Drilling In ANWR Still Doesn’t Make Any Freaking Sense
Posted American Dream, Business, Consumerism, Economics, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Nature, Politics, Science, Society on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008. Comments(0)

More scare tactics from the anti-facts/reality/science wing of the conservative movement.

A while back I received an email with the subject line of "Lies Vs. Truth". It was one of those chain emails that right-wing type folks so often seem to send around. (I assume it’s the same demographic who "learns" about politics by talk-radio, because I never receive any left-slanted chain emails.)

The gist of the email was that all of our oil problems would be solved and that prices would go down by a huge amount if only we’d drill in ANWR. It showed pictures of the tundra, which it labeled a "wasteland" and insinuated that since it wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t valuable to anyone so we might as well drill and what’s the big deal. It also showed a herd of caribou within a couple miles of a drilling facility and a polar bear standing atop the oil pipeline. The inherent message was "see the animals are fine, what’s the problem."

It was your typical diatribe about how "the liberals" are ruining the world, blaming Al Gore for high gas prices, and other emotional rather than fact-based "reasoning". Your typical Rush Limbaugh type of hype—long on hot air, short on facts.

I deleted that email as I usually do with this sort of crap, but something gnawed at me for a couple of days. I couldn’t bare the thought of someone’s opinion actually being swayed but that load of rubbish. I couldn’t bare the thought of more uninformed idiots making political and environmental choices based on this load of hogwash.

Not that I though it would do much good, but I replied with the following email….

 ——————————————————

Sorry I just couldn’t let this load of half-truths and innuendo go by without, as Paul Harvey used to say, "The rest of the story."

 I don’t care to get into a big argument about anything but I can’t bear the thought of people making actual political decisions based on scare tactics from a hyped-up email.

Lies vs. Truth? Hmmmm. I don’t see any facts in that email, just name calling and fear-mongering.

So lets look at some actual facts…

But first, why does this type of crap always have to demonize people and reduce them to a label like "the democrats", "liberals", "greens", etc? There are people with views different than your own obviously. Labeling them and reducing them to a stereotype instead of a real human being makes them easier to hate. That’s the whole reason for it. Anyone who’s intellectually honest knows that regardless of the political/social/economical/ leanings there’s plenty of BS, slant, and lies to go around. To act as if "your side" has all the answers, is perfect, never lies, and has a lock on virtue is completely dishonest and is a disservice to democracy.

We all personally deal with people one on one who think differently than we do and we generally treat them with courtesy and respect. I don’t think most of us walk around all day yelling at people and calling them names do we? Why then do people do it emails? I guess it’s impersonal and if they’re just "a [insert your hated stereotype here]" then they’re not really a human being and so are OK to insult? Maybe I just look at people differently than some folks do…

But since the email demonized the "liberals" and "greens" I’ll assume that it was written from a "conservative" and "republican" point of view and respond accordingly.

Why is ANWR such a political football anyway? The amount of oil there is very small. According to the US Department of Energy, United States Energy Information Administration:

"Additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR would be only a small portion of total world oil production, and would likely be offset in part by somewhat lower production outside the United States. The opening of ANWR is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows: a reduction in low-sulfur, light crude oil prices of $0.41 per barrel (2006 dollars) in 2026 for the low oil resource case, $0.75 per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 for the high oil resource case, relative to the reference case."

Wow! Drilling in ANWR would have the huge impact of reducing oil prices by 41 cents a barrel…in 2026! It would take at least 10-15 years to even get the oil fields set up so in only 18 short years from now we could be looking at a savings of 41 cents a barrel! Wow, that awesome. I’m sure that would translate to maybe 1 cent reduction in gas prices.

But again, any oil produced in anwr is at least 10-15 years away anyway. It does nothing to change gas prices today and in 18-20 years from now it’s still only a tiny, tiny, change at all. In other words it’s not worth it financially.

And look, what we’re really seeing here are the last gasp efforts of junkies. Think of a heroin addict. They do more and more desperate things to get their fix. They rob their neighbors, they let their kids go hungry, they prostitute themselves. It’s the same thing now with oil. US oil production peaked in the late 60s to early 70s. World oil production has peaked within the last few years as well. There’s less oil and more people who want it so the price goes up.

Seems to me that republicans/conservatives are always talking about the virtues of the free market, free from the restraints of rules and laws. Well here it is–the free market in action. How do you like it? Was it all that you hoped it would be?

And speaking of the free market, the email mentioned gas taxes and said that Al Gore and the democrats wanted to raise gas prices. Just so you know, the main reason our roads and infrastructure is falling apart is that fuel taxes do not even come close to paying for the costs of building and maintaining roads (which they’re supposed to do). So by the logic of getting rid of government meddling and distorting the markets, fuel taxes would probably need to be raised by 4 or 5 times higher so that they would actually cover it. As much as high gas prices suck, you’ve got to pay for the roads and the fuel taxes are supposed to pay for that. Use the roads more, wear them out more, pay more to fix them. That’s the way it’s supposed to be but fuel taxes have been kept artificially low because of weak political stomachs. The true costs are hidden and that’s not free market.

The point is we’re behaving like desperate junkies. Sure you can keep doing more and more desperate things to get your fix but sooner or later you’ve either got to pull the needle out of your arm or you’re going to die. This all could have been avoided but certain factions and political parties have consistently voted against energy efficiency and alternative forms of energy [read conservatives/republicans]. So US, you’ve got exactly what you voted for. Stop complaining. Or do something about it. Kick the habit!

So then the email went on to show photos of what it termed a "barren wasteland". We don’t even know if those are actual photos of the land in question. Regardless, just because you may not think that it looks "pretty" does not mean it’s a "barren wasteland". I’m sure the animals and plants that live there don’t consider it so. Not to mention the people who have depended on that sort of land to live and hunt for the last 10,000-15,000 years.

Aren’t conservatives always going on about "property rights" and "takings"? Well there are 50 indigenous groups of people who are opposed to drilling in anwr because of the havoc that it would wreak on their lives. So how do you square that? Is it ok for a government "taking" just so some corporation can profit? Yes, believe it or not there are still some people up there who try to live a traditional life which depends on the health of the caribou, the fish, and the land for them to survive. Or would you rather just say screw the land and animals and have the people go on welfare?

The email goes on to act as if they want just this tiny little part of the land, so what’s the big deal right?

OK here’s where they’re already drilling in Alaska

  

Here’s where they’re already allowed to drill on the north slope.
See that tiny piece of land at the top right? That anwr where they want to expand oil drilling.

The point is that drilling is already allowed on 95% of the north slope! All we’re talking about is allowing a mere 5% to go unmolested. Can’t it be OK to just leave a tiny bit alone? Can’t we leave just a bit of land that we don’t rape and pillage? Or is our only value corporate profits? Isn’t there more to life than that? Seems like there are a few choice bible verses that say so. Something about "the love of money…"

Then the email shows caribou and a bear near the oil rigs. So what? Where the hell else are they going to go? That’s where they live. But you can bet that having all of that industrialization is certainly not doing them any good.

Here’s a nice animal photo for you. It’s our national symbol of freedom and liberty being scrubbed of oil from the Exxon Valdez disaster.

 

 

Whoops, here’s a couple of critters that didn’t make it.

 

 Thousands of animals died immediately; the best estimates include 250,000 to as many as 500,000 seabirds, at least 1,000 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs.

 Whoops!

 So let’s not forget the ole Exxon Valdez disaster. It’s 20 years later and the area is not even close to recovering.

 Here’s some current data from a USA today article:

According to a study out Feb. 15 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Geological Survey and Alaskan agencies found that oil levels in the sands around the sound are much the same as they were when tests were done five years ago. The study says oil has seeped down 4 to 10 inches.

Seventeen years ago, scientists predicted that the oil would be long gone by now. "We expected the natural decay rate was 25% a year. But very little of the oil actually disappeared," says Jeffrey Short, a NOAA research chemist. "What’s left is going to be there a long time."

Instead, the researchers estimate, the oil is "weathering" away at a rate of 3% to 4% a year. "It will be readily detectable for decades," Short says.

The herring fisheries collapsed. Salmon have not recovered. So 34,000 fisherman and others have lost their livelihood because of the Valdez disaster. 34,000! So what are they supposed to do? Just screw them too and let them go on welfare?

Yeah, yeah, it could never happen again. Easy for you to say when you don’t live up there and depend on it for your life isn’t it? What’s the risk to you? Out of site out of mind right? If you don’t know them personally then they don’t matter. As long as you get what you want then screw everybody else. That’s the attitude I guess. Never mind that it doesn’t make economic sense. It make good political grist for the mill.

But seriously, passing around those stupid political hack-job emails does no one any good. All it does is stir up resentment and hatred. Don’t base your political or other decisions on crap you read in an email and don’t just forward them along like a robot. Read the facts, inform yourself, separate the fact from the hype, and then make your own decision.

That’s democracy in action regardless of if you’re a liberal or a conservative. That’s what we need–people thinking for themselves based on facts, not emotions and fear.

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The guy who sent me the email was pissed that I responded. I guess he doesn’t like facts that don’t fit into his political leanings. He had no rebuttal of the facts, how could he. Facts are facts. His only response was that he guesses if it would take 10 years to get oil out of ANWR that we should have started drilling 10 years ago. I guess he’s not bothered by the fact that the oil in ANWR might lower gas prices less than a penny a gallon and would screw up one of the last remaining un-raped pieces of land. Wow. Talk about selfish. He’s a good right-wing christian though so I’m sure jesus would agree that harming many for the tiny benefit of a few is ok. I think that’s in the good book somewhere. "Fuck them that may be harmed by thine actions if thou shall save a few shekels."

Most of the people who responded (there were many cc’d on the original email) thanked me for telling the other side of the story. One was an oil man who had worked up on the north slope. He said I was right on and that he agreed that we shouldn’t drill there even though drilling in anwr would bring him more money. One conservative-type said that I had raised some good points "from the liberal perspective". Again, I don’t know how facts can be liberal or conservative, but some folks feel the need to see the world with an "us against them" mentality. Sad. That’s most of the problem right there.

I don’t know if it did any good but I feel better. Hopefully at least a few people dropped their dogma and looked at the facts. I ain’t countin’ on it though…

 

 

An Innocent Ban On Flatulence or An Attack On America? You Decide.
Posted Nature, Politics, Society, Things I've Noticed on Monday, February 4th, 2008. Comments(3)

Oh my god, this shit is getting serious now.

I read with horror as I see our freedoms literally being stripped away…

Middle school issues ban on intentional flatulence

According to this week’s Fire Cracker school newsletter…the penalty for "intentional farting" is now a detention.

One of the other students, Kyle Ruger, said the act by the boys was funny, but he had mixed feelings about whether it was appropriate.

Jordan Knowlton minced no words when she expressed how she felt, saying, "It’s gross."

 

This is AMERICA dammit. We have a god given right to fart when we damn well please. It’s called the second ammendment—the right to fart and bear arms.

They can have my metamucil when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.

And who is this "Jordan Knowlton" anyway? What do we know about her? Innocent middle-school student or Chinese spy? Al-Qaeda terrorist? Whoever she is, she’s obviously bent on THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA!

First they take away your right to fart, but who knows where this could end? It’s a slippery slope.
Hasn’t history taught us anything?

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FIRST THEY CAME

When they came for the belchers,
I remained silent;
I was not a belcher.

When they locked up those with smelly armpits,
I remained silent;
I did not have smelly armpits.

When they came for those with bad breath,
I did not speak out;
I did not have bad breath.

When they came for the farters,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a farter.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
—————————————————–

WAKE UP AMERICA!

Where are the civil libertarians? (or civil librarians) Where are the freedom fighters? Where is Mike Huckabee? Where is Ron Paul? Their silence is deafening.

If this doesn’t wake people up to the Evils of the Patriot Act I don’t know what will.

This may be the first small step from the North American Union…it’s probably those damn Canadians…I have it on good authority that Canadians don’t fart, so it wouldn’t surprise me.

Regardless of who is behind this, they must not succeed! Stand Up for America. Write to your representatives. Tell them this goes too far!

I propose that February 5th be proclaimed forevermore as "National Flatulence Day".

As a show of solidarity to our oppressed brothers and sisters,  I encourage everyone to Fart and Fart Proudly…as often and as loudly as possible.

It was good enough for the founders of this great nation and it’s good enough for me!

 

 

God Dammit, What Did I Just Say About Leaving The Animals Alone!
Posted Consumerism, Environment, Nature, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Society on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007. Comments(4)

As if hunting and eating them was not enough, those wacky Japanese have decided to also humiliate whales by making them wear Santa Hats. Now this definitely IS anthrophomorphism.

"While the white belugas are entertaining the crowds, their humpback cousins are facing a brutal end in cold storage at the hands of Japanese whalers in Antarctica"

Hunting ships are already on their way to the icy reaches of the Southern Ocean, where this year’s catch of 1,000 will include humpbacks for the first time in 40 years.

The hunting expedition also plans to kill 50 fin whales, the world’s second largest animal after blue whales, as 850 smaller minke whales.

Wildlife officials say the display of the white belugas wearing Santa hats is both sad and ironic against the background of the Antarctic hunts, due to start in the region after Christmas.

"While whales are being used for entertainment in Japan, the Japanese fleet is subjecting whales to a cruel death in the Southern Ocean," said Mr Darren Kindleysides, a Sydney-based campaigner for the International Fund for Wildlife.

"Sadly, the aquarium owners seem to be showing as little respect for whales as their Government."

An Australian whale-watching official, Mr Peter Lynch, said the aquarium display was disrespectful to the whales, adding: "The real irony lies in the fact that the general population in Japan have no idea what’s going on in Antarctica."

However, the Australian government will be casting a different eye over the activities of the Japanese whalers in Antarctica – it plans to send a former P&O cruise ship, now converted into an armed vessel, to the region to monitor the hunting.

Following high-level talks, the vessel, Oceanic Viking, which has a reinforced hull to cut through ice, will be leased to the government to track the Japanese whaling ships and keep a check on their activities.

The crew is trained for polar conditions and they will use ‘super-telephoto’ lenses to record the whale slaughter.

In addition, the ship will have two .50-calibre machine guns manned by a customs boarding party should a clash of any kind with the Japanese vessels occur.

Australia’s new Labour Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has accused the former John Howard government of doing nothing to save the endangered whales, adding that nobody took seriously Japan’s claim that it was conducting scientific research. full story…

 

"Scientific Research" my blowhole!

 OK really I can’t say making the whales wear santa hats is particularly cruel (certainly not worse than wrenching them from their home and forcing them to live in a tiny cage and stop communicating with each other because they’ll go deaf from the sounds bouncing around the container) . In fact I’m sure the whales are having a good laugh at the dork standing next to them.

But really, this is just another stupid example of how people use and abuse other animals for their amusement. It’s just a "thing", not a living being with feelings and sensitivity or anything. It’s just a little play thing. AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

And the Japanese have got to be the worst at it with all that cutsey hello kitty, pokemon, raping little girls manga crap. Their culture is just fucking weird in that way. (And yes I know plenty of Japanese. I’m married to one in fact.) They live in a fucking dream world in certain ways. They’re still taught that America was the aggressor in world war 2, they know nothing about the rape of Nan King (but that’s a different post.)

On the positive side, you can buy beer and porno magazines in vending machines in Japan. And they have the best and most high-tech toilets in the world. You’ve not taken a proper shit until you’ve shit on a Japanese toilet and had it clean your asshole with water and then blow dry it.  No wiping! No Muss! No Fuss! But honestly I don’t have the patience to wait for the air dryer. It takes too long, just like a hand dryer. Plus I don’t want to get a chapped anus! Do they make ass-chap-stick?

(FREE TIP: Make sure you don’t press the "ladies wash" button by mistake or you’ll get your nuts and/or vagina showered instead of your bunghole. That is of course unless your nuts and/or vagina need cleansing then by all means press that button.)

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah cruelty to animals…My wife said they used to eat whale meat at school lunch. Isn’t that nifty. Really we westerners can’t bitch too much about whale killing. I mean, how many billions of chickens, cows, and pigs do we kill and eat? (By "we" I mean you carnivores out there.)

Man I really don’t even know what to say. The absurdity boggles the mind. OK, how about some more humiliating photos then?

"Hey Arty. I feel like a dipshit with this hat on." "Me too, Ted."

"Is that a santa hat on your blowhole, or are you just happy to see me?"

 

 

 

Monkeys get the correct math answer 76%, college students 94%
Posted Nature, Philosophy, Psychology, Society, Weird on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007. Comments(0)

This is awesome!

In a rapid fire test of mental addition, monkeys performed almost as well as college students, showing they’re no slouches when it comes to number crunching.

The macaques got their sums right 76 percent of the time, while the students got the correct answer 94 percent of the time in a series of increasingly challenging maths tests.    more….
 

First off, I don’t know if this is good news for monkeys or bad news for college students. I guess it give new meaning to the phrase "a monkey could do your job." And secondly, I enjoy saying the word "macaque." Macaque, macaque, macaque, macaque. If you don’t shut up I’m gonna smack you upside the macaque. That has a nice ring to it.

Seriously though, I hope this is one more piece of ammunition to help people realize that it’s not OK to abuse, perform cruel tests on, kill, eat, or destroy the homes of our non-homo-sapien relatives because  "they’re just animals." This is not anthrophomorphism, but rather a recognition that humans aren’t the only creatures on earth to feel pain, have emotions, and in fact be intelligent. (George Bush excluded.)

Besides that…monkeys don’t join fraternities/sororities, look down on other "lesser primates", drink too much beer, have unprotected sex, and produce more vapid idiots like themselves. Unlike some of the apes I’ve seen at college.

 

 

Why Pregnant Women Don’t Tip Over
Posted Nature, Science on Monday, December 17th, 2007. Comments(0)

This is some amazing stuff. A fascinating work of science. If they would teach science this way in school (emphasizing  fun, practical, and/or offbeat applications) then more kids would pay attention in school.

Why pregnant women don’t tip over
There seems to be more keeping pregnant women upright than fear of toppling over and squishing their unborn child. Researchers from Harvard University and the University of Texas at Austin examined 19 pregnant women and discovered a number of reinforcements in their backs that men lack, including a lumbar (lower back) curve that spans three instead of two vertebrae and spinal joints that are 14 percent larger and positioned differently. These enhancements allow expectant mothers to lean back by as much as 28 degrees more than normal to offset the added heft of a baby bump—up to 30 pounds on average, or the weight of two bowling balls—without destroying their backs, the investigators report in Nature. They also present evidence for similar differences between the sexes in Australopithecines (early relatives of humans), suggesting that women long ago evolved such scaffolding to compensate for walking upright while supporting their swelling wombs. (Nature)

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=news-bytes-why-pregnant-women-dont-tip
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7172/full/nature06342.html

Damn evolution is freaking amazing…

What Makes It A Weed Anyway?
Posted Nature, Philosophy, Things I've Noticed on Monday, May 28th, 2007. Comments(0)

Today I was walking along the river that runs near our house. I was watching the birds and the weeping willows sway in the wind. It was very nice. It’s late springtime and lots of wildflowers are blooming. Most look pretty delicate but I know they’re not. They can’t be and survive in our climate.There were tiny lilac flowers with dark purple veins running through them. With the sun as a backlight the little plants just glowed as if they were electrified. The darker veins stood out in stunning contrast to the delicate lilac color of the petals. There were flowers that looked like golf balls suspended at the end of a length of bamboo. When I got closer I could see that it wasn’t a single flower, but many flowers making up the globe of white. They had a subtle, sweet, earthy wildflower fragrance.

Click to read more …