Wednesday, September 24, 2008

I Believe...

- we already have the technology to significantly reduce oil dependence. We have electric cars and wind and solar power have already proven their effectiveness. If the government would spend less money on wars and handing out golden parachutes to the CEO club and put it towards making alternative energy affordable, we could be off Mideast oil tomorrow.

- that while John, Paul and George may have been prolific musical geniuses (and, yes, I mean "been," even though Macca is still with us), Ringo was and is more fun. I always root for Ringo.

- the Democrats do have a hand in what's happened on Wall Street, if only because they let it happen. But what I find interesting is that the Republican response is to blame someone else. It would be nice if they didn't use words like "responsibility" and "accountability" as campaign buzz words and things they need to hold other people to. I want politicians who hold themselves responsible and accountable.

- I'm tired of people calling Sarah Palin a liar for her Bridge to Nowhere response to congress of "Thanks, but no thanks." It is exactly what she said. She said "thanks" for the free 230 million dollars in earmarks and "no thanks" to giving it back.

- getting your picture taken with Henry Kissinger doesn't give you foreign policy cred.



THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY


Yesterday, I asked...

"Archaeologists now believe Stonehenge may have been a place for what?"


36% said "selling"
- It was the Maxwell Street of its time...bratwursts (100% pure goat), bootleg designer tunics and entertaining human sacrifices.

36% said "voting"
- Those arches are the world's first voting booths.

No one said "resting"
- They're right. No toilets, no vending machines, no resting!

27% said "healing"

According to The Associated Press, the first excavation of Stonehenge in more than 40 years has uncovered evidence that the stone circle drew ailing pilgrims from around Europe for what they believed to be its healing properties, archaeologists said Monday.

People stopped coming when it was almost trampled by a midget.

6 comments:

Paul Rekk said...

In addition to alternative energy, the US needs to look at a massive restructuring in its approach to nuclear power. There are massive amounts of facilities and fuel that are ready to go and are sitting unused thanks to the red tape beaurocracy that has been enacted thanks to "disasters" that were no more than media events.

Combine wind and solar with nuclear and we are ready to go fossil-free today.

Joe Janes said...

Um, yeah. The problem with nuclear energy isn't the pesky meltdowns. It's what to do with nuclear waste. They still don't have the answer, but we do have lots of waste.

mark krause said...

yep lots of waste, sitting here at ground zero in plymouth. when they built the plant here the people were told the waste would be buried out west in a mountain, nope just buried here on the shoreline, why worry about it our great great great great great.............grandchildren can deal with it. media events? yeah and the holocaust was just a media event to.

Paul Rekk said...

Many European countries mandate that nuclear waste be reused to mine further plutonium and lessen waste in one shot. In the U.S. this practice is not only not required, it is illegal.

And the mountain in the west is ready to go and has been for a while, but is also being held up by ridiculous amounts of red tape. It's one thing to leave it for our grandchildren to clean up, but to demand proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that in 10,000 years the effect of the waste will be less than measurable? How in the world to you even expect the experts to prove something like that?

And the Holocaust? Really? The largest amount of radiation measured in anyone involved in Three Mile Island was the equivalent of what you receive from three dental X-rays. And that was a meltdown of unbelievable circumstances. The island is a veritable Eden now, because no one's allowed there but Mother Nature, who's doing just fine. But you're right, it's quite similar to the wiping out of millions of people.

Joe Janes said...

Hey, Paul - What's your resource on the ability to use nuclear waste and not have it be so wasteful? Not doubting you, just have never heard of being able to do anything with it but store it in barrels and cross one's fingers.

Paul Rekk said...

My initial interested in nuclear energy as a viable resource was actually sparked from this article in GQ of all places:

http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_6424

I've gone on to further reading on many of the issues the article brings up, but I consider it an essential introduction and one of the best pieces of magazine journalism I've read on any subject.