Third Annual Blog Action Day -- 2009, Climate Change

Welcome to the third annual Blog Action Day, explained thusly by BlogActionDay.org:

"Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change events on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices."

If you're a good little greenie and/or a good little liberal, you of course expect my posting to be on the impending disaster caused by the nasty old industrially-produced climate change, and all the grotesquely expensive methods we must employ to remedy such change.  After all, this is the only respectable, politically correct standpoint, right?

Sorry, Gentle Readers -- I skipped that particular pitcher of Kool-Aid. 

Having always marched to the rat-a-tat-tat of my own drum, I've trawlled the web to bring you links to subversive articles that controvert the "correct" position.  I'm sure there is evidence (objective, factual, truly scientific evidence that is not politically or financially motivated nor controlled) indicating that  we are in the beginning stages of a "climate change" of some sort.  There is also ample evidence that this dear Earth has never STOPPED changing -- according to its own natural course and unaffected one whit by human critters.

I find the Climate Change Chicken Littles of the world laughably, ironically, ridiculously arrogant in their assumptions that  A) we have more than incidental impact on the Earth's atmosphere and climate;  B) that because we are accustomed to this particular eon's temperature, ocean levels, ice pack volume, weather behavior, etc.,  these are the only conditions under which the human race could possibly survive, and we could NEVER adapt to anything else.  This stance ignores the reality that we the living are proof that we HAVE adapted over millions of years to everything nature has thrown at us.  I wasn't issued a contract at birth promising that summer in my chosen environment will be 85-100 and winter 55-15 degrees.  Human history has been written within the context of suffering and surviving nature's whimsy -- yet here we are, all 6,798,000,000 of us.

If you don't think this science or pseudo-science of climate change is linked directly to issues that will affect YOU, Google "cap and trade" and see what will await average, every-day American consumers if this madness is passed.  HERE is an article from the Wall Street Journal that in a rational world would be satire, but terrifyingly isn't as this bill awaits Congress' action.

Note:  I wrote most of this blog on Sunday, 10/11.   On Tuesday, I received a message from the organizers of Blog Action Day.  In light of the last link of this post (#10, below), I'm posting part of that email  (don't you just LOVE irony!):

Hey bloggers,
We have exciting news! Blog Action Day has partnered with Al Gore's group the Alliance for Climate Protection to start a global online action addressed to the one country whose actions will most influence the future of our climate: the United States.

As many of you know, this December world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a global response to climate change. As a world leader in greenhouse gas pollution as well as clean energy technology, the United States needs to take bold and urgent action by implementing comprehensive clean energy policies to curb emissions.

Nobel Peace Prize Winner and President Barack Obama has said that climate change is an urgent threat, and now is the time for him to lead the United States in confronting climate crisis.

Now that I've stated my own disbelief in the new religion of Climatism, here are a few links for your education and amusement.

1)  Green Myths on Globel Warming

2) Nasa Debunks Part Of Global Warming, Will Media Report It? 

3) An Inconvenient Truth: Exposing The Global Warming Myth

4)  Junk Science (via FOX)  The Greenhouse Myth

5) Snopes.com Reporting On Global Warming

6) Thousands Of Scientists Sign Petition Against Global Warming

7) The Deniers  The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud

8) Why Global Warming Alarmists Are Losing Their Case

9) Mars Melt Hints At Solar, Not Human, Cause For Warming

10) And, just to be mean,  HERE is the article, with links to others, about how Prophet Gore profits from the carbon credit scam, also linked to "climate change."

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The Other Side Of The News

Most days I feel like Arte Johnson (from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) -- merrily riding my little red tricycle through life until the trike just.... falls over. Some days I fall to the Right and other days you can find me lying in the Left's green grass.

The Environment is high on my personal list of idealistic priorities -- the REAL environmental issues, not the pimped-up, Gored-up phony ones. Effective assistance to the disadvantaged is also on that list, and since I'm not a national defense fanatic, those three stances undoubtedly put me left of center.

Plenty of other issues will find me leaning to the right, however, so my little trike wobbles around a lot, sporting neither a donkey nor elephant bumper sticker.

In fact, I really don't understand blind, knee-jerk allegiance to either political party. I don't understand rabid single-agenda people who shut out at least half of the population's ideas and ideals; those who won't read, listen, watch or otherwise consider opposing points of view AND the possibility that those viewpoints may have merit and validity.

I certainly don't understand the Obama phenomenon where millions of people are blindly parading toward apparent victory behind a person with questionable financing ties, no significant accomplishments and who changes his mind and positions daily, along with his socks. But then, this parade is also marching to the drumbeat of the mainstream media.

I sent out a plea to friends who are exposed to material OTHER THAN network news and liberal blogs, begging for links to centrist or conservative websites where at least the opposition can be read, if not believed. I know that reading "PowerLine" for a year has opened my eyes and, I hope, broadened the scope of my information and knowledge a bit.

Here are a few recommendations from people I respect.
If you're a liberal leftie, take a chance and click one or two, if only to confirm your own thoughts... or if only for a laugh.
If you're a conservative rightie, you already get the opposing view from network news, but you might find some new and interesting places to park your trike for a few minutes.

powerline.com
ace.mu.nu
littlegreenfootballs.com
instapundit.com
pajamasmedia.com
melaniemorgan.com
jihadwatch.com
realnews.com
canadafreepress.com

I'm going to list these in a box on the right in a few days. If you have a favorite blog or website, send it to me and I'll include it. Yes, yes, liberal ones, too.

Leaving Idealism, Heading South To Cynicism

The little blurb on my banner above says I'm "transitioning from idealist to cynic..." but I think that ship has finally sailed. If I haven't quite reached cynicism, I'm at least steaming past the shores of skepticism.

I no longer believe one thing I hear on TV or read in the news. Perhaps there's a kernel of truth somewhere, but since I'm not completely informed on every aspect of life on this planet, and since I'm not astute enough to always know what is truth and what is spin by those with agendas.... I think from here on I'm going to consider all of it as bullshit. (Sorry, Margie.)

Last week, during the lunch hour, our local NBC channel interrupted programming and ran the banner "BREAKING NEWS!" Of course I stopped in mid-bite thinking another disaster had struck, or that the Midwest had finally floated out into the Atlantic. It wasn't, thank God, a disaster... but it was a disastrous load of BS.

Our California legislature had finally approved a budget that the Governator took great glee in signing. YAY! What makes this news is that it's only two months late.

What makes this bullshit news is that our beloved Governor Schwarzenneger spent the next few minutes showing us his strong, white Austrian teeth, puffing out his steroidal pecs and nodding like one of those bobblehead dolls you glue to the dashboard of your 1968 muscle car (if you're a dork). He was just SO proud and SO pleased and took the time to congratulate by name all those who had worked "so hard" on this process.... and I assume he was including the chiseled face Maria sees every morning, too. Let's all give a hearty congratulations for legislators who are the highest paid in the nation yet can't seem to fulfill their obligation by a constitutionally mandated deadline. Great job, folks! Maybe next year you can stretch it out to Labor Day. It goes without saying that there are no consequences to this irresponsible inaction -- since the legislators have not chosen to enact a provision to be grounded, sent to their rooms or even have a time-out.

"Going Green" has been big news on the news and on the web recently. It's the trendiest, most popular, most written-about position to take... how do I know? Just pick a celebrity and follow his/her bandwagon. "Make your every choice a green choice." Well, I'm all for that. I've been all for that since the 60's and 70's, when at least some of us woke up to the fact that Earth's resources are limited and it's our moral imperative to make the most responsible choice every time.

However.......

Our American culture is so deeply entrenched in materialism, in things and stuff and in marketing those things and that stuff that I have to wonder just how seriously my few simple choices affect THE ENTIRE WORLD, its atmosphere, its weather, the future production of its oil, the polar bears, the arctic glaciers, every endangered species AND the coral of the Great Barrier Reef.

If my personal consumerism really made an impact,

• Packages would be a whole lot easier to open and not require shears, saws and bolt cutters to get through the plastic.
  
• I would receive no printed junk mail.... none... not one piece from anyone, which is certainly my preference.
  
• I'd be able to buy ONE of something at the market, not six, not a dozen, not five pounds when I need 6 ounces.
  
• Fruit and vegetables wouldn't have paper labels that somehow end up stuck to my tile counter every time. If it's fresh and juicy, I don't CARE where it comes from. I trust my produce buyer - I really do.
  
• There wouldn't be 228 choices of breakfast cereal on the shelves in my market. YEP, I stood there and counted them. 228 flavorful ways to consume fiber, sugar and preservatives, not to mention chocolate chips, marshmallows, dehydrated fruit and allergenic nuts.

You get the picture. How much impact can one little grandma make who lives alone in a new, energy-efficient home, drives maybe 100 miles a month in her smog-certified 4-cylinder car and certainly has a smaller carbon footprint than any Gore?

Why does the green movement fit my definition of bullshit news? Because although it's the hottest topic, it's completely unrealistic. Maybe consumer demand will force a few changes here and there for the better, but that still will make an infinitesimal impact on our industrialized, consumer-ridden society... and probably no impact on those emerging nations that are being groomed for big-boy consumerism by marketing geniuses this very minute.

Does this plan ring true in saving the planet? You don't have to adjust one tiny aspect of your life as long as you figure out how much your personal pollution costs then contribute that amount to a "green fund." If that isn't BS, then I need a crash course in identifying it. I guess "choosing green" is a great idea for the OTHER guy... for God's sake, don't make yourself uncomfortable in the least.

Does anyone really believe that any typical American will willingly choose to give up a teeny, tiny part of this lifestyle for the bigger, greener picture? (I'm excluding the Birkenstock crowd, of course...) We may make greener choices as long as we have an equally decadent replacement ready to go. To truly make the difference the green crowd hopes for, we'd have to turn back the clock 200 years and live without industrialization. Think about those implications, then consider the absolute impossibility of that happening without some cataclysmic event. It ain't gonna.

What else qualifies for bullshit news... let's see. Every facet of the war in Iraq, from its questionable beginning to its current sorry state? Anything to do with the politics of Iran, Pakistan or North Korea? The detainees in Cuba? Lobbyists? Oh -- the economy/housing market/mortgages? Raise your hand if you think we hear THE TRUTH about any of those issues from The Gov. Tidbits of truth, maybe...the whole story? The unvarnished, unmanipulated, un-spun truth? Not in my recent memory.

My immediate reaction to almost anything I hear on the political, socioeconomic or national policy fronts from anyone, including news media or official spokespersons, is doubt, distrust and disbelief... based on my experience that what we hear today isn't what we'll hear in two weeks after other "facts" and "adjustments" have been announced. Check again in six months...you won't recognize the original story.

Maybe I'm wrong...maybe I'm doing my usual Aries over-reaction dance... or maybe I'm just late in shedding my cocoon of naivete and and seeing the world through the skeptic's eyes. If this is reality, I want my fantasies back... reality sucks.

Nuttier and Nuttier

The above video clip came today from the selection of delectable snippets AOL offers on it's "Welcome" screen under the guise of news. HERE is the story that details the video. In summary, the chick in the clip (Justine Ezarik) received her first bill from AT&T for her iPhone service, with the details of the bill covering 300 printed pages that were delivered to her in a box.

To quote from the story, "The iPhone, which launched in June, costs $499 or $599, and service plans range from $59.99 to $99.99 monthly. Ezarik — a heavy user of text-messaging — says her first bill was for $275."

$275? For the convenience of the internet in your pocket and music in your head 24/7? I guess we spent at least that much in the 70's and 80's to stay "wired," but it seems like a lot of money to me to stay wireless today.

I don't know about you, but I resist with all my might the bombardment of "news" and information from all sources -- mostly because of the high price paid of the constant commercials that accompany EVERYTHING.

I run every TV program I want to watch through my DVR so I can fast-forward through the 12 minutes of commercials per 30-minute show.

I watch a minimum of TV news not only because of the lack of objectivity and truth or that everything I hear is so damned depressing---but because of the countless commercials. I may not be as informed as some, but my sanity is still somewhat intact.

I don't care how many coupons and "special offers" I receive through spam email or through snail mail flyers... it all gets deleted and discarded without reading. I may be spending a little more money here and there, but Shirley the value of my time wading through that stuff balances it out.

The junk mail the postal carrier brings me is appalling. You know those file storage boxes that you need to be a genius in spatial logic to fold -- the ones you save your bills and taxes in? Because I a) own a home, b) use a credit card, c) have a business, d) exist and breathe, I get (seriously) TWO BOXES FULL of junk mail every two weeks. I know this for sure because it fills half of my recycle container for the trash pickup.... doesn't leave a lot for the empty Lean Cuisine and cereal boxes, does it.

Bored? Looking for a new hobby? HERE is an article on how you can spend most of your spare time opting out of junk mail. HERE is a link to a service that purports to do the leg work for you, although details are sketchy and I'm certainly not endorsing this company.

I find it completely ironic that so much is made of the efforts to stop spam and prosecute the spammers when, to my mind, the real problem is the wasted resources of paper-printed, in your home mailbox advertising. You can delete electronic spam with a couple of keystrokes (good mail services will segregate it for you), but it takes a lot more effort AND trees to get rid of the junk brought to your mailbox daily. What am I missing here? Why is spam evil and printed crap not?

I'll admit that I haven't seen Gore's little movie and that I think the jury is still out on industrialization causing global warming... but has he talked about printed junk mail and information overload?

And, as long as I'm ranting, has Gore (or anyone) addressed the gross misuse of energy in the summer caused by restaurants and movie theaters keeping inside temps down to 45 degrees just because it's 85 outside? I feel so silly carrying my winter coat going out to dinner or to a movie.... and doesn't that make my carbon assprint just a little too big?

Is it just me, or does ANY OF THIS make any sense?