POLLUTER BORN EVERY MINUTE reprise

Coming to America -Triptych

TOO DAMNED MANY PEOPLE

WAYS TO REDUCE CARBON FOOTPRINTS:

ACTION: (Measure: Lifetime carbon dioxide saved in Metric Tons. Data from U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s personal emissions calculator and calculations by OSU statistics professor Paul Murtaugh.  Annual totals based on lifespan of 80 – female expectancy U.S.  Source: Paul Murtaugh).

Recycle newspaper, magazines, glass, plastic, and aluminum cans – 17 tons

Replace old refrigerator with energy-efficient model – 19 tons

Replace 10 incandescent light bulbs with energy-efficient ones – 36 tons

Replace single-glazed windows with energy-efficient windows – 21 tons

Reduce miles driven from 231 to 155 per week – 147 tons

Increase car’s fuel economy from 20 miles per gallon to 30 – 148 tons

REDUCE NUMBER OF CHILDREN BY ONE  – 9,441 tons

Under current conditions, each child in the U.S. adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the parents’ carbon legacy during his lifetime.  That’s 5.7 times more than the average childless person.

A child born in China has a fifth of the impact of a child born in the U.S.

The carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of having a child is almost 20 times more important than other ecologically minded lifestyle choices like driving a fuel-efficient car, recycling or being energy-efficient.

The same conclusions also roughly apply to fresh water consumption. Fresh water has been and will continue to be cause for international conflict. The amount of fresh water on planet earth is finite and we’re running out.

Many children are born to people who are not ready or willing to raise them.

Many parents are less ecologically responsible out of convenience, e.g. using disposable instead of cloth diapers; buying an SUV instead of a compact (“The family is so much safer.”  Not in the long run, Mom; bad choice for the grand children too, if any).

Abstracted: “Not So Carbon Friendly” Jennifer Anderson, Portland Tribune.  Sound Off – Comment: www.portlandtribune.com

EARLY REACTIONS:

TELL THE TRUTH AND RUN reprise

Resurrection Machines

LOOTING THE TOMBS OF EGYPT:

“These people who have the crazy theories of the origin of the pyramids, I call, ‘pyramidiots.’” – Dr. Zahi Hawass, 1^st Minister of Antiquities, Head Archeologist, Egypt.

Canon Fodder

LOOKING FOR RELIGION: Odd Shots and Idle Pensees Nr. 7 –

I don’t know how people can choose between one idiocy and another, but they obviously do, in the billions. They will defend their chosen idiocy to the death against all other idiocies naturally, but most importantly, as the Truth – in whatever form it takes – for losing one’s faith in one’s chosen idiocy is the same awful shock as discovering that Santa Claus isn’t real. We call this phenomenon Post Santa Trauma Stress Disorder.

Just when you think Homo sapiens can’t get any dumber, science discovers that our image of the Neanderthal was based upon sloppy scientific interpretation of the bones of a single arthritic Alzheimer geriatric. For all these years, we’ve maligned the Neanderthal as a stooped, bow-legged moron. He wasn’t, but you still wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one.

Odd shots and idle pensees:

ODD SHOTS and IDLE PENSEES #3 reprise

Light at the End of the Tunnel

MOTHER’S ADVICE and HUMAN BEHAVIOR:

Mom’s Advice:  “Use Clorox to get rid of the DNA evidence.  Burn the barn.” – Some CSI-type crime show.

G.W. Bush’s recent efforts to rewrite his history remind me of Ramses the Great (pharaoh of the biblical exodus, if you believe).  He is called “great” because he managed to live longer than any other pharaoh and used the time to build more monuments to himself than all his predecessors and successors combined.  He had a factory that just turned out busts of his head so that he could knock the heads off other pharaohs’ statues and put his in their place.  He advertised himself shamelessly: painting and carving the story of the Battle of Kadesh on every wall and pillar in sight.  Kadesh was not even a draw and Rameses quickly signed a peace treaty with the victorious Hittite King, and went back to Egypt.  He nearly got himself killed and almost lost his army due to his egotistical rash actions as an inexperienced military leader, but he declared victory from near defeat, and covered up the fact that he came precious close to losing the farm – not just for himself, but for the whole kingdom of Egypt.  And that’s why G.W. Bush’s recent rewrite of his history reminds me of Ramses the Great, pharaoh of the biblical exodus, if you believe.  G.W. became president of the United States by the skin of his teeth and the lies on his lips: the same way Ramses II became “Great.”  – 11/04.

“Did Benjamin Franklin give up when the Germans shot down his kite?” – T. J. Detweiler pep talk, Recess.

IT’S NOT FASCISM!

FROM MUNICH TO…?

FROM MUNICH TO…?
In the mid-1960’s a book entitled Thunder on the Right urgently identified and warned against the anti-democratic, fundamental religionist, bigoted fanatics of the political reactionary right.  Among the American Nazis, KKK hoods and militia toughs was the John Birch Society, which ran Patrick Henry bookstores filled with scurrilous lying polemics attacking and undermining and diminishing government and advocating a treasonous program of subversion and sabotage.  The John Birch Society harnessed Cold War fears into hate against progressives, warning that President Kennedy, Civil Rights activists, and organized labor were in league with communists. One JBS newsletter civically advised members to “join your local P.T.A. and TAKE IT OVER [emphasis mine].”
Billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch are the wealthiest, and perhaps most effective, opponents of a progressive agenda today. Ranked as the 3rd richest people in America (each presently has $36 billion), the Koch brothers sit at the helm of Koch Industries, a massive privately owned conglomerate of manufacturing, oil, gas, and timber interests. David and Charles are responsible for the vicious attack campaign aimed directly at obstructing and killing progressive reform. Their opposition is a long family tradition of trying to shift the country to the far right; their father, Fred Koch, helped found the John Birch Society in the late 1950s.  Fred’s resistance to Russia significantly helped fuel the Cold War.  His sons continue to galvanize hundreds of thousands of middle class people into supporting the Kochs’ narrow agenda of cutting corporate taxes and avoiding consumer regulations to the ruin of our equality and democracy.

ACCEPT CHESTER BESTOS

Award-winning photographer David Slater had his camera hijacked by a crested black macaque in Indonesia, which took its own picture. The animal is extremely rare and endangered, which makes this big macaque attack picture all the more special.

KKKRISTIAN CHILD PORNO-PUSHERS: I’ve received mountains of child porn spam recently for a critique of religion – cowardly anonymous attacks from behind virtual firewalls by fundamentalist “kkkristians” (as my friend Richard Halasz of Stand Up Comedy Inc. calls them). This nest of vipers slams child porn in hopes of what – intimidation, mental masturbation? No one should use child pornography for any reason. These kkkristian fundamentalist child pornography-pushers are helping the pornographers! They dishonor themselves and their cause. They have no claim to the moral high ground. A friend says they deserve to be in jail, or an asylum and later in hell if there is one. May their god forgive them? Child porn is fast track to the Abyss, I’d guess. MY STORY BEGINS reprise

CENSORSHIP SUCKS: