This editorial piece over at the Seattle PI details why bananas will be a thing of the past in short order. The author writes:

Bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.

As if this statement was not enough to roll your eyes the next paragraph really illicit contempt for this primitive thinking journalist.

There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon — in five, 10 or 30 years — the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world — and where they are leading us.

Oh god! The asinine statement that bananas will be lost forever is bested by the claim that this is because of the evil scary corporations. One can’t help but think that the scary thing in this story is not the corporation but that an esteemed journalist with a college degree somehow managed to retain such silly childish understanding of corporations.

If you wish to measure you partisan left ignorance gauge how compelling you find his reasoning. The more reasonable you find it the more ignorant you are.

The Copenhagen Consensus is a meeting of the top economists to determine the priority in which global problems should be solved. Unsurprising they found:

So what proposed solutions are at the bottom of the list? At number 30, the lowest priority is a proposal to mitigate man-made global warming by cutting the emissions of greenhouse gases. This ranking caused some consternation among the European journalists at the press conference. Nobelist and University of Maryland economist Thomas Schelling noted that part of the reason for the low ranking is that spending $75 billion on cutting greenhouses gases would achieve almost nothing. In fact, the climate change analysis presented to the panel found that spending $800 billion until 2100 would yield just $685 billion in climate change benefits.

I can already hear Al Gore:

‘The debate is over. The expert opinion agrees. It’s fact that we should do nothing about global warming.

I can’t help but wonder how happily those that eagerly defend global warming via the ’scientific consensus’ will embrace the economic consensus to do nothing about global warming. Knowing humans I suspect those that embrace the scientific consensus will be much more reluctant to embrace the economic consensus. It’s almost like expert determined facts are much more important when they support your beliefs then when they don’t.

Over at Ghost of a Flea the poster notices an excellent comment found on a story about how it’s important for America to find ways to appeal to Europe.

I’m always slightly amused by these inane popularity polls. Anyone who knows just a bit of the history of this country knows that our forefathers thought very little of Europeans. Europeans were considered as corrupt and effeminate (little has changed in 232 years). America was by design the “anti-Europe.” The fact that Europeans hate us today means we are doing something right. John Adams must be smiling in heaven.

This is a good point. One that I never really considered before. Many on the left like to use Europe as the benchmark for the US to aspire to. However this country began by rejecting most of what Europe was about. One might argue that our success, at least for certain amount of time, was directly correlated with our rejection of Europe. The next time someone suggests we are behind in health care because European nations provide it for everyone I’m going to remind them that our country started out by rejecting the way Europe does things.

Washington Post has a collection of pictures of Iraqis get along in the city of Basra. Remember if you opposed the war you denied this outcome. I’m sure you have your reasons, but at the end of the day, you can not take credit for these pictures. Had Bush followed your polices these people would most like still be living under the tyranny of Saddam.