyDeleteForget your degree. Go stand under one. It has nothing to do with passing a something or other thru something else, unless you want to talk about passing a blade thru air.
Know how if you only have one car window open you get a standing wave that feels like your head is being pounded? Multiply that by many thousands. There's only one way to experience it... go try it yourself. You feel it in the ground too.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the conversation, I sincerely appreciate your concern. I just haven't heard such a thing before. However I do remember we used to take a simpson meter out offroad and park under the power lines here in rural New York. We recorded significant level of induced voltage between the truck frame and earth. I'm not attempting to discount what you experienced. It's an interesting paradigm I'd like to discuss further with others. I've often contemplated the reality of how many radio wave transmissions pass through our bodies at all times. I've never sensed anything in the 53 years I've endured them. However it seems reasonable that effects must exist at the cellular level. There are so many things that people turn to these days, such as wearing magnetic inserts inside their shoes etc. Steve Hoffman advocates a type of stone designed to absorb stray EMF near speakers and other hi-fi gear. Me, I've lived in chronic pain for decades and choose consciousness and valid philosophy over anything the medical industry offers to mutilate me with. Electricity continues to fascinate me, especially how vacuum tubes sound so much nicer than transistors. As I've said many times, the human life-form is overrated. It would not surprise me that individuals react differently, even violently under same stimuli. My rib cage didn't come with a warranty and so I probably got a deal. I'll look forward to any opportunity to lean against one of these big windmills and see what happens. I once laid my hand on the Enola Gay at an aircraft museum. I just had to feel the evil. Isn't that what living on Earth is all about?
Woodchuck Pirate
aka Raymond J Raupers Jr USA
The most logical at least for now solution is nuclear power. Remember when it was advertised as 'too cheap to meter'?. If not, check out youtube for the ads themselves. If properly regulated, and funded,and we could have cheap energy right now, but where is the profit in that?
ReplyDeleteI'd guess it depends on how proper regulation is defined, and whether you'd trust the regulators. Of course it's a cheap jibe, but Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the Fukushima Daiichi plant do spring to mind.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I attempted to have faith in nuclear power opportunities. Now that Government at all levels has revealed corruption saturation as "normal", nuclear power has become yet another vicious atrocity juggled carelessly in the hands of the beast. The spent fuel incorporated into weapons, employed in empire building, are characteristic of collective insanity. Faith not reason advocates placing collective insanity into roles of regulating nuclear power. Yet more evidence that civilization is largely insane.
ReplyDeleteWoodchuck Pirate
aka Raymond J Raupers Jr USA