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

The Price of Bread

     

     An article I found (link) had some interesting things to say about a loaf of bread and what the rising price of it could mean.
     Summary:
     -The price of bread is directly related to the price of wheat, and the price of the fossil fuels it takes to plant and harvest that wheat.
     -The price of bread goes up when there is a shortage of wheat, and many shortages have been caused recently by climate change. It also goes up with the rising cost of oil, but you already knew that.
     -When bread gets more expensive, there is unrest in the counties that need to import wheat. (Egypt and other Arab Spring countries)
     -So far, it looks like the people that could be trying to help this are just getting more rich off it . (Corporations Glencore and Cargill)

     Anyway, if something isn't done to increase and stabilize our global food production, unrest will continue to spread. If left unchecked, it could easily make it to many modern and industrialized countries as well.

Original Article:
http://www.truth-out.org/reading-world-loaf-bread/1311087594

Heat Waves and Global Warming

Artwork from: http://sgrblog.blogspot.com/

     So, it is summertime in America, and that means it's hot. There is currently a pretty rough heatwave covering much of the Midwest, which means it's extra hot. Records will be broken, people will sweat, and eventually it will move on. The important thing to keep in mind is that high temperatures don't necessarily happen because of global warming. (But sometimes they do.)

     The concept of Global Warming is actually better described as Climate Change, because as the globe gets warmer, some places actually get cooler, or wetter, or drier etc... What this means is that individual high temperatures or heatwave events really don't mean anything. The important thing to look at is if they happen more often, and with higher intensity. Unfortunately, this does seem to be the case in several parts of the world.

     So is Global Warming to blame for the current heat wave? Possibly, but the point is to keep an eye on the bigger picture. Global Warming is global, after all.

News about current heatwave:

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2011/07/18/unrelenting-heat-wave-hits-central-us/

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/2011-heat-superlatives_2011-07-15

Bipartisan fighting over Debt ceiling.

Debt Ceiling Fight a Case of Bipartisan Absurdity

     That video is actually a few months old (May 13th, 2011) but all the information in it is still quite valid. Long story short, Democrats are fighting Republicans and Republicans are fighting Democrats and all the while, nothing is really getting solved.
     Here is a list of other "fighty" headlines from around the web:
     With Debt Talks Stalled, Democrats Try to Divide and Conquer the GOP
     The Man Who Drew GOP's Line In The Sand
     The "Young Gun" in the Debt Standoff
     This is just the most recent example of how inefficient our government can be, and how politicians spend more time working against each other than working for us. So I would just like you to think about this in 2012, and hope you shy away from voting democrat or republican. This absurdity needs to end.

A highlight on fracking.

   
     It seems that fracking is something that not too many people know about yet, so here is some information. To sum up, it is a process that pumps water and hazardous chemicals into the ground at high pressure to fracture the rock and release oil and gas to be used for energy. This tends to directly pollute ground water, and also the air when the chemicals are then brought up and evaporated off.

     Here is a link to a documentary about it, with simple information to get a better understanding:
     http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking#frackingprocess

     And this is a link with even more in depth information:
     http://www.earthworksaction.org/FracingDetails.cfm

Gay history bill proposed in California.

    There is a bill being sent to Californian governor Jerry Brown that would require public schools in California to include time for studies of gay and lesbian contributions to society.

     I feel like this is another well-intentioned idea that just ends up being a form of segregation. I've said before that things like black history month and gay pride parades just highlight the fact that these people are different. The idea of giving them special sections in a history course is potentially even worse. I'm not exactly sure what kind of contributions various gay people have made, but I feel like they would fall into one of two categories:
     1. The contribution was of minimal significance, and the person is now "earning" a spot in a history lesson simply because they are gay.
     2. The contribution was significant, and overshadows the fact that the person is gay. (In other words, they should be remembered for their contribution, not for their sexuality)

     History is history, and important people and the important events they took part in should be the focus. Whether or not they were black, white, gay, man, woman, etc. can be interesting, but should not have anything to do with why we remember them.*

*of course I am well aware that often times historical events revolve around social issues that deal with sexuality/gender/races, in which case it makes perfect sense to note such things.

     EDIT: I have realized that I wasn't considering the fact that social studies is not the same as history. Being required to include gay's in social studies lessons is absolutely a step forward. Perhaps this should be called a gay social studies bill instead.

Original Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/05/california-gay-history-bill_n_890846.html

Tell your grocer you want to eat these problematic fish!

   
     So eating seafood is pretty good for us, but many of the standard fish we eat are being over fished. To complicate things further, there are a few species of fish that are causing trouble as invaders. So the simple solution is to start eating the invaders!
     According to an advocacy group named Food & Water Watch, Asian Carp and Lionfish are top on the list of pesky troublemakers. The problem is, you can't really find these guys at your local market. Ashley Hawkins of Whole Foods had this to say about why these fish aren't stocked in the store: "We simply haven't investigated, as there has been no urging from customers to do so."
   
     Well, that seems like an easy fix. Here are some links where you can urge your favorite market to carry these fish:

Whole Foods
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/service.php
Big Y
https://www.bigy.com/contact/index.php

Stop&Shop
http://www.stopandshop.com/customer_service/contact/index.htm

     The idea is simple, eat less fish that are being strained enough as it is, and eat more fish that are causing problems as invasive species anyway.

Original Article:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/07/07/137674792/in-a-fish-eat-fish-world-order-asian-carp-and-lionfish-to-save-the-rest

Yellow Stone Oil Spill

     .....this is just going to keep happening, and I'm going to run out of ways to say that oil is bad. 

     Anyway, a pipe leaked a bunch of oil into the Yellowstone River, near Billings, Montana. Estimates of how much oil has leaked are either around 1,000 barrels or 42,000 barrels. They're obviously not too sure. The good news is the pipe is apparently capped off so no more oil is leaking out, but determining the cause of the break, and assembling a clean up has been hampered by the flood stage waters of the river.

     So there it is, another oil leak, another reason to move away from oil. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/02/yellowstone-oil-spill-pro_n_889363.html

Gender Neutral Pre-School in Sweden

     At Egalia, a gender neutral pre-school in Sweden (ages 1-6) the students are referred to as "friends" instead of pronouns like "him" and "her." To avoid using these masculine and feminine pronouns, the gender less word "hen" is used. (Keep in mind that this is in Swedish, not English.) It is interesting to note that the word "hen"  seems to be a newly created word that isn't officially in the Swedish language yet.
     The goal is to raise the children in a neutral setting to allow them to become whatever they want to be.


     Does anyone else feel like this is more of an experiment than actual progress? Gender roles are a natural part of human behavior, as a result of millennia of evolution. If some people don't want to follow them that's perfectly fine, but treating them like a problem that needs to be solved hardly makes sense.


     A teacher at the school, Jenny Johnnson, had this to say: "Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing, Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be."


     I fully believe you can still be whoever you want to be without ignoring the truth about your biological gender. I also worry that children raised like this will be even more confused about their bodies than normal teens when puberty comes around. 


     Again, I can't shake the feeling that this is more of an experiment than a progressive idea. An interesting experiment for sure, but not one with ideals I can agree with. 


Original article:
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/26/no-boys-and-girls-at-gender-neutral-preschool-in-sweden/?iref=obinsite
More of my thoughts on equality:
http://commonlyrational.blogspot.com/2011/05/small-essay-on-equal-rights.html

Let's go to Mars!

   This is a nice article about all the positive aspects that would come along with a plan to put humans on Mars. It may seem odd for me to advocate this at a time when our own planet seems to be falling apart, but interplanetary travel is something that could do a lot to unite people all across the world. Also, like Zubrin mentions in the article, anytime people are more interested in science, we win.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/29/zubrin.mars/index.html?hpt=op_t1

Farmstead Meatsmith

Check out this awesome idea. The move away from industrialized food is a necessity.


So go toss them a few dollars if you can! This is a noble project indeed.

Misunderstood Man

Awesome idea. (You have to watch the whole thing...yup, it's one of those)

Small Essay on Voting/Bipartisanism

     The current system of democracy in America is a bit of a joke. I'm really tired of this two party system. Having two choices is not a democracy, especially in a situation where you just end up voting for the lesser of two evils. There are other parties out there, but they end up causing trouble as spoilers. (Example: Ralph Nader's Green Party had ideals similar to most Democrats, so when he ran in the 2000 election, he ended up stealing votes from Al Gore, which only helped George Bush.) It's very important to give these smaller parties a bigger voice, and the way to do that is the run off system.
     With a run off system, you would be able to rank candidates instead of just voting for one. Then, if your top ranked candidate doesn't have a majority, your vote would then change to your second pick. It's a simple system, and adopting it should be equally simple.
     So I encourage everyone to stop voting for Democrats and Republicans. People who live in swing states might want to play it safe and still pick a lesser of two evils, but if you know your state to be solid blue or red, GO FOR IT! Pick a Libertarian, a Socialist, Rainbow/Green party or write yourself in! An even simpler start would be to register as an independent. Doing this will send the signal that we want change, because we are well aware that the fight between red and blue isn't working to our advantage.

Small Essay on Equal Rights

     Equal rights for all mankind would truly be great, but I think a lot of programs and ideas meant to encourage this are actually doing the opposite. Gay pride parades, black history month, women's film festivals etc... might seem like a good idea, but it just highlights the fact that these groups are different. Equality is the goal here, and since I think we can all agree that a straight pride parade would be stupid, it makes you wonder why they thought a gay pride parade was a good idea in the first place.

    Another thing I'd like to see go is the feminist movement. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but my concern is, when will feminists know when to stop? What would have to happen for feminists to say "WE DID IT WE WON! We can stop calling ourselves feminists now, there's no need!"? The truth is, men and women aren't the same and therefore can't truly be equals. As a matter of fact, that goes for every single person on this planet, not to mention the fact that women can be as different from each other as they are from any man. So this is a situation that should be more about fair rights and not equal rights, and fairness can really only be determined on a case per case basis. Besides, assuming all women might want the same thing is damaging to begin with.

    The point is, I think it would be a lot more progressive for people in any of these groups to just band together and campaign for equal/fair rights for all. Separated as they are now is inefficient, and potentially more harmful than good.

Small Essay on Oil/Fossil Fuels

     Fossil fuels are destroying our environment and are not renewable. The only logical option here is to stop using them as soon as we possibly can. I understand that we can't just totally drop them overnight, but we can do many many things to ween ourselves off them, and make a smooth transition over to alternatives.
     This really should be so simple for everyone to understand, but sadly it isn't. It's so simple that I'm not sure what else to say about it, so I'm going to focus on how "drill baby, drill" is one of the most terrifyingly ignorant things a person could say. It doesn't matter how much oil is still left in the world, or what country it's in, we can't keep using it. It will only lead to more disasters like the spill in the gulf, and the continued pollution of smog and greenhouse gases. What's worse, and this is huge: it will just reinforce our societies' dependence on oil, delaying our move away from it.
     So I want to make something very clear: if we allow it to sneak up on us, the transition away from oil will be devastating to humanity. Almost everything that makes our society what it is can be traced back to a fossil fuel, and without them, things will fall apart in a terrible way. We are going to have to learn to live without oil, and the sooner we do, the less chaotic the switch will be.

Small Essay on Education

     Schools need help, and a simple lack of funding isn't the real problem here. More money would certainly help  in a lot of areas, but the basic structure is the real issue. I'd like to see a bigger focus put on wisdom instead of just intelligence. Another way of saying this is I'd rather we taught understanding, instead of just facts. Too much of what we're doing, such as standardized tests, just encourage memorization of information and not true understanding. Wisdom can really only come from experience, which means we need to focus more on critical thinking skills, hands on learning, and creativity. This approach also lends itself well to self guided learning, because not everyone learns the same way.
     A wise person can learn anything, and is an all around better asset to society.

Small Essay on Consumerism

     Consuming and consuming is going to leave us with nothing left. Most materials on this planet, such as metals and plastic, are not going to last forever. Depleting our resources to build more and more junk for people to buy at a big box retailer is going to land us in trouble, and it's already happening. I don't want to focus on that so much though, I want to offer some nice alternatives that can give us the satisfaction of consumerism, without so many of the drawbacks.

     1. Libraries

     Libraries are a fantastic way to consume things, and it's not just books! They have movies, music, documentaries and even some video games. Going to a library and picking out what you want satisfies that "need to shop" without actually buying anything. It's like retail therapy, but you've spent nothing. And when you're done with it, you can just bring it back and you don't have to worry about it cluttering up your house.

     2. Digital Media

     The digital age can really go a long way in saving resources when it comes to consuming. Almost any form of media product can now be free from a physical format, meaning there's hardly any material used to make it, and no need to waste energy to ship it around. Just please remember to be a responsible consumer on the electronics needed to enjoy these digital formats!

     3. Buying used

     Buying used stuff is an adventure. Clothing, furniture, games, exercise equipment, tools...anything! Never forget these things can be found used for much cheaper. Thrift stores have all sorts of interesting things in them. The key is to focus on functionality and not brand names or trends. Buying used lets you consume and conserve at the same time. 

     The goal here is to stop waste. There's plenty to go around if we do it right, and doing right doesn't have to be drastically different from what we're doing now. 

Small Essay on Healthy Eating

     It's important to eat healthy, but you already knew that. The problem here is not a lot of people know how to do it, even the nutritionists change there mind every few years! So allow me to make a few simple points.

     1. Sugar, fat, and salt are good for you.
     That's why they taste so good! Our taste buds evolved that way so we would seek out these foods because our body needs them.
     HOWEVER: too much of them is no good.
     ALSO: the form they come in is important. Getting sugar from an apple is great, getting it from an individually wrapped snack cake is not.

     2. Industrialized/Processed food should be avoided.
     It's been said that you should shop around the perimeter of a super market and avoid the aisles. This is because the aisles are where all the processed foods are. More and more, these processed foods are being blamed for all sorts of health problems in industrialized countries.
     A simple way to look at it is this: If people ate it before the industrial period of the world, it's probably fine.
     OR: if your food spent more time in a factory than a farm, it's probably bad.

     3. Eating healthy is also healthy for the environment.
     This was the thing that really tipped the scales in my mind and got me to actually care about what I ate. Foods that are good for you are also good for sustainability of our environment-lucky for us! Fresh local produce has great nutrition and uses much less energy to ship around the globe. Beef from grass fed cows has less fat, and less need for antibiotics. Avoiding "factory foods" cuts down on trash from wasteful packaging. So if you're the type to think "health nut or not, we die all the same," now think about how important the environment is, and how we can kill two birds with one stone by eating healthier.

Small Essay on the Environment

     This should be an obvious one but most people don't seem to give a damn about protecting our environment. I think a lot of this has to do with a misunderstanding of environmentalism, and I think many environmentalists themselves have this misunderstanding as well. You see, the main goal of environmentalism shouldn't be saving the trees, saving the whales or saving the pandas. The point is to SAVE THE HUMANS. In other words, the planet is fine, it's gone through hell worse than us and made it out alright. Mass extinctions, global warming, and destruction of habitats are all things nature can and will adapt to. It's what nature does best.

     These ARE NOT things humanity as we know it can adapt to. If we want human civilization to continue to prosper things need to change and they need to change right quick. Everything we know and love has come from this planet, and our ability to easily live on it. Without it, we have nothing, and if the goal is to save the humans, saving things like trees comes as part of the package anyway.

     So I implore you, see the environment for the paradise it is, and stop trying to control and work against it. It's perfect for us just the way it is, and we need to learn to live with it, not make it live with us. This DOESN'T MEAN we should all revert to simple farm towns and abandon technology. It is possible for us to continue our advancement and prosperity without ruining the environment. In fact, protecting the environment is the ONLY way to continue our advancement and prosperity.

Small Essay on Gay Marriage

     My problem with Gay Marriage really has nothing to do with gays and more to do with marriage. It's become pretty obvious to me after hearing all the debates that marriage and the ceremonies that go along with it are a personal choice and have nothing to do with laws and politics. For this reason I think instead of pushing for gay marriage, we should be pushing for civil unions for all couples, and if you want to call yourselves married and have a ceremony for it, that is your choice and you can do that all separately. This way everyone is entitled to the legal benefits that are typically associated with marriage, and everyone has the freedom to define marriage as whatever the hell they want.

Small Essay on Abortion.

     Oh boy, this sure can be a tricky one. I'll just say right off the bat that this essay will probably anger both sides of the debate, but that's why I think it's really important to share this point of view.

     First off, Pro-Choice is the only logical option. No matter how much you hate the idea of legal abortion, outlawing it would only cause more problems than it would solve. It's that simple. We can't outlaw abortion, but before I explain why, I'm going to seemingly fly in the face of of two big view points Pro-Choicers have.

     1. Abortion ends a human life. (A.K.A. Abortion is murder.)
     I want to keep this short, so I won't be giving a lesson on the stages of pregnancy, but the only difference between a fertilized egg and a baby is time has passed. Since time is not a force we can control, it makes no sense to treat a fertilized egg as anything other than human life. There is definitely a bit of a gray area in that time when the egg hasn't actually implanted on the uterine wall, and this is where the morning after pill is used. It's a gray area because the fertilized egg (now a blastocyst) doesn't always implant and result in a pregnancy. However, once implantation has occurred, and pregnancy has officially begun, intentionally interrupting this process is without a doubt snuffing out a human life.

     2. We should stop saying "it's a womans right to choose."
     The idea that it's a woman's right to choose bothers me because it implies women have sole authority over the reproduction of the whole species. It isn't fair to shut men totally out of the equation, considering it almost always takes a man and a woman to start a pregnancy. HOWEVER I am in no way suggesting a man should ever have the power to force a woman to carry a child she doesn't want. That is a scary thought and I would never feel comfortable in a society that allowed that. All I'm trying to say is that I would like the people who say "it's a womans right to choose" to recognize that the father might actually care about the future of their unborn child. Also, I'd like the women who might say "it's my body, my choice" to see that it isn't that simple. They now have another body inside theirs, and it has a right to live.

    Okay, so it's clear to me that abortion is basically murder, yet I'm still Pro-Choice. The reason for this is simple, like I said earlier, outlawing abortion would just cause more problems. It wouldn't end abortion any more than outlawing drugs has stopped drug dealers. Women who want an abortion would have to turn to a black market system of underground and likely unsafe practitioners. This obviously would not be an improvement.

     The only real way to solve this problem is to get everyone to think smarter about sex and pregnancy. By decreasing the about of unwanted pregnancies, we would decrease the amount of abortions. I know this isn't really a new idea, but I promise it's the best option we have.

Flooding.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/11/mississippi-takes-aim-poverty-stricken-parts-delta/

     That article is just one of many talking about the impact of the floods currently happening along the Mississippi River. I've mostly just been seeing news about impacts on human life though, and not so much on the environment.

     The truth is, floods are pretty good for the land.  River sediment would typically get deposited on the top soil, making for some of the best farm land the world has to offer. With all these flood controls in place, this valuable sediment ends up washing away out to sea.

     Of course I'm not suggesting to just let the place flood. That water is poisoned and contaminated now anyway, so it would likely do more harm to the farmland than good. I will suggest not living so close to a river though, especially one as big as the Mississippi.

     Rivers flood. It's what they do. Don't build so much stuff near them.

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/floods.html

     I found this nice "Ask an Earth Scientist" article about this topic. My favorite part is: "A wise society, in my opinion, would reap the benefits of flooding and avoid many of the negatives if they would choose to build cities in ways that can accommodate flooding without trying to avoid it. Attempting to go against nature is almost certainly a loosing prospect in the end."

     Let's be a wise society.

Bin Laden.

It seems like it's useless to find news that isn't about Bin Laden right now so I figured I might as well post something about it and wait a bit for it to blow over.

It has already been said by better writers on bigger blogs, but celebrating this isn't something we should be doing. If it meant the war was over that would be cause for celebration for sure, but it isn't.

I just want to again point out like others have, that when you see people on T.V. cheering with their American flags out, celebrating death, it looks way too similar to those who celebrate the terrorist attacks that we're trying to stop.

Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization | Video on TED.com

Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization | Video on TED.com

This guy is fantastic. The idea of making needed machines that are built for a lifetime and not built for obsolesces is AN INCREDIBLY GOOD IDEA.

Imagine buying a car when you were 17 and having it for 20 or 30 years. Maybe longer! Of course things would break, but the repairs would be cheap and simple because the car itself was cheap and simple. Ideas like this meet a lot of resistance with corporations that are always making bigger and better for the consumers that demand nothing less than bigger and better, but I ask you to explain the sense in that.

Climate change to have negative effect on south western US water supplies.

Source article from BBC

Summary:
Climate change is expected to short the amount of water flowing in several rivers across south western states by between 8-20%. The area in question is from Texas to California, and includes the Rio Grande, San Joaquine and Colorado rivers. Compounding this issue, is the fact that many of these areas are also the most rapidly growing in the US.
--

Without access to usable water, human society is fundamentally impossible. It seems unlikely that we can do much to stop climate change any time soon, but ignoring it would simply be a disaster.

Also, I know there are many people that don't think humans are causing climate change, but in the end, does that really matter? We still need to move away from fossil fuels, and we still need to deal with shifting weather patterns, man made or not.

Possible Gasoline Price Gouging.

Here is an article from CNN about an investigation into high gas prices:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/04/21/holder.gas.prices/

TL;DR
Gas prices keep going up as though there were a supply issue, when there isn't an actual supply issue.  It seems the oil industry is doing this in the face of unrest in the Middle East as a way to pad themselves against a possible crisis that actually DOES cause a supply issue. So authorities are investigating it, because it sounds a lot like price gouging.

It is important to point out in all matters involving fossil fuels, that they are bad. I think in the long term it is better to have the prices stay high, because it will force people to really think about how we should be moving away from this industry all together.

Funny how the CNN picture shows a school bus in the background, as if to say "HOW ARE THE KIDS GOING TO GET TO SCHOOL NOW!?"  I think it would have been much better to show people who recently bought SUV's crying.

Libertarian Candidate for 2012, Gary Johnson.

It is very important that we in the U.S.A. start supporting parties other than Democrats and Republicans.  The Libertarian party has made a fair amount of progress, and in general, has a lot of good ideas.

Here is an interview with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who will be running in the 2012 race as a Libertarian.
Gary Johnson interviewed by Judge Napolitano

Mr. Johnson's personal campaign site:
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/

I'm not saying all his answers and ideas are perfect (his site disturbingly has a lack on info about environmental issues), but the Libertarian Party itself could offer a helpful change of pace for American Politics.

For more on Libertarianism, try these links:
http://www.theihs.org/what-libertarian
http://www.libertarianism.com/

Antidote to Apathy

I think this is fitting as a first post.
It's time to actually do something about this mess.



http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy.html