Are We Seriously This F’ing Stupid?

Bush and McCain and some others have been espousing the virtues of off-shore drilling in order to fix the energy crisis and frankly, I’m flabbergasted.  I’m amazed that no one hasn’t just smacked them upside the head.  Or that a decent amount of people are actually choking this horse-manure down.  Seriously, at this point, everyone knows that it will take 10 years to develop a single field into something producing.  Even then, will the production volume amount to enough to make a difference?  Or is it something like ANWR, where development would only impact us by $0.10/gallon?

OK, so skip ahead 10 years, and we’ve got all these lovely off-shore rigs on the horizon while we sun ourselves on the oily beaches.  We’ve still got a few big f’ing problems: greenhouse gasses; oil spills. Oh yeah, and it’s still a limited f’ing quantity, meaning that at some point probably within our lifetimes, we’ll be facing this whole issue all over again! 

It needs to end people.  It just needs to f’ing end.  Seriously.  If your solution to high gas prices involves drilling for more oil, or shale oil (what a crock), then just f’ing forget it.  It doesn’t solve anything. At absolute best it just delays the mess we’re in, with the likelihood that next time it won’t be so easy to solve.

High gas prices are here to stay.  Instead of spending 10 years developing new oil fields, let’s spend 10 years getting sustainable energy solutions out into society.  Then maybe we can get on with the business of other issues.

P.S. If you see these idiotic ads for “Clean Coal”, just ignore them.  The technology doesn’t exist – look it up.  It’s all a marketing gimmick to save a couple thousand crappy jobs.  Those folks would be better served by green energy jobs that won’t kill them 30 years early.

Global Warming Doom

So my thing about global warming is, what if the scientists are right?  I mean, 90% of them agree now that global warming is happening, and it’s bad.  The only disagreement is how bad.  James Hanson was right 20 years ago – what if he’s right again? (http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/S/SCI_WARMING_SCIENTIST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-06-23-21-35-41)

The funny thing is, democrats are usually the “do nothing” party.  This time around, it’s the republicans who want to do nothing, and they’ve got some funny reasons for it too.

I’m the father of a small child.  I just know that in 20 years, when the shit’s really going down, I’m not going to turn to him and say “I thought they were wrong.”  The consequences in this game are too steep.  And frankly if they are wrong, the downside is a cleaner environment and more jobs created through the creation and deployment of green technologies. 

C’mon people, let’s stop choking down what big-wig industry fucks are feeding us, and do something real.  We got nothing to lose at this point…

What White People Don’t Get About Black Pride

Disclaimer: I’m a white almost middle-aged male.  So I hardly know what I’m talking about…

But I’m a white almost middle-aged male, so maybe I can help “my people” understand this concept.  I’ve seen so many forwarded emails over the years declaring the white man’s struggle for pride… most white guys just don’t get it.  These emails usually point out that it’s acceptable for black people to have black pride, but it’s totally uncool to have “white pride.”

Well here’s the way to look at it my white friends: how many times have you verbalized pride for your english/scottish/irish/german/french/italian/etc. heritage?  Right – lots, if not all of you.  Now, you may be asking, “I’d be cool with black people showing pride in being from Egypt!”  There’s just one problem – how many black people do you know who know they’re from Egypt, or any other African country?  Exactly – none, unless they’re first generation.  Black people have “black pride” because slavery stripped their ability to have country-specific pride.

So white pride = racist because it’s about the race.
Black pride is not racist because it’s all black people have left.

Clear?