There is no such thing as clean coal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdHuB7Ovl2o

No, really, there is no such thing as "Clean Coal." The technology, otherwise known as carbon capture and storage (CCS) has NEVER been done on an industrial scale and would take many years to develop and implement...assuming it's even possible. It's ridiculous to think clean coal technology is even a remotely feasible solution to our energy and global warming problems when we have far better choices available for implementation now such as wind, solar, geothermal, etc.

Get off the clean coal bandwagon for pete's sake. Give it up. Seriously.

/rant

Aw, Crap! Not again!

Well it looks like Sarah Palin is getting smacked with ethics violation charges again.

What?! You mean charging the taxpayers to fly your kids around with you on "official business" to places they've not been invited or even have any business being at is wrong? Gee, I never would have guessed.

Seriously? If she can't keep from abusing her power as Governor, how does anyone expect her to not abuse her power at VP of the United States?

Something...else

When do things cease to be what they are?

When does something cease to be that particular something and become something else?

For instance, when does Sammy, the cat in this blog, cease to be Sammy? Obviously, earlier in the day when Sammy was rubbing up on its family's ankles, possibly lapping up some left-over cereal-milk, Sammy was what the family knew as "Sammy." But after Sammy got squashed by Strangeloop's car, was it still "Sammy"? Strangeloop states that "the cat was pretty tore up and it was quite the ugly sight." But does is the cat still a cat, albeit lacking the life-energy that constituted the cat being alive and making up the "personality" that family had come to use to distinguish "Sammy" from other cats, even if they were identical in appearance.

I suppose this begs two distinct questions, both of which merit further examination. 1. What exactly constitutes the cat being "Sammy"? And 2. What exactly constitutes the cat being "a cat"?

I suppose the first question has already been somewhat answered. Sammy had a personality that the family was intimately familiar with that made Sammy the family cat that they all loved. That personality would have helped the family distinguish that particular cat from other, visually identical cats. Certainly, that personality, at least to some degree, made Sammy well, "Sammy." But obviously that wasn't the only thing that made it "Sammy."

So that brings us to the point of the family discovering the cat laying where Strangeloop left it on the porch, "pretty tore up and quite the ugly sight." Whoever discovered it laying there would have recognized it visually as Sammy. But was it still "Sammy" since the life-energy and personality existed no longer? One could possibly make the claim that the cat was no longer "Sammy" and was instead a visually-recognizable conglomeration of flesh, fur, and biomass. What the family would mourn over would be the memory of Sammy's personality and the memories of the past interactions they had with the cat when it still possessed the life-energy. I would have to contend that post-death, the cat is would cease to be "Sammy" though that would certainly be of little consolation to the family.

So then when does the cat cease to be "a cat"? I would have to say that even a dead cat is still a cat. It still possesses all the necessary ingredients to be a cat - DNA, specialized cells, body structure, appearance. If some scientists were to extract some of the cat's DNA, even after death, they would be able to re-create a cat and nothing else.

So what has to happen for a cat to no longer be a cat? If you chopped it up into little pieces, it would still be "a cat," just in a whole bunch of little pieces, wouldn't it? Maybe not. It would definitely possess the DNA, and the cells, but not the right arrangement or appearance. The cells wouldn't even be in the correct juxtaposition to - say, after re-injecting it with the now-missing life energy - function the way they did before, making it a fully functioning cat. Granted, one could make the claim that a cat missing a leg or needing a pacemaker is still a cat so some function can be sacrificed and still maintain the actual organism. But at some point, enough functionality is lost to prevent the pile of pieces from being considered "a cat" though I don't know where that is.

What if you took the cat and put it in a chemical bath that broke down all the cell walls and dissolved the biomass into its molecular components. Say you were able to then completely extract the original chemical from the solution and be left with a pile of molecules or chemicals of some sort. I don't think anyone would say that what remains is in any way "a cat". They would call it something else - a pile of chemicals, a solution, whatever. But maybe the family would still consider it "Sammy" just like they would if Sammy were cremated and they possessed the ashes. However I would refer back to my discussion above and claim that they are not assuming the chemical pile or the ashes are actually "Sammy" but the memories they invoke are what they are clinging to. The other stuff is simply the physical reminder, much like a headstone would be at a loved one's cemetery sight.

Though this far from settles the issue - it may well actually only lead to further debate - it brings about a very interesting concept that may well close the debate. Something ceases to be "something" when it becomes something else. A cat is no longer a cat when it becomes a pile of ashes or a pile of chemicals. The actual existence of something may cease and its components may constitute something else from there after, but the memory of that particular thing will endure as long as there are those still available to remember it. That is what blurs the lines between something being one thing and being something else. If there are no anthropogenic attachments, there is little debate. That is precisely why humans have such a hard time with matters such as these. Only in the complete absence of emotion can one fully understand things.

Things that annoy me, Chapter 5

Plumbing. (yeah, yeah...insert "Joe Plumber" comment here. Anyone who willingly takes up that trade ought to have their head examined so I don't really give a shit what he thinks about anyone's tax plan...)

I hate plumbing. Mostly because I'm not good at it but also because the materials needed for it go against most of what I stand for. Not only is PVC worthless and seems to have a high affinity for shattering in places that are virtually impossible to access without tearing out floors and walls, but it is really nasty stuff from an environmental standpoint. And the chemicals used to clean and glue the fittings ought to be targeted by the ONDCP.

For the last two days I've been making regular trips into the crawlspace under my house trying to fix pipes that, despite my best efforts to drain them last year, apparently froze and broke. The process is agitating enough on account that I hate the materials in principal but it just adds salt to the wound everytime I think I've finally found and fixed all the leaks only to turn the water on and find water spraying from some new, practically-impossible-to-access-by-anyone-larger-than-a-six-year-old space under my house. I've even found shattered vertical pipes in this process. How in the hell a vertical pipe shatters after not having any water in it for a year is a mystery to me. My only assumption is that Karma is on the side of the propane company and is getting back at me for shutting the water off to the upstairs of my house so I didn't have to heat it last winter. Whatever the reason, I'm annoyed. I now have to commence wallowing in the muddy crawlspace looking for the next leak.

Falling off the wagon

"What the eff? Long time no post."

I know. I have been slacking on my blogging lately. I haven't really been putting thought to text at all as of late and I'll admit I am starting to fiend a little bit. So here's my weak attempt at a quick fix to tide me over until I finally just suck it up and spend some real time in front of this screen really dispensing my thoughts.

I can't say my lack of posting is a product of being uninspired. Daily I have things happen or hear things that could potentially send me into a tirade of a six-part blog post. Lord knows that today's world doesn't lack for blogging topics. What I have been lacking is ambition. Historically, that's a common affliction with me this time of year. The days are getting perpetually more dreary and cold and most of the time I would rather just hide from it than take it head-on and keep functioning at near-peak performance. Unfortunately, obligations keep me from just hiding away so I often find myself just kind of coasting along, doing what I must but nothing more. For a while now, writing hasn't made it far enough up the perceived "must do" list to merit my dedicating oh-so-valuable do-nothing time to it. That's beginning to change.

Excuses, excuses I know. But were it not for excuses, I wouldn't be blogging while I should be working.

Here's what's on my mind for those of you who don't care but read blogs during your do-nothing time like I do:

1. I'll be glad when the election is over. All this incessant talk, much of which I participate in, is really hurting my head. And the chain email thing really is out of control but I still help to perpetuate it even though I have no idea why.
2. There are some bands out there that should have quit while they were ahead. I suppose when the only thing you've done for the last 20 years is make music, you don't know how to stop. AC/DC should not be producing new albums, neither should Metallica (though their new one is leaps and bounds better than the one that preceded it, it still blows) or Korn (especially now that they're missing half the original band members).
3. Hard rock bands should NOT cover hip-hop songs. The term "shorty" or some ebonicified version thereof should never be uttered over a shredding electric guitarist. Nor should the term "lovely lady lumps" ever be uttered, period.
4. Digital TV is still worthless where I live. It's like watching a scratched-to-hell DVD of network TV programming.
5. Free markets cannot exist in perpetuity. A free market system works only until the disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" becomes large enough for greed to dictate the use of the "haves'" power at the expense of the "have nots."
6. Sarah Palin not only epitomises hypocrisy, but also embodies the double standard that women are held to. Neither trait makes her qualified to be VP of the USA.
7. The only real beneficiaries of this campaign season are Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey.
8. Moving sucks.

I'll likely expand on some of the above thoughts sometime in the future. Not that any of them are really worth reading about but I don't necessarily write this blog to have it read. I write because I have to...for me. It's my drug and I need to fall off the wagon again.

Is misinformed better than completely ignorant? Part 1

There are several issues that are all over the media lately and will likely come up in tonight's third and (thankfully) final presidential debate. Top on the list is Barack Obama's supposed "association" with the "domestic terrorist" William Ayers.


I'm all for rooting out past corruption on any candidate. What I'm not for is the main stream media (MSM), or the other candidates' campaigns spinning these stories and making them national issues when they don't really merit being so, or vice versa.


I decided to try to find for myself what Obama's association was with Bill Ayers, and for that matter, who the hell this Bill Ayers guy was. Washington Post had a decent summary here. Apparently in the late '60s and early 70's, Bill Ayers was part of a radical group called Weather Underground which claimed responsibility for a dozen or so domestic bombings between 1970 and 1974. Bill Ayers was never convicted of any crime but told the New York Times in an article published in Sept. 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs...I feel we didn't do enough."


So the guy was obviously quite the radical in the early '70s. Now I wasn't alive then, but if I remember history and some stories I've heard from elders, that was a pretty tumultuous time. Does that excuse violence? No, of course not. But let's keep the era in mind here. Ayers is/was obviously big on politics, albeit maybe TOO big at times.


Now, what is the connection between Obama and this Ayers guy? These days, Bill Ayers is a well-respected professor at University of Illinois-Chicago and well established in the "intelligencia" community. Obama's only real ties to the man are that they live in the same general area of suburban Chicago and move within the same liberal-progressive circles. Early in Obama's political career, Ayers contributed....wait for it....a whopping $200 to his congressional re-election campaign. Aside from that, the only real "interaction" they seem to have had is that they both served on the board of a Chicago anti-poverty group called the Woods Fund of Chicago between 1999 and 2002.

So it seems to me that Obama's interaction with Bill Ayers doesn't merit being put on the national stage. Unfortunately, much of the media, and definitely a lot of the McCain campaign (ahem, Sarah Palin) is painting Obama as one who hangs out with terrorists. Yet, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that "Obama's Ayers connection never bugged anyone." Sometimes I wonder if complete ignorance on the issue isn't better than the misinformation and ridiculous spin being put on it because I can guarantee that few people will actually search out the truth. Obama didn't exactly 'pal around' with a 'terrorist' who was never actually convicted of anything and was part of an organization that operated when Obama was about six years old.

I'm all for people being well informed but I think people should be "well" informed. To be "well" informed, one's information should not come from stirring, fear-deriving, fanatical chain emails and half-stories in the all-to-often biased media.

Done ranting for now. See part two.

NASCAR and Politics, Again

It's becoming increasingly difficult to get excited about the upcoming election. Not that I was all that excited about it before but I at least looked forward to utilizing my right to have a say in who my leaders are. But now, exactly one month before the big day, I barely look forward to watching the second round of debates.


It's always the same ol' crap. "Change" and "Hope" and "Victory" and "middle-class" and "Wall Street versus Main Street"...crap, all of it pure crap served on a silver platter to ravenous pundits and talking heads. So much crap that it's not worth even hoping for something substantial to come out of either candidates' mouth. I would consider watching something else if the Big-3 networks would televise anything different (I only get CBS, NBC, and Fox). It's not like I won't have ample opportunity to get the gist of it from Youtube. But since they don't, I have no choice but to tune in.


Sometimes it feels as though I'm watching the event not so much to determine a winner, but to determine the biggest loser. It's almost like watching NASCAR just to see the wrecks - I watch the debate to see who has the biggest blunder, who tells the biggest lies, and who can avoid directly answering the most questions. And in the end, both competitors will have blown tires, scraped the wall, and had their fenders crushed in. Yet each will leave with a handshake and a smile and wait to see how much new material they've provided to the brilliant minds at Saturday Night Live.

Of NASCAR and Politics

Not long ago, before I was jaded by the system, I believed in the democratic way. Voting was a sacred right that gave each and every person the opportunity to decide who they thought, as a nation, was best to lead them. I now realize that that's bullshit.

I am not a big sports fanatic. I don't have any one favorite football team. I have a favorite NASCAR driver but I am often just as happy to see others win as I am seeing my driver win a race. What I find more often than not when I watch sports is that I'm not so much into who wins as I am into who loses. There are more NASCAR drivers that I want to see finish last than there are who I want to see win. When I watch football, I usually find myself pulling for the team that I don't give a damn about simply because they're playing a team I want to watch lose.

It makes sense when you think about it. There are 43 drivers at the start of any NASCAR race. Only one will win but 42 of them will lose to some degree. You're odds of coming out "victorious" are higher if you're pulling for any one driver NOT to win. It's a bit different with football in that there are only two teams at the beginning so essentially there is a 50/50 chance that your team may win or lose (all things being equal). But there is little chance of your team winning every game throughout the season (last year's Patriots notwithstanding) but having multiple teams you want to lose will give you more opportunity to stay engaged in more games throughout the whole season.

Just as with football and NASCAR, I view my choice in this upcoming election as a choice between who I want to see lose more than the other. I fully believe that for the majority of people who have a stance on (and knowledge of) multiple issues, there will never be any one candidate who has the same view on EVERY issue. In fact, there is a good chance that both candidates will have some stance in common with most multi-issue people. I know that's the case with me and most everyone I know (aside from the one-issue voters, anyway). So, for me, it comes down to an issue of choosing the candidate who I want to lose the election and then voting for the other.

Here's how I see it: This nation is headed down a slope and accelerating. I don't exactly know what's at the bottom of the slope, or what we'll encounter along the way but I know it's not good. The country's economy is crashing and well on its way to another Great Depression. We have a global climate crisis that threatens the entire human species that this nation is doing nothing about. We have a growing disparity between those who possess the most wealth and those who just barely scratch by and the former is growing perpetually more greedy at the expense of the latter who are growing perpetually more desperate. We owe so much money to, and are so dependent on other countries that we're practically owned by them. And some of those countries are becoming increasingly powerful and resource-depleted and will soon need to either find other means of providing for their massive population domestically, or start taking from someone else.

This snowball has been rolling for quite some time now and it's going to be hard to stop...or to even slow it down. But I know that the current administration has done nothing but smooth and pave the path for the snowball, allowing it to accelerate more. I also know that one of the choices in this upcoming election will only continue that acceleration with more of the same policies and biased priorities. That doesn't mean that I believe that the other choice will really implement even a fraction of the changes he promises - I know he won't. Our current government doesn't allow for wholesale changes to the country's energy portfolio or economic system in a single administration...or even two of them. We're a good decade, or two, or even a generation away from realizing real change. But what I do believe is that there is one choice that will at least try to throw some speed bumps onto the slope and maybe, just maybe, start to turn public opinion around to mobilize the nation, as a whole, to start levelling the slope somewhere below where this snowball is heading so that maybe we can turn this around sometime in the future.

The other choice is a guarantee that this snowball will continue to accelerate - A pair of candidates that want more drilling that won't do a damn thing about our economic or climate situation except worsen it; A pair of candidates that want to keep our armed forces over-extended, weakening us even more than we already are (in the name of "national security"), a pair that pays little mind to the precariousness of the climate issue; A pair that doesn't seem to understand what the current economy is doing to the common person.

So my choice seems to be either vote for a pair of candidates that I'm not real thrilled about voting for in an effort to keep the other pair from winning...or not vote at all. I suppose I could waste a vote and vote third-party but thanks to the wonderful two-party system we've developed here in this great (?) nation, I don't know if it wouldn't be better to just not vote at all. Since I'm probably not going to be able to keep from throwing my two cents into any discussion on the actions of the winners over the next four years, I better have had a say in whether or not they got in there in the first place. So I'll be using my sacred right to vote not to elect who I think is best to lead us for the next four years - I don't think either choice fits that description - I'll be voting against who I think is least fit to lead this nation. It's a bit sad that it's come to that but unfortunately that's how it is.

I guess I'll see you at the polls.

The Tipping Point

Watch this video. It is by far the best explanation I've ever seen of the climate issue and how close we really are to potentially reaching a "tipping point" beyond which we won't be able to recover.

Sorry, I couldn't embed it on this post. Apparently Blogger doesn't understand that particular code.

Six strings, four fingers, and a pick

It seems so easy in theory. Six strings, four fingers, and a pick. The easy songs have what, maybe three, four different repetitive notes in them? It can't be that hard.

But it is. I just can't seem to learn to play this damn guitar. I can put my fingers on the notes just fine. Hell, I've even got most of the common notes memorized. Shouldn't be that hard.

But when one actually tries to play, he finds that it's not as simple as just grabbing some notes and strumming. You have to switch notes in time, find the right strumming pattern and maintain it, and really get confused when you're only supposed to hit three or four strings with the pick instead of all six.

Down, down, up...Up, down, up. Em, G, D, A. Simple.

Grab the first note, strum. Next note. Damn. Missed a beat. Pause. Keep that finger there, this one goes up one string, grab the bottom string with that finger. Got it. Strum some more. Next note. Shit. Missed a beat again. Pick up all three fingers, move them down to the bottom three strings. Strum...

Screw it. Grab another beer and blog about it.

Things that annoy me, chapter IV

Head injuries. Especially the ones that require stitches.

It's my own damn fault I know. But in a way, I'm proud of it - sort of a battle scar or red badge of courage type thing. Except that this was more of a red badge of drunken idiocy.

I started a mosh pit. At a Buckcherry concert. There would have been a mosh pit at this show anyway had the headliner band, Avenged Sevenfold, not come down with 'vocal strain' and cancelled a month of shows per a doctor's orders. But as it was, I was doubtful that there would be a pit at all. Buckcherry, Shinedown, and Saving Abel aren't exactly mosh-pit-inducing bands.

But, as with most rock shows I attend, I came to mosh and I was going to mosh. This was made certain when my 16 year old cousin, Kayleigh, offered to help me start a pit.

So a few minutes before Buckcherry took the stage, we worked our way to the front and in my drunken deafness, I yelled at everyone I thought looked like a fellow mosher and told them I was starting a pit and they better join in. I also insisted the pit-squelchers move away, much to the chagrin of the security people between me and the stage.

A few minutes later the band took stage and the shoving began. It was a clean pit - nobody was throwing elbows or fists and if you fell, you were picked up instantly. At some point, I must have fallen into someone's knee or elbow or head - something hard. I wouldn't have even taken note of it had I not felt something warm and wet running over my eye. When I touched my face, I realized I was bleeding - profusely. Someone in the crowd noticed too and immediately helped me through the pit's perimeter, through the crowd and into the waiting attention of an event staffer. I was rushed to the curtained-off room stage right where the paramedics were waiting to treat the all-too-common injuries of mosh-pitters.

They said it was a pretty decent gash and told me I need to see a doctor. Intent on seeing the rest of the show, I asked if I could stay for a bit and swing by an emergency room later. They figured I'd be fine for an hour or so and wrapped me up in an Arab-looking headress while the security lady asked if my injury was inflicted by anyone intentionally. After assuring her it was indeed a clean pit, they led me back out into the crowd where I was met with many shaking heads and finally rejoined my friends who proceeded to tell me what a dumbass I was.

In my drunken stupor I decided to wait until morning to get stitched up. After five stitches and a berating by the jackass doctor for waiting so long, I was on my way with a great story to tell the folks at work. It was stupid, I know; but dammit, I earned this inch-long scar above my eyebrow and I'll wear it with pride as a testament to the days when I still young enough to do stupid shit like start a mosh pit at a Buckcherry concert.

I wonder if I made Youtube.

At first it was a letter

When Sarah Palin first popped front and center onto the stage of American politics, I came across a rather lengthy letter that talked about her...and not much of it was positive. I posted links to it here simply in an effort to show people (okay, the two people that read this blog) what other folks (supposedly from Alaska) think of this power-mongering governor and potential VP (see "And more Palin goodness" post below).

But as time went on, many of the claims in that letter were fact-checked by the media and the letter started to carry some credence. Upon last check, the site that initially posted the letter had added quite a few links that verify much of the information. Now, this scary letter is really starting to pack a punch.

Then I came across this article on Grist which referenced a NY Times report that outlined how shrewd and secretive Palin has been as governor. For a woman that touts administrative transparency and claims to be a "Maverick" in rooting out corruption, I'm sensing a bit of hypocrisy.

Fish apparently Palin comparison to Industry

"...the greatest threat to Bristol Bay’s salmon fishery will have come from bad decisions made by homegrown politicians."

That homegrown politician who (maybe illegally) signed the death warrant for a body of water that provides 1/2 of America's seafood is none other than Sarah Palin.

Green Recovery Plan

See a discussion about it here.

Even if global warming, climate change, and/or the impending doom to the human species is just a matter of "global fear mongering," there is no denying that the economy sucks. Why not support the solutions to climate change when the benefits to doing so are so huge?

I just don't get why some people are so ardently opposed to the topic of climate change.

What?! I shouldn't trust the media?! No way!

Grist just posted a great article titled, "All the news fit to omit". It's a great little piece that highlights a study [PDF] done by the Center for Economic and Policy Research that reveals how the media has played a major role in pumping (pardon the pun) the domestic oil drilling idea as a way to lower gas prices. It states:

This paper examines television news coverage of proposed drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive zones in the United States. It finds that these broadcasts almost completely ignored data, and conclusions, from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA). The EIA finds that the benefits from such drilling would be too small to have a significant effect on the price of oil. There is no legitimate reason for this omission in the media. Just as economic reporting regularly uses data (unemployment, inflation, GDP, trade) from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, or Bureau of Labor Statistics, reporting on energy relies on data from the EIA.

The omission of the relevant data from this recent reporting may have contributed to the widespread public misunderstanding of this issue, with polls showing 51 percent of respondents believing that "federal laws that prohibit increased drilling for oil offshore or in wilderness areas" were a "major cause of the recent increase in gasoline prices."

Can I throw the irony flag at all those people at the RNC that ripped so hard on the main stream media, only to turn around and chant, "Drill, drill, drill"?

Tale of the Tape clarification - with sources

So there's this nice little email floating around that compares Sarah Palin to Barack Obama. It can be found on Redstate (and can also be found on this blog - where I posted this rebuttal). The post is very superficial so I had to take the opportunity to address some of those comparisons AND back them up with the sources - something the original post does not do.

Current job: Palin - Governor of Alaska (population 683,478); Obama - Junior Senator from Illinois (population 12,852,548).

Previous public jobs: Obama - Community organizer (of the grassroots kind that won women's suffrage, ended slavery, keeps the Red Cross going, funds the NRA, and gives the 'common man' a voice in DC).

Dealing with corrupt individuals: Palin - Received gobs of media attention by resigning as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after deciding that she hated the structured hours, commute, and $122,400 salary - a job that was handed to her by then-governor Murkowski even though she had no qualifications for it. Upon finding out that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) had engaged in some unethical behavior, she used her resignation as a strategic media-grab opportunity to garner her the reputation as an 'ethics reformer' (source).

Earmarks: Palin - "Opposed bridge to nowhere" only AFTER supporting it to win votes.

Said Alaska should avoid relying on federal money for projects, yet she employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 MILLION in federal earmarks for her town of 6,700 people while she was mayor.

Energy: Palin - believes energy independence is a matter of national security; for drilling in ANWR (even though McCain is not). The problem is that drilling, unfortunately, will not solve anything. According to Energy Information Administration, "It is expected that the price impact of ANWR coastal plain production might reduce world oil prices by as much as 30 to 50 cents per barrel [in 2025]." There are 42 gallons in a barrel - so basically that translates into a penny or so per gallon. "Don’t spend it all in one place, American public!"

Environment: Palin - Announced plans to...address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in AK - even though she is "not one to attribute it to being man-made."

Oh and where's the mention of her stance on polar bears and their subsequent federal protection? In her own words, "I strongly believe that adding polar bears to the list under the Endangered Species Act is the wrong move at this time." Oh, so they're not in danger? I must've missed that memo.

Obama on energy - He's surrounded himself with A-list advisors and it just so happens that he has a legitimate, comprehensive, sensible AND sustainable energy plan backed by plenty in the environmental scene.

On a final note, be sure to dig a bit deeper for the facts, then make a decision. Don't base a vote on a shallow, superficial email floating around.

And more Palin goodness

I found these links on a comment posted by Greyflcn on this Grist post. They're definitely worth checking out - especially since her speech last night was a 'perfect populist speech'.

The first one is an audio clip of the second link.

Audio
A note to all by Anne Kilkenny
Palin’s Start in Alaska: Not Politics as Usual
Documents detail Palin's political life
Palin's pork requests confound reformer image

And as a side note, I find it mildly ironic that woman who is in line to potentially become the second most powerful person in the world is bashing 'community organizers' when it was the 'community organizers' of the suffrage era that made it possible for her to stand where she was.

Who is Sarah Palin?

I came across this little tidbit of scary goodness on the website of a friend of mine who lives in Anchorage, AK. I modified it a bit to link the footnotes to references at the end of the article:

Yesterday was John McCain's 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for "inexperience," here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.

Huh?


Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background:

She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.(1)

Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.(2)

She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. (4)

She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change. (5)

She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska. (6, and this, and this)
How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position. (7)
This is information the American people need to see. Please take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family.

We also asked Alaska MoveOn members what the rest of us should know about their governor. The response was striking. Here's a sample:

She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. —Rose M., Fairbanks, AK

She is VERY, VERY conservative, and far from perfect. She's a hunter and fisherwoman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. —Christine B., Denali Park, AK

As an Alaskan and a feminist, I am beyond words at this announcement. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. —Karen L., Anchorage, AK

Alaskans, collectively, are just as stunned as the rest of the nation. She is doing well running our State, but is totally inexperienced on the national level, and very much unequipped to run the nation, if it came to that. She is as far right as one can get, which has already been communicated on the news. In our office of thirty employees (dems, republicans, and nonpartisans), not one person feels she is ready for the V.P. position.—Sherry C., Anchorage, AK

She's vehemently anti-choice and doesn't care about protecting our natural resources, even though she has worked as a fisherman. McCain chose her to pick up the Hillary voters, but Palin is no Hillary. —Marina L., Juneau, AK

I think she's far too inexperienced to be in this position. I'm all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn't done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain's part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he'll get our vote by putting "A Woman" in that position.—Jennifer M., Anchorage, AK

So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She's a global warming denier who shares John McCain's commitment to Big Oil. And she's dramatically inexperienced.

In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he's made a very dangerous decision for our country.

In the next few days, many Americans will be wondering what McCain's vice-presidential choice means. Please pass this information along to your friends and family.

Thanks for all you do.

–Ilyse, Noah, Justin, Karin and the rest of the team

ALSO: She is in favor of aerial hunting of wolves and supports mining in the best salmon fishing river in Alaska (supports five species)

Sources:
1. "Sarah Palin," Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

2. "McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate," NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17515&id=13661-8370428-YsJcQXx&t=1

3. "Sarah Palin, Buchananite," The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17736&id=13661-8370428-YsJcQXx&t=2

4. "'Creation science' enters the race," Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17737&id=13661-8370428-YsJcQXx&t=3

5. "Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science," Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17517&id=13661-8370428-YsJcQXx&t=4

6. "McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy," Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17518&id=13661-8370428-YsJcQXx&t=5

"Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past," League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17519&id=13661-8370428-YsJcQXx&t=6

"Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor," The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17520&id=13661-8370428-YsJcQXx&t=7

7 "McCain met Palin once before yesterday," MSNBC, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=21119&id=13661-8370428-YsJcQXx&t=8

Things that annoy me, chapter three

People.

Those bleeding-heart, care-bear, love-everyone, everything-is-just-peachy, ignorant people that are all commending 17-year-old Bristol Palin for keeping her unintended child and for deciding to marry her hot jock-itch fling that impregnated her.

Seriously?! Do you really think she really had a choice in the matter? Do you think HE really had a choice in the matter? Here's some dude that's banging the governor's daughter and whoops, should've pulled when instead he pushed and now he's stuck with a kid he doesn't want and now has to marry long before he's ready to. I bet those will be three lives that will be just peachy for ever after.

For fuck sake people, get your heads out of your asses and call it for what it is. A teenager from an uber-conservative family that was probably just getting it on for the mere sake of rebellion got knocked up and, facing the harsh reality of it all, is forced to either keep the kid and get married, or wreck her mother's political career. Then, to confound matters even more, out of nowhere, her mother gets asked to be nearly the most famous person in the world. Now, instead of just dealing with the situation on her own, she gets to have the whole world scrutinize her every move, possibly for the next four-plus years.

Ohh, she's so admirable. She's so strong. So brave to start a family so young. Give me a break! Whether she wanted to do it or not, she has to take the high road now or commit political homicide not only to her mother, but to the whole republican party. Could you imagine if that girl ran out and got an abortion?! And seriously, what the hell was McCain thinking when he chose her as his running mate? Who advised him on this? I can't help but wonder if he and his campaign managers just sat down with a list of as many woman politicians as they could think of and just picked the one they thought would swing as many Hillary Clinton supporters their way. And to think this election is supposed to about who has this country's best interests in mind. Fuck that, this election is about nothing more than who can become the most famous person the fastest. Do you suppose they thought this teen pregnancy thing would be a great way to get more media coverage? If they did, it worked. What better way to ramp up your celebrity status than to give the media a reason to clamor all over some pregant teen? It worked for the Spears sisters. Hell, the McCain/Palin campaign might as well hire Brittany's publicist as their PR advisor.

And to think, this duo might actually get elected.

Things that annoy me, chapter 2

Digital TV.

The commercials told me that the switch to digital TV would make life better. Clearer picture, better sound, yadda yadda. It said I need a digital TV converter box to be able to view the new broadcasts. So I got two of them. I hooked one up and voila! I quadrupled the number of channels I get (two to eight). Now, instead of just NBC and CBS, I now also get FOX, ABC, the CW, and three PBS stations. Yipee!

But digital TV around here is worthless. Before, when it got cloudy I would lose some picture quality in one or both of the stations I could get in. But nevertheless I could still more or less tell what was going on and I still had sound, just maybe with a touch of static. Now, with this worthless digital TV signal, I get all or nothing. If it gets cloudy, or if there are sun spots, or if there's some sort of disturbance in the force, or if there's a show I really want to tune in to, the signal cuts in and out. The picture freezes, the sound goes away all together, then the screen goes blank and I get that ominous blue box superimposed upon a black screen that says "no signal." It's friggin worthless! Sometimes, after several beers, I feel like I want to take my digital TV coverter box back to Best Buy, or to the dumbass government committee that mandated this signal change and shove it up their...nose.

Now I understand that stations may not be broadcasting at full power yet, but they damn well better start cranking it up a little...the new season of Heroes is about to start.

Calming the wind

It is Saturday, March 29, 2008 – four minutes past eight o’clock in the evening. Fifty six minutes to go. I’m sitting in my candle lit living room enjoying a silence of which I’ve never experienced in this house. There is no hum from the refrigerator, no noise from the tv. Nothing. My electric meter outside is not turning at all; I checked it just to be sure.

I’m participating in Earth Hour – a global climate change awareness campaign launched by the World Wildlife Fund in Australia in an effort to get people to do something about climate change.

Forty nine minutes left now. This isn’t so bad really. It’s not like I use much electricity on a daily basis anyway. I’m pretty good about not leaving unnecessary lights on. All the light bulbs in my house are the squiggly, energy saving, compact fluorescents and all of the electronics in my entertainment center are routed through a surge bar which I shut off whenever I go out of town. So I know that my shutting the power down for this hour isn’t going to save the planet.

But it’s the principal of it that matters to me. I am only one of roughly six billion people on this earth but the fact remains that I am one of those six billion people - meaning that my actions have just as much potential to affect this earth as any one else’s. If I can completely shut the power off to my home for an hour and not really be bothered by it, why couldn’t other people act on the same principal and take small measures such as shutting off a few lights they don’t need or unplugging the electronics they’re not using? In Sydney, Australia for example, the simple act of shutting off some lights will result in something like a 10% reduction in the city’s carbon emissions for this hour. Granted, that may not be a lot in the grand scheme of things but the principal is there: If one city can reduce their carbon emissions by that much for one hour, how much could be saved if everyone put a little extra effort into making a difference throughout the year? Then take that one city and multiply that across thousands and thousands of other cities and the difference we make becomes pretty impressive.

Thirty four minutes to go. In the silence, I’m noticing things I’ve never noticed before. I can hear the wind much clearer now. I always noticed it when it would rattle my exhaust vents or slap leaves against my window but I never heard it like I hear it now. It seems to have multiple voices. I hear one voice moaning through the bare branches of the ash trees in the front yard and then bending around the upwind corner of the house. Another voice seems to hum across the pasture that in recent days has started to green up seemingly in defiance of the winter-like conditions that won’t seem to let go of the region. I take solace in the greening of the pasture because I know that despite its lack of a meterological degree, the pasture is a better predictor of spring’s arrival than the weatherman who tells me lies every night from within my now silent television set.

When I listen closer I hear yet another windy voice; this one more distant, more melancholy, and much broader and far-reaching. It’s a voice that growls over the distant landscape of ridges and valleys; barren crop fields and wooded draws. I resist the urge to dub the sound as ‘haunting’ as that has become too cliché in reference to the wind. Nevertheless, there is an unsettling aura about the sound of this subtle, yet noticeable wind. It almost seems as if nature is angry. It seems as if it is restraining itself almost to the boiling point and the distant wind I hear is just the pinhole leak foretelling us that the top is about to blow off violently. And it’s not that I can blame poor Mother Nature for being so dismayed. Every wind gust whips up precious topsoil from crop fields left barren throughout the winter. Every drop of rain carries with it sediment and human-applied chemicals which gravity ensures that each eventually finds its way to the lowest possible point where it builds up to toxic levels affecting practically all life it encounters. Not to mention that every ray of sunlight – the lifeblood of the planet – is filtered through tons and tons of chemicals and human-contributed emissions before ever reaching the ground and nourishing that which allows us to eek out the feeble existence we use to pour more emissions into the air. When our blood is toxified, we call it poison; when the earth’s blood is toxified, we call it progress.

Only two minutes to go now. In the same hour that would have otherwise been spent brainlessly watching two sitcoms on television, millions of tons of carbon emissions have been kept from reaching the atmosphere across the globe (okay, maybe not millions). It feels good to be part of something so far reaching and potentially so inspiring. The wind still sounds angry but at least I’m doing my part to calm it down.

The hour is up now. I could turn my power back on and go back to watching tv or surfing the net or doing whatever this electronic society allows me. But there will be more shows to watch tomorrow. Right now, I’m content to listen to the wind.

Things that annoy me, chapter one

Moles.
Yes, moles.

I hate yard work yet I have a huge yard. If I actually owned the yard, I wouldn't mow much of it. I would plant most of it to native grasses and wildflowers and leave it be. But since I only rent my yard, along with the house that sits smack dab in the middle of it, I have to keep the damn thing looking nice. The colony of moles that have taken up subterranean residence under my yard make that job difficult.

My moles didn't always annoy the hell out of me. At first, they were simply an inconvenience. The occasional little hill would pop up in the yard and I'd rake it down before I mowed over it. But apparently the horny little bastards have spent all summer having babies so now instead of a couple mole holes scattered here and there, I have an entire mole city complete with the Taj Mahal of mole mounds in the center of it - a 3-foot round and 18-inch high soil castle that practically stops the lawn mower blades when I mow it down (I gave up on raking the hills down and just mow over them now).

I've been given numerous remedies for the problem - traps, poison, a Jack Russell terrier, but the one I like the best is hunting them...with a 12-gauge. I was told to go out right at dusk and stand in the middle of the mole city with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with bird shot and wait to see a mound start to rise up. When it does, simply blast the hell out of it and BAM! - no more moles. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds like a great idea. What better way to get revenge on the little bastards that have dulled the hell out of my mower blades than to blast big craters in my yard with a shotgun? I can just hear it now - my friends will call up with, "what are you doing this weekend?" And my reply will be, "I'm-a huntin' moles! Wanna join me?" Twelve hours and thirty beers later there will be fifteen craters in the yard and not a single damn mole to show for it.

So I guess they'll just keep building little mole cities and I'll keep mowing them down until the grass quits growing and I don't have to mow anymore. Maybe they'll eventually get tired of building new cities and move somewhere else...I'm thinking my landlord's yard would be a nice place.

Gone

Gone...
Is my muse
My reason to write a bunch of senseless shit about nothing in particular.
That burning desire to manipulate words in an effort to legitimize my thoughts.

Gone...
Is my ambition
To study, to learn, to know.
Is it because it seems the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

Gone...
Is my obsession
With that which I was at one time most passionate about.
That which seemed to consume my every waking moment.

Gone...
Is my hope
For change, for a better tomorrow, for a better...something.

Gone...
Is my...I don't know.
It's gone now.

Vote for Paris

Screw it all. I'm voting for Paris!

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Okay, that's a lie. I'm not going to vote for Paris but I bet if she legitimately ran for president, a lot of people would.

A fresh look at earth

I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about environmental issues. I also have a scientific-based education. Over the years, I have somewhat changed my views on the earth and humans' interaction with it. This is the first in, hopefully, a series of thoughts and essays on the issue. I know there's been entire books written on this subject so if you know of one (Other than Seven Mysteries and Strangeloop, thanks Strangeloop), please let me know. This little snippet of philosophical rambling was inspired by a post I found on Grist. I thought it would make a decent first step into a subject that I wonder if I don't maybe obsess over sometimes....


The earth is a living organism in which we are simply an interacting component of - much like the bacteria in our own digestive tracts, or the flu viruses we pick up in the winter. As a living organism, the earth has an immune system that kicks in when something goes amok. In relation to wildlife species, we refer to the interaction between that 'immune system' and the wildlife population as 'carrying capacity' - a sort of balancing act that keeps things in a perpetual reverberating state of homeostasis. Humans, in all their technological advances, have done everything they can to trump their own carrying capacity. Thus, we see (just as we would with any wildlife species), and overuse and subsequent depletion of life-sustaining natural resources (food shortages, peak oil?, competition for various land uses). When any population, human or otherwise, goes blowing past carrying capacity, the earth's immune system eventually has to counteract with a 'shock-and-awe' campaign to get the system rebalanced as quickly as possible (such as hemorragic fever and CWD in whitetailed deer).

That being the case, would it then not make sense that AIDS, cancer, autism, heart disease, etc...as well as hurricanes, droughts, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and maybe even civil unrest and war are simply population control mechanisms imposed upon us by the organism from which we were all conceived? In a single generation the human population on this earth more than doubled and that growth rate remains unchecked still. If that growth rate was witnessed among cells within our own bodies, wouldn't we call that a cancer?

I know that only brings us back to the question of "so what do we do about it?" but I wanted to throw that out there to see what kind of responses I get. I suppose we can look at it two ways, if climate change is simply an immuno-response by the earth then maybe there's nothing we can do about it. But on the other hand, maybe if we start living more symbiotically with this earth-organism, its immune system won't be triggered. I'm hoping it's the latter.

Caleb

He's quiet
unbalanced
but always smiling.
He tells jokes
in broken speech
from a paperback
joke book
he's memorized.
He walks slow
but seemingly
with a purpose.
He's a brother
a son
an inspiration.
He overcame
a threatened life
through surgeries
and recovery
and rehabilitation.
He conquered
and carried on.
Studied
harder than all.
Graduated.
With a smile.
He's tough
but gentle.
He's a friend
an inspiration
a miracle.
Caleb.

An experiment in poetry

It’s hot.
I sit
in my underwear
in front of a fan.
I have
no A/C.
Actually
I do have A/C.
It’s just
not on.
I’m trying
to save
The world
by sweating
my ass off.
Does it
really matter?
I ask.
I wonder.
Then again
it was
one hundred
and two
earlier today.

Addendum to "One Fewer"

In following the posts at the One Fewer website mentioned in the blog below, my feedback was responded to with this (as posted by one named 'Rog'):

Is it worth mentioning that the 150 MPG SUV achieved it’s impressive score by
creative accounting? In their sums they include 240 miles driven on battery
(charged by plug-in) and 60 miles driven hybrid, using 2 gallons of petrol,
giving, they say, 300 miles for each 2 gallons of petrol. No mention of the coal
that was burned to power the 240 miles!
This is not to say that a conversion
to hybrid might not improve the existing 13 MPG of that guzzler of yours, but
don’t hope for anything near to what AFS Trinity claim.

And, realizing that this was a valid argument, I felt compelled to follow up. After a bit of site searching for legitamate links, I followed up with this:

Yes, Rog, I do agree that we should consider the impact that coal-generated
electricity usage has on the overall picture. Roughly 50% of this nation’s
electricity does come from coal and so there are indirect environmental impacts
to using electricity to fuel our transportation sector.
That being said, let’s take innovation one step further and involve Nanosolar and their nearby San
Jose manufacturing facility (which is already shipping panels). Utilize their technology as charging stations
for the electric-hybrid Rover. Already, solar is looking to be cheaper than
coal, and obviously far more environmentally-friendly.
There is not going to be one silver bullet that will fix everything. To believe so would be ignorant.
Instead, there needs to be a comprehensive renewable-energy transistion strategy
put forth containing diverse efforts catered to each region’s needs and
opportunities. Showing that existing gas-guzzlers can be mass-retrofitted with
green technology and that the alternative energy that technology uses can be
produced economically, locally, and in a way that doesn’t harm the environment
would be one big step in the transition process.

It is worth noting that we need start thinking about this issue not in 'Silver Bullet' scenarios, but in comprehensive, strategic, diversified efforts spread across numerous sectors (i.e. transportation, electricity, fuel, etc.). I'll be sure to follow up on this soon...

One Fewer

I recently came across this nifty effort of one man in California to try to figure out what to do with his gas-guzzling Range Rover Sport. He has offered to leave it up to society to decide the fate of this eco-unfriendly machine. He even put a call out on Youtube asking for comments - the crazier, the better.

Upon reading up on some of the posts, I couldn't help but want to leave my own comment. Here's what I think he ought to do with the vehicle which, in my opinion, is better than flinging it into the Pacific.

As posted on OneFewer.com:
Let me preface this by saying that I have not read all of the comments posted here - that would take a very long time. So if any of this is redundant, I apologize. Redundancy appears to be a rather, well…redundant issue among many of these posts.

The idea here is solid - make a statement by being “One Fewer” inefficient vehicle on the road. We should all note that this is meant to be a ’statement’ to the public, hence the call for the most dramatic, off-the-wall ideas. Yes, donating it to charity, or recycling it, or giving it to a college or high school to figure out a way to make it green are all logical ideas, but do they really make a statement? Things like that occur regularly anymore. Hell, AFS Trinity (http://www.afstrinity.com/) recently unveiled a 150-mpg plug-in hybrid SUV. Yes, I said SUV (I believe it’s actually a retro-fitted Saturn Vue) so the ‘convert-to-green’ thing is being done already.

Don’t get me wrong, greening the vehicle is the best thing to do in my opinion. But I’m also reading posts bemoaning the impact the vehicle’s initial production had environmentally. So, in an effort to ‘make a statement,’ take the greening effort one step further:
Give the Rover to a company, institution, organization, or school and give them one year to develop a way to convert the vehicle to a plug-in hybrid, or fully electric one. But in so doing, mandate that they develop an assembly-line procedure to do the same to every Rover in existence, or even every big SUV out there. Maybe even give several groups the opportunity to do so. Make it a race to see who can get it done first. Film every group’s efforts and make it a “Monster Garage” like competition, with the winner getting a kick-back from the big investment the failing auto-makers would inevitably pay for the new technology in an effort to save their companies. Maybe even throw in the $300 MM John McCain suggests the government offer.

Whatever network agrees to make the reality show out of the effort would have to agree to donate a certain amount of money to future green efforts as part of the filming rights agreement. This effort being launched in California is very convenient since there is an abundance of media/network outlets close by that could pick it up.

Now THAT would make a statement to the millions of viewers that would tune into the new reality show across this country that these efforts can succeed AND would say to the auto makers that we as a country are ready to stop buying their inefficient vehicles that use ridiculous amounts of foreign oil and are ready to help them start showing profits again as soon as they give us legitimate alternatives. Retro-fitting existing vehicles would be a great stepping stone toward transitioning our transportation sector to renewable sources. And by developing assembly-line technology, we would actually be somewhat undoing the initial impact caused by the current vehicles’ production years ago.

Comments?

Climate Change Enlightenment - At Taco Bell

I first noticed her when the guy behind the counter at Taco Bell mentioned something about her motorcycle while she placed her order. Still mildly attractive in her mid-thirties (or so I assumed), she sported a backpack and was dressed as though she had just come from the gym. I was intrigued by the fact that she had arrived at Taco Bell on a motorcycle but brushed it off as I ordered my food.

I ended up seated about three tables down from her so I figured incidental conversation was out of the question. I couldn’t help but wonder why she chose to ride a motorcycle on a day such as this.

As I got up to leave, I had to pass by her table to discard my tray. As I passed, I decided it was time for an exploration into to society’s psyche. What better vessel of exploration than a complete stranger?

“Is that your bike out there?” I asked her. I knew it was. But I did also realize that I was talking to a stranger and that was the best ice-breaker I could come up with.

“Yeah, it is.” Her quizzical look made me wonder if she thought I was hitting on her. Hell with it, I thought. Her tone didn’t have “Screw you” behind it so I figured I’d go for it.

“You mind if I ask you a couple questions?”

“Umm, sure,” she replied hesitantly. I imagined she was thinking 'What is this freak up to?'

I launched right into it. “It’s kind of a crappy day out there.” True, it had been raining earlier and the remaining humidity was keeping the streets from drying much. “Why are you riding a bike on a day like this?” This was obviously not a well thought out series of interview questions.

She looked at me rather quizzically. “Umm, because I like to. It’s summer,” she said with what I thought might be an air of annoyance. ‘Wow,’ I thought. Even I realized the absurdity of the question. She might as well have followed up her answer with, “Here’s your sign, Dumbass!”

I recovered without missing a beat. “Well, what I meant was…I mean, I…” So much for recovering. Get it together man!

“I’ve been doing research on public opinion of climate change and economics.” That was a bit of a stretch but hell, what did she know? So what if she was the first test subject, I was still doing research. “I was just curious if your choosing to ride a bike on a day like this had anything to do with your thoughts on either of those subjects.” It had taken a while to get to the point but she handled it well. “With fuel prices like they are and what everyone says about fuel and climate change…”

“Oh…yeah.” She finally realized where I was going with it and went along with it. “Actually yes, that is a bit of it. My other vehicle is a truck. With a V8. It’s a gas hog I know. That’s one of the reasons I bought the bike. That, and I like to ride of course.”

“Then you buy into the climate change thing? Do you believe climate change is actually happening?” I feared with as politicized as the subject had become as of late that I would lose her with such direct questions. Turns out I was wrong.

“Actually, yes,” she replied confidently.

“Then do you believe the effects of climate change are potentially as bad as they say they might be?” Now it’s getting deep. How long is she going to stick this out I wondered. I still wasn’t completely convinced my questions weren’t going to shut off her willingness to talk.

“Yes.” Again, confidence. But then I wondered how much she knew of the predicted effects of climate change. I decided pushing for details wasn’t necessary. If she had ever watched the news, she knew enough. I wanted to know more. She was a prime candidate to describe how the general populace felt about the subject and I wanted to explore deeper.

“So then do you think that we…humans…can do something about it? Do you think our actions can have an effect on a global scale?”

“Yes. Absolutely we can do something about it. After all, we are the cause of it.” Holy shit, I didn’t even ask for it. The human side of the issue – often the most contentious part of the ‘controversy’ – addressed, and apparently accepted by this motorcycle-riding female at Taco Bell. “Actually, I’ve been reading ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ – the condensed version. I don’t see how we can deny it,” she added.

I had nothing more. I knew what I wanted to know. We chit-chatted some more, but not about anything really important. I had discovered someone who saw things as I did and who wasn’t a part the science community. Maybe this is starting to catch on. Maybe the public is accepting that unless we do something now, we may not have a 'later' to procrastinate to. Maybe there is hope afterall.

Then again, maybe I should stop spontaneously interviewing random strangers at Taco Bell.

From a shelter on the beach in Jacksonville, NC

Arrive at beach at 5:50 am.
5:54 am, four pelicans sail overhead with a brownish-looking sea gull in tow.
5:55 am, five crows fly by going the other direction. First people arrive at beach.

The sun has not even broken over the horizon and already there is more activity around than I care to listen to. I guess I should have risen sooner - when the chorus of the local wildlife, what little there seems to be, declared that today's sunrise had already been summoned.

I hear cries of excitement from the people on the beach and look up to see a red sun inching its way up, peeking over the horizon. They immediately draw their digital cameras and begin snapping pictures. I do likewise but I can't help but wonder how many sunrises these people will see from hereforth that aren't printed on paper or displayed on a screen.

I've heard the ocean described as having a calming effect on people - peaceful, serene. After sitting here for a bit, I ardently disagree. I find little peace in the ocean, especially at its water/land interface. It seems to be perpetually bereating the land, futilely attempting to make its point. What that point is, I don't know. And the shore, much like a stereotypical teenager, appears to ignore these messages. I find it hard to feel peace when the water seems so perpetually angry, constantly crashing into the shore, over and over and over again.

At about 6:15 I vacate my post in the shelter by the beach. Many people are astir now and the gnat-like bugs are detracting from whatever serenity this site potentially had to offer.

On the walk back to our cabin, I hear a group of military men chanting down the beach. The sun is gaining much intensity now so I'll resort to swim trunks soon and join the ranks of the other tourists in playing in the water. I'll try to forget how much I miss the calm and quiet of a midwestern sunrise.

Hang on Texas, here comes another one

Today the east coast of Texas is bracing for Hurricane Dolly. Until today, Hurricane Dolly was only a tropical storm but it was recently upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane as it set its sights on Texas’ coastal region. All over the news are reports of residents running to Home Depot to stock up on plywood and flashlights. Government officials have prepared for a mass exodus from the area much like they witnessed during Hurricane Rita – an exodus that brought major highways to a standstill in the heat of summer.

This storm is expected to resemble that of 1967’s Hurricane Beulah which dumped more than 36 inches of rain in some places in south Texas and spawned more than 100 tornadoes. In the years since Beulah, the levees holding back the Rio Grande have been steadily deteriorating and officials suspect that there will be little chance of them holding back the 15 inches of rain this hurricane is expected to dump on the region.

Déjà vu. Didn’t I hear something like this back in…say, 2005? Yes. Yes I did. Twice actually. Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina. Three years ago. Rita, the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico caused $11.3 billion in damage. Katrina was the most expensive and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the U.S. It was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever and the third-strongest hurricane on record that made landfall in the U.S.

Both hurricanes struck in the same year.

Now here I am, religiously watching the news, waiting to see how bad this one is going to be. Already this year, we witnessed Hurricane Bertha set the record for the longest lived pre-August Atlantic tropical cyclone. I can’t help but feel like I’m watching a NASCAR race at Talladega simply to see the big wreck. I just find it so disturbingly amusing that nature seems to be giving the finger to the climate change skeptics that still remain...albeit violently.

Hang on, Texas. You’ll get through it. And certainly now after the second 500-year flood on the continent’s largest river, FEMA will be there to help when it’s all said and done…won’t it?

From atop the Chimney Tops Trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains

Aldo Leopold wrote, “[Mountain] peaks have trails, and trails have tourists.” He was right. But what Leopold didn’t mention was that mountains have valleys and valleys have highways and highways have cars and the most visited national park in America has lots of cars – especially on a Saturday in the middle of summer tourist season.

I hiked over two miles and climbed 1,700 feet up this trail in an effort to escape the crowds. All I found at the summit was a dozen tourists and the sound of the highway below.

I understand especially well now what Leopold meant when he said, “I know of no solitude so secure as one guarded by a spring flood.” I’ll admit this is a neat experience and the view is almost breathtaking. But the highway in the valley and the tourists around me only serve to solidify my appreciation and love of the Mississippi river, its backwaters, and the oft-forgotten rural Midwest.

I close my eyes and try to pretend I’m a Native American arriving at this place for the first time. I try to pretend I’m alone and there is no highway below. Oh what this must have been like! Soaring over the valley (at a lower altitude than my current perch atop this rock) I see a hawk and can only imagine the degrees of solitude he knows here in the mountains. Surely there is at least one peak far removed from humans. I wonder how far he must soar to escape the sounds. I look at the map and question whether he even can at all. I watch him soar effortlessly over the valley and envy such freedom as more tourists approach. “What good are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?” I cannot help but wonder if the hawk muses the same thing.

This particular peak existed for millennia without any human disturbance. At some point it awakened to a morning filled with the sound of road builders. I wonder if inwardly it shuddered at its inevitable popularity. I doubt it knew of its impending fate and stoically watched as human civilization encroached deeper and deeper into its smoky valleys. Not long after, the first few tourists tread their way across this very same rocky peak. I wonder if then it knew or could predict what was to come. How could it? Besides, what are a few footsteps to a mountain that had weathered millions of years of storms?

But today this particular peak feels millions of synthetic rubber-soled feet every year and breathes the fumes from the exhast pipes of the million-plus cars that pass through its valleys. Its rock faces are carved with hundreds of initials of people who I doubt gave much thought to the mountain’s past. And I doubt the initial-carvers, in their effort to leave a timeless mark on this peak, gave any thought to the fact that, millennia from now, these same rocks will lie in creek bottoms thousands of feet below here. I can’t help but find a touch of humor in this, the mountain’s version of poetic justice.

I am jostled from my introspective musings by an inordinately shrill voice. I hear the newly-arriving teenage tourist say breathlessly to who I suspect is her mother, “We climbed all the way up here for this?” then proceed to open her cell phone to text message someone who I suspect is every bit as ecologically illiterate. The mountain is indifferent to the remark but I shudder. Maybe that is the way my species is – Irreverent, unappreciative, and uncaring. I imagine that these same people will go spend a month’s salary in nearby Gatlinburg on the human-created tourist attractions – none of which will be here in a hundred years, let alone a millennium. Maybe an appreciation for the natural, more permanent things is missing from society today. I’m glad that in such matters, I’m different from most. I must agree with Leopold, “For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech."

God Save Us!

They’re calling it a five-hundred year flood but it’s the second one in a mere fifteen years. And this flood comes on the heels of a hundred-year drought. Last year, crops burned; this year they’re drowning. Up and down the Mississippi river, new high water marks are being etched on what few trees remain in the floodplains that once gave the river a place to go when it carried more water than its normal banks would hold. Those floodplains, once filled with potholes and flood water-absorbing vegetation, have since been levied off and drained for crop production and riverfront communities. The largest and mightiest river in the continent has been channelized, dammed, and forced between earthen embankments so we can grow more and more corn and beans. Land that once sequestered and buffered flood water now lies barren and laden with chemicals.

When levies broke and land flooded during the first five-hundred year flood, our answer was to build taller levies. The river responded by reaching new heights and blowing out taller levies. And yet we act surprised and pity the poor river communities built in the flood plains. “How can this be happening again?” we ask. Surely it has nothing to do with our propensity for attempting to beat the earth into submission so we can feed the world and, now, fuel our cars which, in turn, pour more pollutants into the atmosphere. Yet we refuse to accept that our actions cause detrimental reactions from nature. Wake up people!

I’ve heard people blame God (or whatever deity they choose to believe in) for the natural disasters we keep experiencing. Maybe God is mad at us but if that’s the case, how can you hold that against him (or her, or them...)? How would you react if a group of hoodlums vandalized a church? Say they took livestock manure and poured it all over the floors, burned the pews, relieved themselves in the holy water, and took all the money from that morning’s offering. Say they did this in broad daylight, in front of the youth choir, and then when they were apprehended they couldn’t understand why they were being punished. Imagine the outrage from the local community! Imagine your own outrage. It would almost be inconceivable how those kids could defile a holy place such as that, right?

But the fact is that the church those kids defiled was simply a building built by man. Those kids could have burned that church to the ground (imagine the outrage then!) and it could have been rebuilt in a short amount of time. Yet here we are in the conservative, God-fearing Midwest, pouring inordinate amounts of chemicals – manure included – to land we’ve stripped of native vegetation, levied off, drained, overcropped or overgrazed for decades, paved and developed. We crop every inch of land we can get our plow dipped into and pay no mind to the New Jersey-sized dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that has developed as a result of all the chemical and sediment the Midwest is sending downstream every year. Every day, we’re defiling that which was built by God. Is it no wonder that we’re being punished for it? Why are crop-destroying natural disasters such a surprise? Do you see the parallel here? When are we going to wake up and realize that we can only beat the earth into submission without repercussions for so long?

A couple record setting floods and a hundred-year drought all in fifteen years should be indication enough that its time to start respecting the earth that we rely upon to supply us the necessities of life. If even half of what the science community says is true about climate change, we’re poised to witness weather catastrophes unlike any we’ve ever seen before. Be skeptical all you want on the subject but the proof that things are in bad shape is right before our eyes: The west is experiencing more wildfires with greater intensity than ever before; This winter, major tornadoes touched down in the south while the north recorded record snowfalls; the Midwest fried for the last two years and has record-breaking floods this year; Hurricanes and tropical storms are pummeling the coasts more than ever (the first hurricane this year - Bertha - was the longest-lasting on record). Both northern and southern Ice caps are melting so much that there is a 50/50 chance the north pole will be ice-free this summer.

The time to act is now. We must put the earth’s health at the forefront of our minds and act as stewards of this planet rather than conquerors of it. We can’t take and take from this earth and not give anything back and expect it to keep providing. It is ignorant to think that it will. Look at it this way: If climate change isn’t occurring and this generation steps up and develops an ecologically sustainable society, we will have done nothing worse than leave our children with a better life. But if we do nothing and find out that climate change is real, then we’ll leave our children with nothing more than famine, floods, droughts, fires, social disorder, war, and a planet on its way to being uninhabitable by humans. The choice seems obvious. If you want to serve a God - and keep him happy - let’s stop defiling that which he built us and start respecting the earth.

That Takes Balls

As I spent hours today surfing the web and reading up on my favorite blogs about climate change, I came across a refreshing write up on someone in the political world (not in D.C. of course) that actually stood up against the dirty coal industry and denied them permits to build new plants solely on the basis of their being too hard on the environment. Wow! That took some balls! Most governors would have just rolled over and collapsed under the pressure from the state's legislature. Not this governor. No siree. This governor had the cohones to take a stand.

I know what you're thinking and no it's not Ahnuld. We'd expect the Governator to put up a fight like this. He's been waging the environmental war for quite some time.

This governor has balls, yes...but only in the figurative sense. You see...pause for effect...the governor in question here is actually a woman. [Gasp!!]

I don't know what set Kathleen Sebelius off but that is one woman's scorn directed in a positive direction. The article I found (Found in Grist, titled, "What's not the matter with Kansas") cited how Governor Sebelius (D-KS) thrice vetoed legislation that attempted to permit the building of coal plants that the state environmental officials denied granting permits to (interestingly, this legislation was presented AFTER the legislature had consequently stripped the officials of their power to deny permits).

I have to give Governor Sebelius props for standing up to an industry that is slowly but surely losing its grip on this nation's genitalia. We need more politicians like her in this country. Maybe someday we'll get someone to stand up to the oil industry like she did to the coal industry. One can only hope...

Digging Deeper

"And then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel...is just a freight train coming your way." -Metallica's "No Leaf Clover"

Gas is $4 a gallon. Actually, today I found that the national average set a new record at $4.11 a gallon. It now costs $20 to mow my damn yard. I'm not the only one who feels the "pain at the pump" I know. Turn on or log on to any newscast and I guarantee that will be one of the stories. And justifiably so - fuel prices are the basis to everything. You can't buy eggs or milk or bluejeans or any Chinese-produced item from Wal-Mart without paying for the fuel it took to get it there or paying for the fuel it took to get YOU there. Fuel is the basis of our economy. Run fuel prices up and everything must follow.

But its okay. Our government has a solution. President Bush just lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling here in the US. Granted, it now takes the same action from Congress to make it official, but surely we Americans will put enough pressure on our elected officials to follow suit. After all, there is an estimated 18 billion gallons of oil off our shores. That's a lot of oil. Unfortunately, it is going to take several years of drilling to get it to the surface. But that's okay because surely that 18 billion gallons will be enough to bring fuel prices down, won't it? If it wasn't such a great solution, we wouldn't be all for it....right?

That depends on who you believe. Candidates and other politicians, notoriously known for feeding the public whatever line of crap they need to to get elected (or re-elected), would like us to believe that lifting a moratorium to offshore drilling will help our situation. On the other hand, scientists, educated people, realists, and those not pushing some political agenda see things differently. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) doesn't believe that offshore drilling here at home is going to help a whole lot. Even drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a place many politicians are just dying to open up because of the "huge" reserves there won't make much of a difference. According a report [PDF] by the EIA:

Additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR would be only a small portion of total world oil production, and would likely be offset in part by somewhat lower production outside the United States.

The report goes into a description of potential price impacts of the added production. Taken at face value, the numbers almost seem significant until you extrapolate the savings per barrel to savings at the pump - a whopping two cents!

There are plenty of potential solutions out there but digging deeper and in more places for oil just isn't one of them. We will never be energy independent if we keep relying on oil. So be careful who you listen to. I'm still guardedly confident that there is a light (or two) at the end of the tunnel. My question is when are we going to start derailing the freight train that it currently is?

“Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.” – Michael Shermer, in Scientific American: The Flipping Point

One Step Closer

“What do you mean she can’t have a hunting license?!” asked an indignant, middle aged father.

“I’m sorry sir,” the twenty-something store clerk said from behind wire-rimmed glasses. “It’s a new policy; I can’t do anything about it,” he added dryly. This was obviously not his first outraged customer of the day.

“I want to talk to your supervisor!” The father could barely contain his outrage.

The clerk sighed, paged a manager, and busied himself shelving items from a shipping tote behind the counter. A few minutes later an overweight manager arrived wearing half a smirk. The father could tell he was not the first person to have called the manager to the counter that day.

“How can I help you sir?” asked the manager half-heartedly. He knew he couldn’t actually help the girl’s father any more than he could help himself buy his own teenage son a hunting license. Nevertheless, he was paid to follow protocol.

“I’m trying to buy my daughter a hunting license and this…this…” the father paused, torn between using the word he wanted to use and the word he knew he should use in an effort to maintain some semblance of diplomacy, “…this kid here tells me that because of one of your policies, I can’t. He gave me some crap about some special firearm user course she has to take.”

“Sir, I understand your frustration but it’s not our policy. We’re simply following the law. Until she has her registration card that shows she’s taken the course, we can’t sell her a license. The course is required of everyone between 16 and 40.”

“What are you talking about?!” The father was now raising his voice causing other customers to take notice. “You can’t do that! She’s been hunting since she was four years old and never needed a damn gun user course. She has her hunter safety card right here. That’s all she needs.”

“Sir, I know what you’re saying,” the manager strained his voice a bit as if he thought that if he talked lower, it would encourage the father to calm down. “I’m not happy about it either but it’s a new law. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“New law?!” The manager’s lowered voice apparently had no effect. “Since when? And who the hell passed that law? I damn sure didn’t vote for it.”

“Actually, you probably did.” The manager’s patience was running thin now, evident in the way he snapped out the phrase. He took a deep breath, remembering his own frustration at the policy two days earlier. “The policy was started as part of the ‘Safer Streets’ legislation.”

It all clicked then inside the father’s mind. He remembered reading about this landmark legislation that was guaranteed to ‘clean up the streets’ by giving municipalities and local governments power to ‘crack down on criminals’ by pretty much any means necessary. The law offered federal funding for neighborhood watch efforts, more patrol cars on the streets, better lighting, and more after-school programs in addition to harsher penalties for convicted criminals. It was a popular bill for sure. It had gained so much media attention and rave publicity that he didn’t take the time to fully understand every aspect of the bill. In fact, it was so popular that when the issue came across his county’s ballot, he voted for it.

He did not realize that his vote would give local legislators supreme power to enact legislation without a vote under this ‘blanket policy’.

The policy-makers knew that passing a law requiring everyone between 16 and 40 to take a government-sponsored ‘firearm user course’ as a prerequisite to purchasing a hunting license would be met with fierce opposition from the pro-gun and sportsman’s community. But under the guise of the new legislation, they could practically do what they wanted. To justify the new policy, they simply had to claim that the majority of crimes were committed by people between the ages of 16 and 40, thus the policy was simply ‘an effort to keep the streets clean’ by educating the public and was well within the powers granted to them by the legislation.

Granted, the course was simply one more step in a long pathway to complete gun removal from the public’s hands. If it was difficult to purchase hunting licenses, they figured, then it would be easy for some to just give up on hunting and give up on their gun ownership. For those that stuck it out and took the course, they’d be required to prove proficiency with every gun they own. In so doing, they would be forced to register each gun. Then, as future policies were enacted, those guns would be tracked down and confiscated – all in an effort to 'make the communities safer'.

“Sir…Sir?”

The father snapped back to reality. “Huh? What?”

“Would you like to register your daughter for the course? We have the registration forms here. There’s a course being offered next week. Just in time for the season.”

The father exhaled, defeated. He put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, turned, and walked her slowly away. By the end of the isle, he was able to finally speak again.

“How do you feel about moving to America?”