The mad raisin farmer of Modesto strikes again! Victor Davis Hanson calls himself a conservative? His latest column bemoans the fact that Americans aren't building gigantic government projects much anymore.
Wait. Let me get this straight. V.D. Hanson calls himself a "conservative". Traditionally conservatives were the small government party, right? So why is V.D. bemoaning the fact that, well, big government isn't doing much big governmentin' nowdays?
For other stupidity in that same article, V.D. Hanson bemoans the fact that the last oil refinery was built 30 years ago. Never mind that today's oil refineries don't have a single component on site that was on site 30 years ago -- they've basically been rebuilt in-place with vastly greater capacity than the refineries of 30 years ago, we have more refining capacity today than we've ever had -- facts are not necessary for V.D. to operate.
About the only thing he really strikes home with is his criticism of the fact that the U.S. hasn't built a new nuclear power plant in the past 30 years. River Bend in Louisiana, started in April 1977, was the last nuclear reactor to start construction in the United States. That's over thirty years ago. As I've noted in the past, nuclear energy is the only energy source we have left with the energy density to maintain technological society once the oil runs out. We could burn more coal, I suppose, but that has serious environmental effects both in its extraction and in its effects upon global warming, and the coal won't last forever either. There are enough radioactive isotopes on this planet to fulfill our energy needs for tens of thousands of years, and by that time hopefully we will have figured out some way of doing nuclear fusion -- or we won't exist anymore (most likely, alas).
So anyhow, out of a gigantic three-column article, V.D. Hanson gets exactly *one* thing right. Which is 100% better than he's done in the past, but still. Why do people keep paying this hack to write this drivel?
-- Badtux the
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