God Made a Factory Farmer??!!?

Dodge trucks made what just might be the worst Stupor Bowl ad ever. If not, I don’t want to see what’s worse. But, Funny Or Die made a good parody of it. Unfortunately, to get the parody, you must first waste two minutes of your life watching the original ad. If you’ve already seen the Dodge Trucks Stupor Bowl ad, by all means, spare yourself. You do not need to watch that crap again.

Lady Pens; Lady Weights; Lady Cars — WTF?!

What the fuck is going on these days? Women, why are you allowing this? Why are these products selling? Is this all part of the repugnican war on women? Are women now allowing themselves to be subjugated in the way that repugnicans want, even down to the products they buy?

Speed-Debunking 7 Repugnican Lies

Open Letter to Politicians Re: Climate Change Urgency & Carbon Tax

250 million years ago, this planet suffered the greatest mass extinction of multicellular life in the long history of the planet. The ocean conveyor current stopped. The ocean became anoxic, meaning it had little or no oxygen. Fish died; sulfur producing bacteria thrived. As the anoxic layer of the ocean reached the surface, hydrogen sulfide gas was released into the atmosphere in toxic quantities. The sky turned green. The mass extinction was brought onto land.

95% of all species on the planet died. This was due to global warming.*

Christ Speaks Out Against Republican Budget

Well, not actually Christ. But, some who actually read the bible are finding little or no support for the Republican budget created by Paul Ryan. They’re claiming that, while he claims to be a Christian, he is instead a follower of Ayn Rand, a renowned atheist. In fact, Ryan also claims to be a Randroid. So, how can one reconcile his Ayn Randian politics with his stated Christian beliefs? One can’t.

I, for one, am not a Christian. But, as was Jesus Christ, I am a liberal. So, just as Jesus Christ would be, I am appalled by Republican politics. Anyway, here’s a couple of good clips from the Colbert Report about the Ryan budget.

Colbert Report — Paul Ryan Budget, Pt. 1

Colbert Report — Paul Ryan Budget, Pt. 2 (Father Reese)

Collapse 2030: Mark Your Calendars

All the times that I said that I hoped that global civilizational collapse would begin late enough for me to live out my life expectancy I had hoped that I was just disasturbating. No such luck.

Misanthropia: Scott’s Suggestions for a Better America

I’ve titled this post Misanthropia because I believe that I have every bit as much chance of making these improvements as I do of creating a true Utopia, i.e. none.

Still, I’m going to label each suggestion either plausible or implausible. The plausible changes will be the ones I expect never to have implemented because the Koch brothers and other multi-gazillionaires own all of our politicians and control the whole system by which they are put in place. However, I expect that I would be able to convince most of the so-called 99% that these changes would be good. The implausible are the ones I feel strongly enough about to post despite the extreme likelihood that they are so radical that I couldn’t even convince a significant percentage of the so-called 99%.

Each of the following suggestions or cluster of suggestions are meant to be taken individually. I believe each on its own could help make the U.S. a better country. That said, even were all of these suggestions implemented tomorrow, I do not expect that it would fix all of our problems. I’m not that smart.

Caution: Do Not Make Connections!

The narration is the text of an op ed piece in the Wasthington Post by Bill McKibben. No need to read the text since it’s all in the video with powerful imagery added. Kudos to Stephen Thomson of Plomomedia.com for a great job making this into a powerful video.

Spill Baby Spill

As I write this, a huge catastrophe is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. 5,000 barrels (200,000 gallons) of oil per day are spilling into the gulf and wreaking tremendous environmental devastation.

Rather than detailing this particular catastrophe that is so forefront in the news these days, I would like to point out something even more important. This is a catastrophe. This was an accident. No one meant for it to happen.

However, oil spills are not only foreseeable, they are an inevitable consequence of our horrifyingly devastating substance abuse and addiction.

Yes We Can’t

The following is an open letter to President Obama, which I also sent to his office via the interface on whitehouse.gov. Thanks to my friend Jan for the help editing the text.

Before reading the letter below, please understand that I am still very glad that we have Obama in office rather than McCain with Palin a heartless non-beat away from the presidency. I still think we’re better off without “bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran” McCain or worse, much much worse, his running mate Caribou Barbie. That said, I am still also very disappointed in results we’ve been getting from President Obama. I, for one, am feeling very short-changed.

So, without further preamble, here is the letter I sent to Mr. Obama.

Dear President Obama,

How sweet those words sounded just a bit over a year ago. During your campaign you promised change. We were thrilled that you won the election and eagerly anticipated a new era. A year later and with a Nobel Peace Prize behind you, alas there has been precious little change.

Madoff Goes Global

Here’s an excellent write-up that describes the ways in which we are stealing from future generations to feed ourselves and the parallels between doing so and any other Ponzi scheme.

PONZICONOMY: Our global pyramid scheme

I’ve read Plan B 2.0, an excellent book, and notice that there is a link to a new version Plan B 4.0 by Lester Brown.

Don’t forget, the article doesn’t even mention the fact that not only is the oil at the pump a subsidized and limited resource, so is the oil we pour on our corn as fertilizer.

That’s right, industrial fertilizers are petroleum products. We’re eating oil!! That can’t be good for either our health or our long term prospects in terms of a very large population dependent on a fossil, non-renewable, resource.

Tell Me Now That Carter Was A Bad President

Please read this article about Carter’s 1977 speech and tell me now that Carter was bad for the country and Reagan was good. Go ahead. Tell me now which of those two presidents had the right long term plan for this country. Tell me how much worse off we would have been had we continued with Carter’s energy plan. Tell me that this speech of Carter’s didn’t detail a large chunk of the events that have now come to pass as a result of not following his plan.

Obama: Eloquently Stating What Needed to be Said

Here’s yet another incredibly eloquent speech by Obama. I find it very refreshing that we have a candidate that can correctly pronounce place names and even the word nuclear. Further, some of the sentiments expressed in this speech are sentiments I’ve been hoping to hear expressed for a long time. Here is someone who can show real leadership, something we have been sorely lacking for 7 years.

I you prefer to read the text, rather than listen to a 36 minute video, the text is available on the Obama webiste.

1,700 Climate Scientists and Economists Recommend Action

Top U.S. Scientists and Economists Call For Swift, Deep Cuts In Global Warming Pollution
More than 1,700 Say Early Reductions Can Benefit Economy

I must admit that this is in the pattern ordinarily used by the climate change skeptics. They love to quote a large number of scientists that dispute that climate change is real or dispute that it is human caused.

However, it has been my experience that such claims are often made when the scientists listed largely fall into one of three categories, scientists in a field not related to climatology, names of people who may or may not be scientists but have no peer reviewed papers to their names, or known ExxonMobil employees.

Perhaps you might say that these 1,700 fall into similar categories on the other side. However, in this case, according to the League of Conservation Scientists, among the names are:

The signatories, compiled by UCS, include six Nobel Prize winners in science or economics, 31 NAS members, and more than 100 IPCC authors and editors

More Gore

Here’s another incredibly persuasive, inspiring, and informative video from Al Gore. He’s such an excellent speaker and offers real analysis and solutions to the crisis of our time, climate change. This is the big one. There is no problem facing humanity today that approaches the seriousness and certainty of climate change left unchecked. Please watch this enlightening, empowering, and uplifting video. Watch for his analogy regarding tar sands and shale; it’s a classic.

TED: Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis — Note: I recommend downloading the mp4. I had problems trying to watch it on the web page. It’s under 100M. Your mileage may vary.

Earth The Sequel

There is also a description of Earth the Sequel on EDF’s website. There’s a book signing in Manhattan. Details below pasted from an email I received from EDF.