Tag Archives: Iceland

Maintaining Their Independence

Posted on by

On Sunday, Fox News reported that Iceland has voted NOT to join the European Union. According to artificial intelligence, approximately 82.52% of eligible voters in Iceland participated, resulting in a total turnout of around 200,000 voters. I wish America could get that percentage of voters to turn out.

The article reports:

Icelandic voters narrowly rejected a proposal to restart negotiations to join the European Union, as voters sided with independence versus the capital city’s general desire to restart talks that were suspended more than a decade ago.

The “no” side won 52.8% of the vote to 47.2% for those who supported reopening talks, The Associated Press reported, citing Icelandic national broadcaster RUV. Reykjavik was the only part of the country where a majority backed the proposal.

The vote was a setback for Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, who campaigned in favor of resuming negotiations, but she hoped the result would not deepen divisions after a campaign that exposed sharp differences over Iceland’s economy, sovereignty and control of its valuable fishing grounds.

…The campaign had “lifted discussions about the EU, about Iceland’s place in the world, about our general geopolitical situation and status, to a higher level,” she (Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir) said.

Opponents countered that EU membership would not fix domestic economic problems and could force Iceland to surrender too much control over decisions now made in Reykjavik.

“These are not problems that Brussels will solve for us. These are problems that Icelandic politicians must solve,” opposition leader Gudrun Hafsteinsdottir, who led the “no” campaign, said.

The fight over fisheries was among the most sensitive issues in the campaign. Fishing has long been central to Iceland’s economy and national identity, and opponents warned that eventual EU membership could weaken Iceland’s authority over its fishing grounds.

This was a smart move on the part of Iceland. Iceland is a beautiful country. The picture at the top of this blog was taken in Iceland where my husband and I traveled on our 40th anniversary trip. It’s a wonderful place with amazingly friendly people.

Tell Us Something Without Actually Telling Us Something

Posted on by

Recently WWAYTV3 in Wilmington, North Carolina, reported that Hertz is cutting back on its rental of electric vehicles.

The article reports:

Hertz, which has made a big push into electric vehicles in recent years, has decided it’s time to cut back. The company will sell off a third of its electric fleet, totaling roughly 20,000 vehicles, and use the money they bring to purchase more gasoline powered vehicles.

Electric vehicles have been hurting Hertz’s financials, executives have said, because, despite costing less to maintain, they have higher damage-repair costs and, also, higher depreciation.

“[C]ollision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle,” Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in a recent analyst call.

And EV price declines in the new car market have pushed down the resale value of Hertz’s used EV rental cars.

“The MSRP declines in EVs over the course of 2023, driven primarily by Tesla, have driven the fair market value of our EVs lower as compared to last year, such that a salvage creates a larger loss and, therefore, greater burden,” Scherr said.

Simply put, people are generally willing to pay a certain amount less for a used car than for a new one. As the price of new car goes down, that also pushes down what people are willing to pay to buy a used one.

As of now, electric cars are not the answer to green energy. There are serious ethical questions about the mining of the lithium that is used to make the batteries, and there are safety issues–don’t try to evacuate from a hurricane in an electric car if the puddles you are driving through contain salt water–that can cause the car to ignite. Iceland successfully uses hydrogen as fuel for its busses. There are other options for cutting pollution than electric cars.

This Explains A Lot

Posted on by

Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about one of the causes of the rise of sea level in Greenland.

The article reports:

Melting of ice in central Greenland is being accelerated by the heat of molten rocks rising from the core–mantle boundary, adding to sea-level rise, a study has found.

Researchers from Japan mapped out the extent and branches of the so-called ‘Greenland plume’ — the rising flow of molten rock ascending beneath the island.

Geothermal activity is abundant in the North Atlantic region. Iceland and the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen have active volcanoes with their own mantle plumes.

Iceland gets its electricity from the geothermal energy underneath the island and by using dams to capture glacial meltwater. Because energy is abundant and cheap there, it is one of the major places in the world where aluminum is made.

The article includes the following illustration:

The article concludes:

With their initial study complete, the researchers are hoping to examine the thermal process in greater detail.

‘This study revealed the larger picture, so examining the plumes at a more localized level will reveal more information,’ said Professor Toyokuni.

The full findings of the study were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Solid Earth. 

When you put something warm under ice, the ice melts. That is not man-made global warming. The existence of the molten rocks explains a lot.

Some Random Thoughts On Socialism

Posted on by

I love Iceland. The top of this blog is a picture from Iceland. It is an amazing country. It is a socialist country. When you drive through the beautiful countryside and look at the houses on the hills, all of the houses look alike. There is no individuality. I believe that is one of the results of a socialist state. Contrast that with a small bit of American history. After World War II as the soldiers were returning home, they needed a place to live with their families. Many of them were young families with very few assets. I know this because my father was one of the returning veterans. He was one of the men who landed on D-Day. After he returned home, he moved our family to Levittown, New York, a community which had been built for the returning soldiers. All the houses in Levittown were identical. There were hundreds of them. Today when you drive through that original section of Long Island, all of the houses are different–some added porches, second stories, garages, etc. The neighborhood is indicative of the individuality of the American spirit–something not found in a socialistic culture.

There are a lot of factors involved in the younger generation’s attraction to socialism. It is not unlike the hippie movement of the 1960’s. As a youth, you want things to be ‘fair.’ As we have extended adolescence into the mid to late 20’s, these ‘grown’ adolescents have become accustomed to having lodging provided (many are still living with their parents). Marriage and building a family have been postponed until their 30’s, partially because of college debt that was not always well thought out. Because one of the traits of adolescence is the need to be accepted, conformity is also part of the picture. The ‘everyone-gets-a-trophy generation’ has not really had to struggle to feel successful and thus has not had the satisfaction of working toward and achieving success. (I am speaking in very general terms here.) Socialism eliminates the struggle–just do okay and all of your needs will be provided. Our schools have not taught the downside of socialism–dissenters put in prison or shot, starvation, no middle class–only a very upper class and a lower class.

As the younger generation grows older, if they accept the responsibilities of adulthood, their love of socialism will fade. Once they realize that they can achieve things (with some effort and ingenuity), I believe they will embrace the free market. The good news is that as of yet, they have not turned out as a major voting block. Hopefully their love affair with socialism will end before they become a major voting block.

We’ve Heard This Song Before

Posted on by

Fox News posted an article today that details some of the dire predictions we have heard in the past regarding the future of the earth. The article is in response to some of the recent claims made by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other pseudo-scientists.

The article reports:

An Associated Press headline from 1989 read “Rising seas could obliterate nations: U.N. officials.” The article detailed a U.N. environmental official warning that entire nations would be eliminated if the world failed to reverse warming by 2000.

Then there were the fears that the world would experience a never-ending “cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere.” That claim came from an “international team of specialists” cited by The New York Times in 1978.

.Just years prior, Time magazine echoed other media outlets in suggesting that “another ice age” was imminent. “Telltale signs are everywhere — from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest,” the magazine warned in 1974. The Guardian similarly warned in 1974 that “Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast.”

In 1970, The Boston Globe ran the headline, “Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century.” The Washington Post, for its part, published a Columbia University scientist’s claim that the world could be “as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age.”

Some of the more dire predictions came from Paul Ehrlich, a biologist who famously urged population control to mitigate the impacts of humans on the environment. Ehrlich, in 1969, warned that “everybody” would “disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years,” The New York Times reported.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Ehrlich, warning of a “disastrous” famine,” urged placing “sterilizing agents into staple foods and drinking water.”

About the prediction of oceans rising and obliterating major cities–a science-oriented friend of mine pointed out that when ice melts in a glass of water, the water level stays the same–it doesn’t overflow the glass.

At any rate, the earth is in a warming stage. The earth periodically goes through warming stages. Warming stages have to do with sun spots, the earth’s orbit, and other natural occurrences. The earth went through warming stages before man even thought of burning carbon-based fuel. And last of all, man is simply not important enough to control the climate. However, the climate is important enough to be used by men to control a population that power-hungry politicians seek to control.

The Untold Story Of Abortion

Posted on by

The following is a chart from a website called blackgenocide.org:

It is a negative reflection on our society that the African American deaths caused by violent crimes spawned the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, but the number of African American deaths due to abortion has been met with silence.

On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about some recent comments by Justice Clarence Thomas.

The article reports:

Justice Clarence Thomas said Tuesday the Supreme Court will not be able to duck the issue of abortion forever and raised concerns about the potential for abortion to “become a tool of eugenic manipulation.”

…The conservative justice focused specifically on Indiana’s prohibition of abortion based on sex, race, or disability and charted the history of the eugenics movement in the United States.

The dispute before the court, he warned, “highlights the fact that abortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation.”

“Enshrining a constitutional right to an abortion based solely on the race, sex, or disability of an unborn child, as Planned Parenthood advocates, would constitutionalize the views of the 20th-century eugenics movement,” Thomas wrote.

Thomas highlighted comments from Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and its former President Alan Guttmacher and cited a “growing body of evidence” that suggests “eugenic goals are already being realized through abortion.”

In Iceland, for example, Thomas wrote the abortion rate for children diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero is nearing 100%. He also noted that the nationwide abortion rate among black women in the U.S. is roughly 3.5 times that for white women.

“Some believe that the United States is already experiencing the eugenic effects of abortion,” Thomas said.

It’s time for all Americans, including minorities, to extend helping hands to pregnant women and encourage adoption.

 

The Need For A Reality Check

Posted on by

Green energy is a wonderful concept. Energy in Iceland is almost entirely green because the country sits on a number of volcanoes that supply it with thermal energy. I’m not sure that I am willing to live on a volcano to get thermal energy, but that is one way to go green. However, the quest for green energy where there is not such an obvious energy source has not been particularly successful.

CNS News posted an article yesterday about the statement put out by Speaker Pelosi to recognize Black History Month.

The article has the entire statement, but I think the focus is interesting:

Democrats will be pushing a “For the People” agenda that will include raising wages by building green infrastructure.

“And we are pushing forward a bold, ambitious agenda For The People to make good on the promise of the American Dream for everyone by lowering the cost of health care and prescription drugs, raising wages by rebuilding America with green, modern infrastructure, and strengthening our democracy by ensuring that our government works for the public interest, not the special interests,” Pelosi said.

Let’s talk about rebuilding America with green, modern infrastructure. Green energy is one of the major special interest groups in America.

In 2015, The Washington Times reported:

Taxpayers are on the hook for more than $2.2 billion in expected costs from the federal government’s energy loan guarantee programs, according to a new audit Monday that suggests the controversial projects may not pay for themselves, as officials had promised.

Nearly $1 billion in loans have already defaulted under the Energy Department program, which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration has approved, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in its audit.

The hefty $2.2 billion price tag is actually an improvement over initial estimates, which found the government was poised to face $4 billion in losses from the loan guarantees. But as the projects have come to fruition, they’ve performed better, leaving taxpayers with a shrinking — though still sizable — liability.

It’s a good thing Speaker Pelosi didn’t say anything about lowering taxes–maybe the increased wages with increased taxes will pay for the green energy.

This green energy idea has not been successful when tried before.

In August 2014 The Daily Caller posted an article about Spain’s attempt to convert to green energy:

According to a new report by the free-market Institute for Energy Research, Spain’s green energy policies have resulted in skyrocketing electricity prices, billions of euros in debt and rising carbon dioxide emissions.

“For years, President Obama has pointed to Europe’s energy policies as an example that the United States should follow,” said IER in a statement on their new study. “However, those policies have been disastrous for countries like Spain, where electricity prices have skyrocketed, unemployment is over 25 percent, and youth unemployment is over 50 percent.”

Spain began heavily subsidizing green energy sources, like wind and solar, in the early 2000s with its“Promotion Plan for Renewable Energies. The country used a combination of generous feed-in tariffs, green energy generation quotas and green power subsidies to boost renewable energy development in the country and lower its carbon dioxide emissions.

…But what seemed like a booming green energy economy on the surface was really becoming a costly way to help drive Spain into economic recession. By 2011, Spain’s electricity prices stood at 29.46 U.S. ¢/kilowatt-hour — two and a half times what electricity cost in the U.S. at the time.

President Trump has helped all Americans. We have the lowest unemployment among minorities that we have had in a very long time. Wages are going up, taxes are going down, and the workforce participation rate is climbing. I suggest that if Speaker Pelosi truly wants to help minorities during Black History Month she should support President Trump’s economic agenda.

Conclusions Not Based On Facts

Posted on by

Bearing Arms posted an article today about the game the media plays comparing apples and oranges in order to infringe on our Second Amendment rights. The latest example the media is sighting is Iceland.

This is a recent quote from NBC News:

Like many of his countrymen, Olaf Garðar Garðarsson is eager to get his hands on a rifle.

But he can’t just walk into a store and buy one. Instead, he is sitting through a mandatory four-hour lecture on the history and physics of the firearm.

This is Iceland — the gun-loving nation that hasn’t experienced a gun-related murder since 2007.

“For us, it would be really strange if you could get a license to buy a gun and you had no idea how to handle it,” says Garðarsson, 28, a mechanical engineer. “I would find it very odd if [a gun owner] had never even learned which is the pointy end and which is the trigger end.”

Iceland is a sparsely populated island in the northern Atlantic. Its tiny population of some 330,000 live on a landmass around the size of Kentucky.

St. Louis, Missouri, which has a population slightly smaller than Iceland’s, had 193 homicides linked to firearms last year.

Icelanders believe the rigorous gun laws on this small, remote volcanic rock can offer lessons to the United States.

I have no problem with gun safety classes. I took one when I moved to North Carolina because I realized very quickly that the culture in North Carolina regarding guns was very different from that of Massachusetts. But I took that course by choice. No one forced me to do it. I think those courses are a good idea. I think forcing people to take them is a bad idea. Our gun crimes haven’t come from citizens who would be willing to take those courses. Even if we banned guns totally, criminals would still find a way to get them. Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, but it also has a very high rate of murder by gun. The only reason a politician wants to take guns away from citizens or infringe on citizens’ rights to have guns is to increase the power of the government and decrease the power of citizens to prevent government overreach.

The article further reminds us:

Iceland and the United States are very different when it comes to key issues, namely those of culture. Iceland is culturally homogenous, with 94 percent of its population coming from Norse or Celtic roots and only six percent coming from some other group. Because of this, the Icelandic culture is easily dominant, making those who come from other cultures step up and adhere to the social rules of their new nation as much as the civil and criminal rules. The fact that the culture has been there, more or less, for over a thousand years solidifies that in a lot of minds. While that culture has changed over the years, it’s still there, and it drives society.

Meanwhile, the United States is culturally diverse.

What works for Iceland won’t work for America. Our culture is very different. Iceland is essentially a socialist country. As you drive through the countryside, all of the houses look alike–there are no houses that stand out with creative designs. It is a much more homogenous society than America. Our freedom and diversity are part of what makes us great. When the media says that Icelandic gun laws would work in America, they are doing both countries a disservice.

 

Is This A Place We Want To Be?

Posted on by

I love Iceland. It is one of my favorite places to visit. Even though I truly hate cold weather, I still find the country fascinating. However, there is something going on there that troubles me deeply.

Herman Cain posted an article on his blog today about one aspect of medical care on Iceland.

The article reports:

Don’t tell me again about the moral imperative to denounce Nazis if you’re going to let this slide.

As Rob mentioned to me when we were discussing who would write this up, the essence of Hitler‘s eugenics program was to filter out children who didn’t have the traits deemed optimal for the Aryan race. Horrifying? Obviously. You’d have a fit if they started aborting babies for having brown skin, or – if there was some way you could tell – for being gay.

And you should have that fit.

But you don’t need to wait. You can have the fit right now, because Iceland is well down this road. There, expectant mothers are given blood tests to determine if there’s a likelihood their baby will have Down Syndrome. And if it looks that way? Well, the mothers are informed that most abort under these circumstances. No one wants a child who doesn’t have the perfect designer genes, you understand, so Iceland is now to the point where almost 100 percent of mothers who are told their babies will probably have Down Syndrome go ahead and have said babies killed.

And CBS News is congratulating Iceland for this rousing success.

The article quotes the CBS News story:

With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland.

Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women — close to 100 percent — who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.

While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test, according to Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik.

Note that they are not eradicating the disease by curing it, but rather by killing those who would be born with it. That really doesn’t seem like a solution to me.

CBS News further states:

Quijano (CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano) noted, “In America, I think some people would be confused about people calling this ‘our child,’ saying a prayer or saying goodbye or having a priest come in — because to them abortion is murder.”

Olafsdottir (at Landspitali University Hospital, Helga Sol Olafsdottir counsels women who have a pregnancy with a chromosomal abnormality) responded, “We don’t look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication… preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder — that’s so black and white. Life isn’t black and white. Life is grey.”

Wow. Just wow. I am appalled at the idea that you can eradicate a disease simply by killing those who have the potential to have it. One wonders how future generations will look upon this.

The Law Of Unintended Consequences At Work

Posted on by

One of the problems with the idea of ridding ourselves from fossil fuels is that we really haven’t perfected the alternatives. Our economy runs on fossil fuels, and until we develop a safe, clean, inexpensive, efficient, and reliable alternative, our economy will continue to depend on fossil fuel. In 2014, I posted a story explaining what happened when Spain attempted to switch over to green energy. As far as I know, the only country in the world that has successfully made the switch to green energy is Iceland. They have been able to generate large amounts of electricity because of the volcanoes the island sits on. Recently scientists have discovered that there is a serious down side to solar energy (other than the birds that have been fried while flying over solar panels).

On March 1st, The Daily Caller reported that the construction of solar panels generates Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3).

The article reports:

Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) is a key chemical agent used to manufacture photovoltaic cells for solar panels, suggesting government subsidies and tax credits for solar panels may be a driving factor behind the 1,057 percent in NF3 over the last 25 years. In comparison, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions only rose by about 5 percent during the same time period.

NF3 emissions have rapidly increased in Asia as well due to its rapidly growing solar panel market, and researchers think that many nations are under-reporting their NF3 emissions by roughly a factor of 4.5.

NF3 emissions are 17,200 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas over a 100 year time period.

NF3 is also used in the production of semiconductors and LCD flat screens.

The article also points out:

The 1,057 percent increase in US annual emissions of NF3 from 1990 to 2015 compares to an increase of 5.6 percent in carbon dioxide emissions, according to EPA data in a recently-published draft of a new report

There is, however, some good news. The study concluded that the more modern solar panels will emit less NF3 and will have a positive impact on the environment. This conclusion was reached by considering the amount of CO2 that would not be released when the solar panels were used. After some adjusting of the numbers, solar panels could be shown to have a positive impact on the environment. It might be a good idea to keep in mind at this point that a good statistician can make any group of numbers say anything he wants them to say.

The Most Peaceful Country In The World

Posted on by

At the top of this blog is a picture taken in the country designated by the Institute for Economics and Peace (calculated according to the Global Peace Index) as the most peaceful country in the world.

Time News Feed posted an article on Monday stating that Iceland in the most peaceful country in the world–followed by Denmark and New Zealand. In reading the article, I wondered about the politics of the organization rating the peacefulness of countries. It seems as if social welfare states ranked higher than countries whose fiscal policies were more conservative.

At any rate, Iceland is a beautiful, peaceful country. I would like to note that the frequency of alcoholism in Iceland has been estimated to be in the range of 3.5-6.3% (statistics from the Icelandic National Health Plan to the Year 2010). In America it is about 6.6 % (2005 statistics from the drugrehab.org).

I guess my problem with reading this was wondering what the definition and criteria for the concept of peace were. Iceland is beautiful. I also wonder if there is a different temperament in people living in extremely cold climates than people living in very warm climates. There is so much that could influence the choice of ‘the most peaceful country in the world’ that is totally subjective that I question the conclusion drawn.

Enhanced by Zemanta

A Problem I Never Considered

Posted on by

On Tuesday the New York Daily News posted a story about a website set up in 1997 to help Icelanders avoid incest. Think about it. Iceland is an absolutely beautiful place, but it is an island with a population of about 300,000. It would be very easy to date your cousin without knowing he/she was a relative.

The article states:

Enter Íslendingabók, or the Book of Icelanders, an online resource that tracks 1,200 years worth of genealogical data on the country’s inhabitants, according to the website.

All Icelanders have to do to prevent incest is type in their name and the name of a potential love interest — that is, provided they have an “Icelandic ID number,” since the database is restricted to citizens and legal residents.

What a fantastic idea. The website will also tell inquirers whether or not they are related to Icelandic celebrities.

My husband and I traveled to Iceland to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary a few years ago–it was warmer than Massachusetts in February! We stayed at the Blue Lagoon, one of the national treasures of the country. Iceland is an amazing place, and the people were absolutely wonderful. I hope to go there again.

Enhanced by Zemanta