Incredible Speech From a Chalie Chaplin Movie

     I'm guessing for many people this speech would be considered old news, considering it's from a movie that came out in 1940, but this video gives it a lot of nice updated imagery. I had no idea Charlie Chaplin was anything but a comedian. (This clip is from a satirical portrayal of Nazi Germany, so it was still a comedy. However, satirical comedy with a message of hope is far different than the slapstick that is usually associated with him.)

Stunning Example of Agenda-Driven Media

     
     This news team edits a four-year-old's words in a way that is pretty upsetting. Just watch the video, I don't really need to say more.

     I guess the point is you need to be wary of what you hear in the news, because things like this happen.

Shell Wants You To Think Drilling In Alaska Is Great.

     I've seen a few ads around the internet for Shell talking about what they want to do in Alaska. I clicked the ad to see their site and sadly it's all the same propaganda type stuff. They talk about the economic benefits, how trained they are to handle spills and try to dispel some of the myths about the dangers of drilling up north. I don't think they're lying about any of this, but it is all very misleading. The same basic facts about oil polluting the environment and how we will one day NEED to ween ourselves away from it are ignored by things like this.

     Sure we could drill in Alaska and live off that oil and prolong the life of our current energy system, but when the times comes that oil is too scarce to be practical, we will be that much less prepared.

Shell Website:
http://www.shell.us/
Shell in Alaska
http://www.shell.us/home/content/usa/aboutshell/projects_locations/alaska/

More About Getting Away From Coal

     CNN posted an article listing again the reasons why we should be moving away from coal fired energy plants. Even if you don't believe global warming is a crisis, rising asthma rates and mercury pollution are. Also, coal (and all fossil fuels) will not be around forever, so the sooner we stop using it, the better off we will be.

Other Highlights from the article:
-To build a coal-fired power plant that doesn't emit pollution is so expensive that it's cheaper to do clean energy
-Michael Bloomberg's Bloomberg Philanthropies has committed $50 million over four years to the Beyond Coal campaign
-It is technologically and economically realistic to eliminate coal's contribution to the electric sector by 2030


Original Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/29/bloomberg.brune.coal/index.html?hpt=us_t2

Environmental Protection Spending Bill

     "[it's] not so much a spending bill as a wish list for special interests." -Virginia Rep. Jim Moran, ranking member of the Appropriations Committee

     The official name of the bill is: The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, FY 2012. Essentially, it is a bill that will dictate spending for various environmental programs in America. Sadly, things don't look too good for the environment in this one.

Here is a list of concerns:

*Prohibiting EPA from reducing greenhouse gases that lead to global warming;
*Prohibiting the use of federal funds to list and recover endangered species;
*Eviscerating spending for our national lands, which could lead to the closure of national wildlife refuges, and the shutdown of efforts to help our lands address the worst effects of climate change;
*Uranium mining within the Grand Canyon;
*Deep, debilitating cuts in the Forest Legacy and Land and Water Conservation Funds programs, which allow state, local and federal governments to work together on conservation needs, all the more important in the face of global climate change;
*Eliminating water pollution laws for logging roads on national forests and allowing for expanded off-road vehicle use on national forests in California;
*Exempting Big Oil's massive offshore drilling operations from Clean Air Act requirements designed to protect our health and our environment.

To sign a petition against this bill that will be sent to your local representative you can go here:

https://secure.wilderness.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=OnScreenThanks&id=2351

For some more info on the bill, there is a good article here:

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/energy-intelligence/2011/07/26/house-warms-up-for-debt-vote-with-interior-environment-bill

Video games, Guns, and Norway.

     Jim Sterling of Destructoid wrote an excellent article pointing out the obvious flaws in thinking that a video game could possibly have helped train a terrorist to do what was done in Norway. At this point it is getting tiresome to have to repeat the same basic logic over and over, but when a killer specifically cites a game like Modern Warfare 2 as part of his "training", it just fans the flames all over again.

     Ugh.

     I won't bother to repeat anything Jim already said, but I will specifically point out that I have never played a game that taught me how to load and arm a gun, what kind of ammunition to use, how heavy it was, and how much recoil it had. If you believe a video game could be used as firearms training, the same could be said for pointing and clicking a mouse to navigate this webpage. 

     

Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal

     Don't Ask, Don't Tell is at last being repealed. CNN had a nice video (above) about the history of the policy, which was started under President Clinton as a compromise to let gays and lesbians serve in the military. Repealing the policy is obviously a step forward, because any kind of law that treats a group of people differently is simply unfair and unjust.
     The main support of Don't Ask, Don't Tell comes from apparently homophobic troops that say they would be uncomfortable with gays openly serving, and would potentially leave the armed forces because of it. At least one survey showed about a third of the troops held this view, which lead to worries that repealing the policy would weaken the armed forces.
     First of all, a third of the armed forces leaving over this seems very unrealistic and secondly, even if they did, repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell is still the right thing to do. Our troops are meant to defend freedom, and if our own troops aren't free to serve as who they are, what is the point?

     Lastly, I'd like to offer a personal anecdote for current soldiers or potential soldiers that may be worried about this. In High School, I was on the wrestling team (Greco-Roman), and more than one guy told me they wouldn't want to wrestle because it was too gay. I CAN ASSURE YOU the last thing you are thinking about while struggling to pin your opponent is how gay it is. I should hope this would be the same for troops. A uniformed solider is a professional, and they have a job to do. In a line of work as stressful as that, sexuality should be the last thing on a solider's mind, gay and straight alike.

Original Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/21/military.dadt/index.html?hpt=hp_t1