Doing something
June 10, 2009
Frequent commenter (and all around good guy) Dave’s response to my last post inspired this post. His comment (referring to global warming/climate change/CLIMATE CRISIS!)
Doing something about a problem is better than doing nothing.
I’ve heard this a lot recently. This “doing something” must be important. I guess if you are “doing something”, that means you care. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter if “doing something” is an effective way of reducing the problem. It doesn’t matter how much “doing something” costs. It doesn’t matter that “doing something” might actually do more harm than good. The important thing is that you are “doing something”.
A recent example: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. President Obama said we had to “do something” (or else) to save and/or create new jobs. If we didn’t do something right now it would get worse. Here are the results:
So much for “doing something”.
I support doing things that may make actual differences, not just feel good measures that, in the end, could do more harm than good.
Kate says
June 7, 2009
Kate has an *interesting* post on global warming. Some highlights and my thoughts:
Kate says: Environmentalists hope dire predictions and a healthy dose of drama spur corrective action. Maybe more people will reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Let’s see. Scare the shit out of voters and they will agree with you. For the past eight years, all I have heard is GWB was using terrorism as a scare tactic. Now scare tactics are okay.
Kate says:
I don’t give a shit if you believe in global warming or not. The bottom line is this – didn’t you learn as a kid to clean up after yourself? Well, human beings have a miserable track record cleaning up after themselves. Whether such messiness leads to our destruction remains a point of contention and debate, but the facts are clear: corporations and people should do more to clean up the planet.
I would qualify that. Poor human beings have a miserable track record on the environment. As countries become richer, they pollute less. Rich people demand (and will pay for) a cleaner environment.
The current solution to climate change offered by the government is “cap and trade”.
Some neocons like Ralph Nader don’t like it:
Cap-and-traders assume, without much justification, that one country can put a price on carbon emissions while another doesn’t without affecting trade or investment decisions.
…
Good intentions to limit big polluters in some countries but not others will turn any meaningful cap into Swiss cheese. It can be avoided by relocating existing and new production of various kinds of CO2-emitting industries to jurisdictions with no or virtually no limits. This is known as carbon leakage, and it leads to trade anarchy.
and Gore’s scientist/global warming poster boy, James Hansen is not a fan:
Hansen lambasts the current international approach of setting targets to be met through “cap and trade” schemes as not up to the task. “This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat. It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our planet and humanity
but yet Kate says:
We *know* we’re in trouble. And we also know how to fix it. Let’s not argue over the methods that people use to get our fellow citizens off their asses and working toward a solution. Because the solution will benefit all of us.
I disagree that “we know how to fix it”. Kate, tell me your solution.
Poop power (or The power of propaganda)
June 4, 2009
Is it just me or have cartoons have gone to hell lately. In particular, propaganda cartoons for children:
Let’s see…we have a vaguely foreign transexual bird, her uptight environmentalist bird friend, a pooping hippo, a rodent who prefers driving over taking a hippo to work and a climate scientist… Add bad music and bad rhyming and you’ll understand the meaning of the “power of poop”. Don’t forget the whole premise for this cartoon, that global warming is melting Kilimanjaro’s snow, is poop and one of the proposed solution in the cartoon, that sugarcane as a biofuel is good for the environment, is poop too.
They’re back
June 3, 2009
Last year, for some stupid bird loving reason, I set a wren house right next to my white trash pool. The wrens loved it. Me, not so much. Try to relax and enjoy smoking a ciggie and drinking a G&T listening to this shit:
Although it was fun (drinking makes it fun) watching the little cocksuckers (h/t Quaker/Mother) feed the babies, like all babies, they never shut up. And their parents constantly scolded me for being there.
They are back again this year but I relocated the house to a more suitable location (far away from where the pool will go… if it ever warms up).
Cost/benefit (of the stimulus)
June 2, 2009
I’ve been seeing these signs pop up all over the place (how much do they cost?):
But I haven’t seen anyone working. And I haven’t seen any of this:
Coming out (with pictures)
May 30, 2009
Sometimes I get the question “When did you know you were gay?”. I always turn it back on the nosy bitches and ask “When did you know you were straight?”. A more honest answer from me would be “at about age five”. You don’t really know it but in my five year old head, I knew I was different. Luckily, I have proof to show the doubters (possibly NSFW in the bizarro PC world we live in):
Promises, promises
May 28, 2009
I promised Kate that if she made some kind of comment on a post that was at least mildly serious, I would post a picture of myself. Kate stepped up to the task (please do it more Kate; your input is always welcome) so here we go…
Read the rest of this entry »
Jon and Kate plus eight
May 26, 2009
I love(d) the reality TV show Jon and Kate plus Eight. I dunno. Part freak show, part cute kids…It was entertaining. Now their marriage is falling apart because of the show (or at least a contribution to its demise). That I don’t want to watch. Kate signed on for two more years but it looks like Jon is outta there. I know they were the ones who agreed to do the show but I now feel dirty for watching it.
Not quite the Dionne Quintuplets but still.
I like Ike
May 25, 2009
You might remember the famous warning about “the military industrial complex” that President Eisenhower expressed when leaving office:
But yet this quote from that same speech is largely ignored:
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Is it just me or does “global warming” research follow this pattern?
Bjorn Lomborg (my favorite Dane) has an excellent piece in the WSJ on the subject. His main point:
We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a “climate-industrial complex” is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain.
May 24th: Rules for birthdays
May 23, 2009
Who knew all these (in)famous people were born on May 24. Anyway…on with teh rules.
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em (Tommy Chong):
Even if you don’t smoke you can still smoke (Patti LaBelle):
And don’t forget…Other people born on this day have survived some serious shit so a birthday isn’t that bad.
Happy birthday to all the famous and infamous people born today!
