Energy Secretary Steven Chu used the movie The Avengers, which I saw last weekend, to segue into another pitch to keep dumping taxpayer dollars down the “clean energy” money incinerator.

By way of Erika Johnsen at Hot Air, here’s Chu writing on his Facebook page:

I can rarely find the time to make it to the movies, but my staff is buzzing about The Avengers, which focuses on a new, limitless clean energy source called “The Tesseract.” In the film, there is evidently an intergalactic struggle to claim this new resource – one we can only win by relying on heroes like Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow, and the Incredible Hulk. Naturally, the group includes a couple scientists!

While the “Tesseract” may be fictional, the real-life global competition over clean energy is growing increasingly intense, as countries around the world sense a huge economic opportunity AND the opportunity for cleaner air, water, and a healthier planet. This is now a $260 billion global market, a sum that would impress even Tony Stark. According to the International Energy Agency, last year — for the first time — more money was invested worldwide in clean, renewable power plants than in fossil fuel power plants.

Given how big the opportunity is, and how fast it is growing, it is no surprise that 80 countries have adopted policies or incentives to capture a share of the clean energy market. The good news is that we have an advantage every bit as powerful as the Incredible Hulk: Americans’ talent for entrepreneurship and innovation is unrivalled [sic] by any other country in the world. We have world-leading scientific facilities that would make Bruce Banner green with envy, and the investments we’re making today in groundbreaking new technologies can help American businesses stay ahead of the curve.

Ultimately, however, the clean energy prize is still up for grabs and countries like China are competing aggressively. It’s not enough for us to simply invent the technologies of the future, we need to actually build and deploy them here as well. As President Obama noted recently, one step Congress should take immediately is to renew the expiring tax credits for clean energy – a step that will create jobs and help American companies compete. When it comes to clean energy, our motto should be: “Invented in America, Made in America, Sold Around the World.”

When I saw The Avengers, I just knew when they got to the part about the the “Tesseract” — the limitless clean energy source — that it would make greenies with plenty of access to other people’s money harder than Chris Matthews stuck in an elevator with Obama.

Here’s the catch though, and it’s sort of fits metaphorically:

The villain in the movie is Loki — an Asgardian god who is also the archenemy (and adoptive brother) of Thor.

Loki seeks the Tesseract because it will open a portal in space through which the aliens from Chitauri will travel to earth in order to enslave mankind. Loki believes that freedom is an illusion and that it is the destiny of humans to be subservient to those who are their intellectual superiors (“Freedom is a disease and servitude is the cure”). As his only concern was with increasing his own power, Loki wanted this magical “clean energy” source as a way to take control of rubes, not for any altruistic reason — to save people from “global warming” or anything like that. Gee, the only thing missing was Loki telling people they should let him control the Tesseract because of all the jobs that would be “saved or created.”

I’m told that in the sequel Loki will come to earth in search of algae fuel.

Oh, and to top it off, The Avengers — Iron Man specifically — ended up destroying the Chitaurian army and closing the Tesseract portal with an atomic bomb. I don’t know if Chu and his fellow greenies saw that part. Chu must think they plugged the hole with unused Solyndra solar panels or something.

The government spent at least $205,075 in 2010 to “translocate” a single bush in San Francisco that stood in the path of a $1.045-billion highway-renovation project that was partially funded by the economic stimulus legislation President Barack Obama signed in 2009.

“In October 2009, an ecologist identified a plant growing in a concrete-bound median strip along Doyle Drive in the Presidio as Arctostaphylos franciscana,” the U.S. Department of Interior reported in the Aug. 10, 2010 edition of the Federal Register. “The plant’s location was directly in the footprint of a roadway improvement project designed to upgrade the seismic and structural integrity of the south access to the Golden Gate Bridge.

“The translocation of the Arctostaphylos franciscana plant to an active native plant management area of the Presidio was accomplished, apparently successfully and according to plan, on January 23, 2010,” the Interior Department reported.

I’ll bet you this thing’s now in Pelosi’s backyard:

Republicans are more likely to have better sex than Democrats, according to a new, 5,000-subject survey released by Binghamton University and Match.com on Friday.

More than half – 53% – of those identifying themselves as single, conservative Republicans said they reached orgasm almost every time they have sex. That’s compared to just 40% of liberal Democrats.

That said, the survey also found that Democrats have sex more frequently — possibly due to screwing taxpayers with greater efficiency.

Note: The “Republicans orgasm more than Democrats” poll has a margin of error of plus or minus Bill Clinton.

From KCAL:

A SoCal woman says the energy efficient window installed in a neighbor’s condominium is melting the plastic components on cars parked in her carport.

Heather Patron of Studio City was dealing with a mystery regarding her Toyota Prius.

“The side view mirrors were melting,” says Patron. “Anything that was plastic on the car was melting.”

Toyota told Patron nothing was wrong with the car. After having the mirrors replaced, she noticed the mirrors on the car parked next to hers were also melting.

Patron then observed a powerful beam of light that was reflecting off the window of a next door condominium, casting a concentrated beam over her carport.

CBS2’s Randy Paige placed a thermometer in the pathway of the beam on a partially cloudy day. The temperature registered over 120 degrees in less than five minutes.

I haven’t seen eco-irony that thick since Ed Begley, Jr. nearly choked to death on a Tofu burger at Beverly Soon.

Click the pic to roll tape on the news video:

Idiotic assertion(s) of the day courtesy of NPR:

…on Tuesday night’s All Things Considered, Harris was followed by NPR substitute anchor Guy Raz lamenting to Obama climate negotiator Todd Stern that “we are the only major country in the world that is still debating whether or not climate change is real.” That’s apparently a serious embarrassment compromising our “leadership” role:

RAZ: Todd Stern, let me ask you about what you experience when you go to these climate conferences. Among other things, we are the only major country in the world that is still debating whether or not climate change is real. Do people ask you when you go to these conferences, you know, where is U.S. leadership on this issue?

STERN: I don’t think they ask so much where U.S. leadership is because I think people have seen President Obama in action. But I think people are quite befuddled by what they see in the U.S., in terms of the level of skepticism and even denial of basic science. Global warming is happening, humans are clearly contributing factors, and we have to act to control it. I think most people understand that.

Maybe these guys think it’s so hot and oxygen depleted because their heads are rarely seen anywhere except up their asses. According to the latest Angus/Reid survey on climate change opinions in various countries, the US does not have all the climate change deniers:

Since 2009, Angus Reid Public Opinion has conducted five three-country surveys on global warming. The latest poll outlines one of the lowest proportions of believers in man-made climate change ever recorded in Canada (52%). Still, Canadians are more likely than Americans or Britons to both believe in emissions as the primary source of global warming and to choose environmental protection over economic growth.

In the United States, despite the economic crisis, belief in man-made global warming has reached the high level that was observed before the so-called “climate-gate” controversy. In addition, the proportion of Americans who brand climate change as an unproven theory fell by five points, the biggest fluctuation observed in the past three years.

Britain has become the main source of skepticism, with the lowest proportion of believers in man-made global warming, and with a third of Britons acknowledging that they would foster economic growth even at the risk of damaging the environment—the largest proportion observed in all three countries.

As for “deniers,” not everybody is a climatologist, but most people do know how to read emails. Being able to comprehend Al Gore’s pet scam doesn’t require a science degree — just a bullshit detector.