Sandy Pride

Sandy is a city just south of Salt Lake City. Every year for the last 20+ years they have had a "Sandy Pride" day, which affords its citizens the opportunity to do service projects and city-wide cleanup. Tomorrow is the Sandy Pride day for 2008. Some of the activities scheduled include tree planting, edging headstones at the cemetary, removing trash from empty lots, repairing hiking trails, cleaning and repairing parks, painting houses, and a fundraiser for the prevention of child abuse.

The Salt Lake City Weekly is a free, weekly newspaper I frequently found scattered on the floor of buses, outside of classrooms, and under desks at the University of Utah. By sheer force of volume I read a number of issues - that is, until I realized the articles were written by these guys:



What does Sandy Pride Day have to do with City Weekly, you ask? Well, City Weekly has a blog, and this blog linked to a competing newspaper story (The Trib, so at least it wasn't whitebread icky Deseret News) about Sandy Pride. Now, City Weekly, being the serious journalists you see above, wrote the following:

Of course, Sandy pride is about pride in the bland sameness that is Sandy, not about queer diversity. But still! Wouldn't it be fun to show up and plant trees carrying rainbow flags?

Imagine the raised eyebrows that would cause! If anybody does this, please send photos.

Yes please, more photos like the one above. That is absolutely what is needed at the service projects painting the elderly's houses, fixing parks and trails, beautifying cemeteries, and raising money to prevent child abuse.

Washington Post Says Democrats Are Racist

Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause:

"The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

Kobe, We Love You!

Member that time when you hurt your back, and, um, you still played? That was awesome.



Member that time when, um, you like, won the game? That wasn't you? Stupid! I'm so stupid!

Stop The Presses, Jazz Owner Doesn't Watch Games on Sunday!!

This received some press last week leading up to Sunday's game, and it left me slightly amused at all the attention. But here's a pretty good interview with Jazz owner Larry Miller covering a range of topics and conducted while Miller drove around instead of watching the game:

On the next coach of the Jazz:

Miller says Sloan wants to coach for at least another season, maybe more. But when he does call it quits, longtime Jazz assistant Phil Johnson will get first crack at the job. That's written in stone.

If Johnson takes a pass, Miller is likely to make a run at John Stockton. They've discussed the job in the past, but Stockton's interest in the position -- or, more correctly, in coaching in the NBA -- has cooled. For now.

On when the Jazz will change their name:

"I'll change our name right after the Lakers change theirs,"

(The name "Jazz" came with the team when they moved to SL from New Orleans, just like how the name "Lakers" came to LA when the team moved from Minneapolis. What, you thought there were lots of lakes in Los Angeles?)

He doesn't listen on the radio either:

Miller could probably listen to the game without incurring the wrath of God. Same goes for watching it on TV. After all, there are actual Mormons at the game.

"I'm not trying to be holier than thou," he says. "I've got plenty of faults. But the radio … TV, we're talking shades of gray. It would be hard for me to compromise it."

Miller has a set of primo tickets for every game. He called five Mormon friends to see if they wanted his Game 4 seats.

"You going?" each one asked.

Miller said no.

"Then I'm not going."

Guilt. A powerful thing.

Jazz - Lakers Tied, Williams A Stud

Well it's about time! From J.A. Adande on ESPN's Daily Dime:

Deron Williams forced himself back into the NBA conversation just as much as the Jazz clawed their way back into this series with the Lakers over the weekend.

Actually, the second part of that sentence depended on the first. For a young team seeking consistent efforts in these playoffs, Williams is turning into the Jazz's most reliable option. Carlos Boozer had his best game of the postseason Friday night, then regressed to a 5-for-15 shooting performance Sunday. Williams followed a solid effort in Game 3 with an even better Game 4, a 123-115 overtime win, the central recurring character in the two Jazz victories that evened these Western Conference semifinals at 2-2.

So while Chris Paul has the accolades, the Sports Illustrated covers and all that, Williams has coaxed his team to the conference finals once, and now is halfway to another. Just saying.

And Williams was named SUNDAY'S BEST for good measure:

Deron Williams, Jazz guard: Goes for 29 points on 9-for-13 shooting along with 14 assists in Utah's Game 4 win over the Lakers. Sinks all eight of his free throws, too.

Deron Williams had a truly great regular season and has had an outstanding postseason but is the only star to not receive much attention. While dispatching the Rockets in round 1, most of the talk was about Tracy McGrady's failings instead of Deron's role in winning. Anyone watching these games realizes that Deron does so many things for this team. He's an all-around talent. I am admittedly biased, but I think Deron Williams is a better point guard than Chris Paul, and it frustrates me that Paul gets all the attention. It's kinda nice to see him and his team get worked over a bit by the Spurs.

Peter Singer: Your Friend and Neighbor

Peter Singer wants me to kill my uncle. In fact, Mr. Singer would have already murdered his mother, but his sister won't let him. Peter Singer is the man who said this:

"Simply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing a person."

He's also the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. That's right, he's Princeton's ethics professor. And he believes that infants and handicapped people aren't really people. They may be humans, but that doesn't qualify them for his definition of a "person".

When I wrote "A Philosophical Study of Abortion" I commented on what seems to me to be the fundamental question of abortion - what makes a person a person? This is critical to the abortion question because most people intuitively know that killing an innocent person is wrong. Therefore, in an attempt to rationalize abortion, academics have parsed out new definitions of personhood. Singer's definition goes like this:

Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons.

As I noted in "A Philosophical Study of Abortion," each of these definitions has led down the dangerous road of excluding people like my seriously disabled uncle, or Peter Singer's Alzheimer's-stricken mother, or newborn babies. Most people go down this road, see the ending, and recoil at its baseness. But not Professor Singer.

"There appear to be only two possibilities: oppose abortion or allow infanticide."

Singer chooses infanticide.

There are two thought processes in regards to "thinkers" like Professor Singer. One is to dismiss him outright as a crank and a nutjob. Outlandish views like his make it easy to condemn our liberal, secular society and leave it at that. Another way is to dismiss him as "just" a philosopher, an academic, with no real say on policy or society.

Both reactions would be wrong.

First of all, as far as the world is concerned, he's not just a nutjob. He's a nutjob with a very important position with one of the most prestigious universities in the world. It lends he and his views credibility, as well as gives him a platform to teach the world his view of personhood.

Secondly, although he is "just" an academic with little influence on society, his views are far more commonplace than one might think. Consider for instance the fact that he partly came to his conclusions based on not wanting children or their parents to suffer with physical or mental handicaps. These parents could simply abort the fetus or kill the infant and then produce another child that will likely by "normal". The intention is to ease suffering, to reduce pain.

Now compare that with this often-used quote:

"We women know when it is or is not the right time to bring a child into the world...We act out of compassion when we wait to have a child until the time when we can give it the kind of life every child deserves. We act out of love when we consider what we would be taking away from the child or children we already have if we brought another child into our family now...We women know the truth: That given certain circumstances, abortion is the most morally responsible and loving choice we can make."

-Jean Stewart Berg and Anne Baker

Don't you get it? It's all about love, people. It's compassionate to end human life because that life might suffer or cause others to suffer.

Shortly after I wrote "A Philosophical Study of Abortion", I had numerous discussions and debates with various people about abortion. All of the arguments Singer uses were used by everyday people in these debates. I wrote about them here. From the "compassionate choice" argument, to being a "fully formed human", to a fetus being aware of itself and its own life - all of these are variations of Singer's arguments and all of them were used by non-nutjobs and non-academics.

Peter Singer's view is out there folks. People I interact with fairly regularly have espoused these views in some form or another. Commenters on this blog like Democracy Lover and Geoffrey have used them. Utah's own Green Jenni used them over and over again.

While it may be shocking to read Peter Singer's opinions, it's even more shocking to see them repeated by those in my own community.

"I do not think it is always wrong to kill an innocent human being."

Donate to Help Myanmar

I've previously written about some of the worldwide charitable work done by the LDS Church, and now via lds.org/ldsfoundation is another opportunity to be of service:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints extends its sympathy and assistance to the citizens of Myanmar following the recent devastating cyclone.

Church leadership has approved funds to purchase large quantities of tarps, blankets, basic food, medical equipment, and especially clean drinking water for those in need. All items are being purchased in Myanmar or in nearby countries. The Church is partnering with Atlanta-based CARE International, a well-known non-governmental organization, to distribute the supplies.

Church humanitarian representatives will continue to monitor and assess the situation.

Donate to the Emergency Response Fund.

What Happens in Vegas...

...Gets your luggage checked on the way out of town (and in Spanish for good measure):

TSA - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: TSA

Rockets Players = Bitter

Look at Me! I can Dribble!



Hmmmm... Who Is That Guy Again?



Oh, Yeah...



I'm a Rocket Fan!

Rockets Fans = Bitter

I love it! Clutch City? Try

"We lost game 7 on our home court last year" City

or better yet,

"Our star has never made it past the first round of the playoffs" City.

HT: KVNU

Utah Gets No Love - Again

From Ric Bucher of ESPN:

"Let's be honest: They're Mormon, and they're in Salt Lake, and there's nothing else there. You gotta smile and be happy all the time. This might be one opportunity for fans to get vicious."

Those darn smiling happy Mormons will get you every time.

On the bright side, two computer models picked the Jazz to go to the Finals, and one of them picked them to win.

What If Sports
John Hollinger

That'd put a lot of smiles on Mormon faces.

TED Talks: Hans Rosling & Emily Oster on AIDS & Poverty

TED stands for "Technology, Entertainment, Design". It is an annual conference that brings speakers from those three areas together. They each give 18 minute talks. Many of these talks can be found for free on the ted.com website.

I found TED as I researched and wrote my "American Idol, Bono, and Africa" post from a week ago. I used one of their videos in that post. There are a few more that I have found that make a good follow up to that post, so I'm putting them here:

Hans Rosling has developed some pretty impressive data analyzing and presenting software, and used it in the following two speeches. The data shows some very interesting findings regarding poverty in the world.






Emily Oster is an economist, and in this talk she shows data which debunks most of the things we think we know about AIDS prevalence. Interestingly, just months after this presentation was given, the UN lowered its AIDS estimates.

Tax Cuts for the Rich: 1999 vs 2007

Let's take a married household earning about $45,000, with three dependents, owns a home, and gives slightly more than average to charity (as Republicans are wont to do).

For tax year 2007 this household would pay $0 in federal income tax. In fact, not only would they pay $0, but they would get over $2400 from the federal government. This is not money being refunded to them - it's free money from the government.

Now, if this same household had filed using 1999's tax laws, they would have owed $950. That's a $3,300 swing in the wrong direction.

So, over the next year or so as the Bush tax cuts are debated, the phrases, "tax cuts for the rich" or "tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%" or any derivation thereof, are hereby banned.

American Idol, Bono, and Africa

I watched the "Idol Gives Back" episode of American Idol last night, as well as the one they did last season. The intent of the show is to get people to donate to charity funds like the Children's Defense Fund, the Global Fund, Make It Right, Malaria No More, Save The Children and the Children's Health Fund. This year there were segments on New Orleans and Appalachia, as well as on Africa. The images of poverty and sickness in Africa are particularly compelling, especially in context of that continent's history and perception of never-ending poverty and civil war, as well as malaria and AIDS epidemics. Many of the celebrity presenters became emotional as they asked for donations.

But are donations what African nations need?

In an article titled "U.S., European Subsidies Undercut African Farmers", NPR reveals the following:

The United States ships millions of tons of food aid to Africa each year. While the food is desperately needed in many parts of the continent, some activists and economists say the inflow of huge amounts of surplus Western-grown grain stifles agricultural development in Africa.

In fact, this article is one in a 5 part series that NPR did in October of 2006 titled "Africa's Lagging Development".

In June 2007 the group "Technology, Entertainment, Design" held its annual conference in Tanzania. U2's Bono has long been a vocal proponent of aid to Africa, and in fact was the one that pushed to bring the conference to Tanzania last year. He spoke at the conference, but was actually angered by some of what was said; mainly because rather than focus on more charity work, many presenters instead spoke up about increased investment in entrepreneurship in African nations. One notable presenter was Andrew Mwenda, who said that decades of outside aid has accomplished little in Africa, and in fact can be blamed for the continuing troubles there. A video of his speech follows:


For his part, Bono responded to Mwenda by noting that,

Well, I will tell you that 20 million children in Africa are going to school today as a direct result of debt relief, 3 million right here in Tanzania alone. The reason Ireland now has one of the hottest economies in the world and gets all this direct investment from companies like Google and Intel is that they realized Ireland had an extremely well-educated population. Even I was extremely well-educated. Combine a well educated population with the kinds of tax relief that was offered to companies coming in and you have economic growth. Only the state can offer that package...

3000 African kids will die today of malaria so you have to work on the micro as well as the macro economic issues."

I think that some sort of middle ground between American Idol-like charities and Andrew Mwenda-like entrepreneurial growth is warranted. Clearly there are people suffering today that need assistance. But what about tomorrow? Liz Dolan writes:

I have worried in the past that because so many of the resources that come to Africa come in the form of aid, that Africa's best and brightest are working for NGO's and charities, instead of starting their own small businesses. Two years ago I met a fantastic young man in Lusaka, Zambia running an orphanage. His managerial skills were so impressive that I couldn't help thinking to myself whether the country would be better served if this young man were given the money to start a business instead of an orphanage. Does aid create a brain drain away from agriculture and industry and towards relief work? It clearly can.

Perhaps for too long the emphasis has been on immediate relief at the expense of long term growth - a sort of give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish scenario. Here's hoping we can change that.

Number 11

Who cares if my Final Four picks were a disaster? Who cares if my little sister beat me in our NCAA tournament bracket challenge?

I'm riding a three week stay in the BlogNetNews top 20 political blog rankings, and this week I've ascended all the way to #11.

So there.

TDIH: Martin Luther King Jr Assasinated

April 4, 1968

King was cut down April 4 by a rifle slug that tore through his jaw and spine as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. James Earl Ray, a petty criminal and prison escapee, pleaded guilty to the murder. He died in prison in 1998.

Nancy Pelosi Already Knows

It looks like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is up to her old tricks again.

At this time last year she had "scheduling conflicts" when General Petraeus went to Washington to meet with the US House of Representatives and provide them with classified information and expert analysis of the situation in Iraq. Ms. Pelosi's spokesmen said that she just forgot about the meeting and didn't realize she had the conflict until that very morning. So I wondered if we should start up a collection fund so she could get a pda or blackberry or something. It just seemed like a pretty big deal to miss out on classified information from a four star general, especially at a time when Congress was debating including a withdrawal timeline in a war funding bill. Luckily I had an astute commenter point out that the Speaker probably already knew what the general was going to say, so there was no reason to grace him with her presence.

Well, now General Petraeus is scheduled to visit Congress again. Just like my commenter noted last year, Nancy Pelosi has already made up her mind as to what she wants the general to say:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Thursday not to "put a shine on recent events” in Iraq when they testify before Congress next week.

“I hope we don’t hear any glorification of what happened in Basra,” said Pelosi, referring to a recent military offensive against Shiite militants in the city led by the Iraqi government and supported by U.S. forces.

178th General Conference

This weekend is the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. From lds.org:

The 178th Annual General Conference of the Church will convene in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday and Sunday, April 5-6, 2008. The Saturday general sessions will be held at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.; Sunday sessions will be held at 9:30 a.m. (which includes Music and the Spoken Word) and 2:00 p.m. The general priesthood meeting will be held in the Conference Center on Saturday, April 5, at 6:00 p.m.

In addition to television and radio, all sessions of conference are available online at lds.org

Your Democratic Presidential Nominees

Caucus Meeting

I went to my caucus meeting last night, and it was actually quite...frustrating. First, they posted the wrong address on the website, so I and about a dozen other caucus-goers stood outside a locked pre-school until we were able to track down someone who knew the real location. By the time I arrived, the meeting had already started. So that pretty much dashed any hopes I had of being nominated or elected to anything. Besides, my city's mayor and two of its councilmen are in my precinct, so they and their sphere of influence dominated the elections. I am not criticizing that specifically, but since I'm a new arrival to my city and neighborhood, no one knows me yet. It will take more time and political activity before I am able to have much influence in my area. I had heard of other precincts having only a handful of people show up, so a small part of me had hoped to be able to jump right in and be involved. But fortunately, my little neighborhood has a good pool of community minded residents already involved at the caucus level.

I'm Number 20!

I have arrived. I have been deemed worthy of a #20 ranking for Utah political blogs. Thank you for your support.

Is The Democratic Party Responsible For 9/11?

No, not Bill Clinton. The Democratic party of Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.

The party that said it was okay to "meddle" in the affairs of other countries. The party that said,

The fact of the matter is that we, this generation of Americans, are the first generation of our country ever to be involved in affairs around the globe. From the beginning of this country, from the days of Washington, until the Second World War, this country lived an isolated existence. Through most of our history we were an unaligned country, an uncommitted nation, a neutralist nation. We were by statute as well as by desire. We had believed that we could live behind our two oceans in safety and prosperity in a comfortable distance from the rest of the world...

...We find ourselves entangled with apparently unanswerable problems in unpronounceable places. We discover that our enemy in one decade is our ally the next. We find ourselves committed to governments whose actions we cannot often approve, assisting societies with principles very different from our own...

...We cannot return to the day of the sailing schooner or the covered wagon, even if we wished. And if this Nation is to survive and succeed in the real world of today, we must acknowledge the realities of the world.

Today, Democrats, and others like Ron Paul, Osama bin Laden, and Jeremiah Wright, say that the terrorists attack us because we have meddled in their affairs. We have bases in their countries, we support Israel too much, etc. Basically, it's our own fault that they don't like us, and if we would just stop all the meddling then they would leave us alone.

That meddling started with Democrats half a century ago.

Biofuels Letter in Deseret News

I sent in a shortened version of my latest biofuels post as a letter to the editor in the Deseret News and it was published last Saturday. Here's the link, and here's the text:

Last November, Jean Ziegler — the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food — called for a five-year ban on biofuel production, stating that diverting corn, wheat and sugar crops to the biofuel industry would cause huge price increases in foods that are staples of the world diet. He even went so far as calling it a crime against humanity. What did the United States do in the face of these warnings? It mandated huge increases in biofuels, of course.

We can already see the consequences of that action. According to the World Food Program, biofuel production is largely to blame for "newly hungry" people in Latin America, Africa and Asia and for food riots in Burkino Faso, Cameroon, Senegal and Morocco.

Corn is so widely used that higher corn prices mean higher prices for just about everything else from meat, eggs and dairy products to hops, malting barley and vegetables.

A child dies from hunger every five seconds. Our country's politicians and environmental activists just made it harder and more expensive to save them.

There were also some interesting comments to the letter, so I'll post them here as well:

Non food stock | 6:06 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Research at USU under a USTAR grant is underway that will derive biofuel from aglae rather than traditional food stock. This is the direction that biofuels should take.

Casey | 6:14 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Cameron - children are acceptable collateral damage in the environmental movement. How many have died of malaria since the ban on ddt? True to their character, they will accept NO responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Biofuels are the latest "feel good" solution our problems. Don't expect anything to change soon. Unfortunately

michaelh | 6:19 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
I agree we must stop this bio-fuel madness! This was tried during the Carter administration. It failed then and it is failing now. There is plenty of oil we are not running out we just need to get the madcap insane global warming nut jobs out of the way. They are going to cause a famine and the deaths of millions of people. When a person is insane to the point of being dangerous to himself and society they need to be locked up in a mental hospital. We need to stop being silent and resist the legislation being suggested by the enviro-insane.
Comments continue below

Timj | 6:21 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Environmental activists? Excuse me?
Don't blame the biofuel problem on environmentalists. Blame it on politicians, farmers, and gullibles.
None of the environmentalists I know think that turning corn into fuel is a good idea. In fact, many are very vocal about it being a bad idea.
Schweitzer | 7:19 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008

Exactly so. The problem with biofuels is, it takes fuel for the body, and turns it into fuel to drag Main Street with. There may be a few exceptions, where the agricultural source of the biofuel is currently inedible and going to waste, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule.

liberal larry | 7:34 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
The writer is correct that the production of befouls is distorting the price of global food commodities. In fact, almost all commodities are increasing in price because of the increasing consumption of nations like China and India. This is a natural out growth of the planets over population, there will continue to be a competition for the worlds scarce resourses, you better get used to it because there are limited amounts of the earth's oil, water, precious metals, wilderness etc. and no glimpse of population control in sight.

Lionheart | 8:07 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Unintended consequences. Why couldn't this have been predicted. Biofuels take land, water and the net result is not a savings in fuel. The government has been paying the agribusiness to grow these crops and now we are going to have to pay them not to grow them. There are better solutions to the fuel problem.

Dave | 8:50 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
It seems every time politicians make change, things get worse.

Spanish Fark | 9:16 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Dont need to use carn. My truck runs on beer from the Walmarts. At last somebody spells rapporteur right! About time.

bushbot | 10:37 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
This was a really good letter.... see this is the kind of thing that happens when you start going against the laws of nature and trying to make same sex marriage acceptable... everything gets turned upside down: food as fuel, equal rights for animals... where does it all end ?
@liberal larry:no glimpse of population control in sight? You liberals are truly scary.... and you accuse conservatives of being Nazis.

Casey | 10:45 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Larry - I thought that increased consumption in China and India was because of increased economic freedom. People now can afford food instead of starving, and they are choosing to eat. If the government in China would let them they might even choose to have more than 1 child (how can they be contributing to overpopulation with a policy like that?) Economic freedom therefore is not a good thing in the context you seem to be coming from. It means people have more and therefore can conume more. I could be wrong, but that's the way it looks from here.

TeddyR | 10:49 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Casey&Michaelh;
You guys are poorly informed; as stated above, every environmentalist I know is AGAINST food to fuel biofuels projects. Apparently, any old stick is suitable to bash and "environazi" with, whether it's accurate or not.

BBKing | 10:50 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Casey is right on the money. Literally tens of millions of people have died from Malaria primarily based on what is now considered faulty research. In any case, we placed a greater premium on birds than people. Period.

Timj, this movement for biofuels was 100% started by the environmentalist crowd. To say otherwise is to ask us to believe the sun doesn't rise in the morning. I remember friends in Utah country trying to get rid of the fuel additive. All but impossible and founght tooth and nail by EPA and their environmental buddies.

You mention the farmers and politicians, you are correct. What is beginning to happen is big business is learning they can make trillions off of all this global warming junk. Literally, we just outlawed the light bulb. How freaking stupid is that?! No more incandecent lightbulbs by 2014 or something. Holy freaking cow!

The UN estimates that in order to stop "Global Warming" it will cost at least $20 trillion. So yes, farmers are buying politicians so they can get a cut of the $20 trillion.

If you folks would use real science we could begin to solve this. No more junk science please.

John | 11:19 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Corn is not a source of energy. It requires energy to turn it into a biofuel. How stupid are we going to get?

Crude IS a source of energy. Natural gas is a source of energy. There is really nothing else on this planet that is a viable alternative for our transportation. Every other solution that people offer, requires another source of energy, to create.

Turn out the lights, the party is over.

Lionheart | 11:51 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
To John: The party is not over, pressure, such as the situation in fuel and world distribution is what brings about immense change. Expect something new and wonderful to solve the problem. Have more trust in human consciousness.

liberal larry | 12:27 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
It's common knowledge that biofuels are not working well yet, but they may be more realistic when other organic wastes like grasses and wood chips are used to produce fuel. To blame "radical environmentalists" for this is silly. President Bush is one of the leading proponents of ethanol, and he is hardly an environmentalist.

As third world nations become more consumptive, like us Americans, food, and all other commodities will become more expensive. The pie is only so big, the more people we have, the smaller each piece will be.

Did I call conservatives Nazis? I don't think so, at least not recently

RayCharles | 1:40 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
BBKing;
Perhaps you can list what environmentalist organizations (whose websites we can consult) are pushing biofuels? Your bald assertions aren't making it.
Your comments about DDT are a red flag to any knowledgeable person; it's bunk generated by rightwing radio. DDT laws have always had an "out" clause allowing usage to control mosquitos. Mexico has never stopped using DDT, and has a growing malaria problem. Cite the "faulty research" about DDT; the whole DDT issue alerted people to how chickens come home to roost, if you'll pardon an avian pun. The long-lived toxins that enter the food chain don't only affect pelicans, they wind up in other species at the top of the food chain, including humans.
At any rate, your comments show that you are merely a medium of long-debunked, completely unscientific ravings.

bushbot | 3:05 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
@LL : just wondering what you have in mind when you write about "population control" Sounds pretty ominous

Paul | 4:32 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
I guess, in my view, higher prices are just too bad. People in the US are freezing, from lack of heating oil. We have to get free handouts from Venzuela. What is wrong with converting food grown in the US into fuel for US consumption (assuming there is an advantage to do so)? Starvation in Latin America, Asia, and Africa is something that will always occur, given human's rate of reproduction, so we can only do what we can. I would probably get a bit ticked off if the US Government (or the UN) decided it could and should dictate how I use food I grew (again, assuming I was a farmer). Then again, given the amount of subsidies farmers get, maybe the Government should have a say...

liberal larry | 4:33 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
A lot of factors reduce reproduction rates, I was thinking in terms of availability to free birth control, general resources education for women and girls, monetary incentives to have fewer children. There are lots of ways to have people voluntarily limit the number of kids they have.

bushbot | 5:16 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
From what I have read about demographic trends the world's population is expected to peak between 2050- 2080 (I can't remember exactly) I do know that even in many historically high reproductive areas the trend is to smaller families.
I believe that lower reproductive rates are more of a threat to stability than higher reproduction .... obviously someone has to pay the overhead costs of Government and infrastructure. I have yet to see a Government spending program ever go away. Once they are instituted they are nearly impossible to end ( e.g. social security)
I know one thing... the people having lots of children will be the ones determining where Society heads in the future.

Lew Jeppson | 6:54 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
If the United States government had not funded the interstates in the 1950s, the private networks of electric interurban railways (I bet nobody here knows what I'm talking about) would have survived, thrived and expanded. We would have compact housing and compact communities along them. We would have no global warming and no need for biofuels. A look backward can clue us for the route ahead.

Lionheart | 8:58 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Dear Lew:

Lots of us don't want to live in human coops and will find a way to escape that grim possibility, therefore, freedom to roam the planet and beyond has led to many advances in human history.

2penniesandchange | 9:53 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Lew,
I'm from Los Angeles, and know EXACTLY what your talking about! Red Car? Yes, we had that once. But the freeways got built by car company subsidies, and the transport of choice switched to cars and not electric trains. Now the Angeleno's are paying the price, while the smart ones move to Utah

Stewart | 10:00 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
Grow corn for food, get those nuclear power plants built, and let's get on with plug-in series hybrid cars that in most cases will out perform some of the present models. It will take at least a decade to transition.

Sorry, Lew, you're wrong | 11:40 p.m. Mar. 15, 2008
The decline in private interurban rail began long before before the interstate highways came along.

The Pacific Electric "Red Cars" were being taken out of service in the 1930s, and the Rio Grande Southern had taken their trains off the tracks, replaced by the "Galloping Goose" motor railcars. When the US got into WWII, logistics experts discovered that passenger rail miles were only HALF of what they had been at the end of WWI. 40 percent of the country's passenger railway cars had been burned and their iron parts cut up for scrap.

It was significantly less expensive to switch to buses (using public roadways between cities) than to continue maintaining (and paying taxes on) sole-use rail right-of-ways. It's also more versatile and rapidly modifiable.

In fact, it was this decline in rail capacity which prompted the interstate highways in the first place!

The only interurban commuter rail lines which thrived were those with high numbers of "fixed" commuters on the East Coast, and only those with overhead catenary wires to power the trains (no self-motive interurban commuter train or trolley was operating in the US between 1965 and 1989).

Hope the Front Runner is a success!

Barack Obama: Race in America

Here's the transcript.

Here's a vid:

Being a Mormon Blogger is Cool

In my two years of blogging I've written about some fairly controversial things like abortion, Iraq, and global warming. But by far the reason most people wind up here is because I'm a Mormon. Even old posts will attract new visitors.

For instance, I just got a comment on a post from last September,

you mormon folks sure are funny! by the way, you're missing out... coffee is soooo good...

I still get hits to my post on Senator Larry Craig, all brought here by Google searches of "Larry Craig Mormon", "Is Larry Craig Mormon", "Sen Craig Mormon" or some other derivation. (He's not.)

I get hits for people googling "nancy pelosi mormon" and "rosi o'donnell mormon" too.(Not that I'm aware of.)

But by far the biggest post I've written to date has been the American Idolist David Archuleta singing Imagine. I've had literally thousands of visits to that post, mostly from people wondering if he's Mormon. (He's from Utah, so that's probably why people are wondering. The answer: I don't know. I did get this comment to the post though, "this kid is mormon he must hate black people". Nice.)

So, here's a big welcome to all you Mormon googlers. Enjoy your visit.

Glenn Beck, Think Progress, Barack Obama & the Antichrist

Last week Glenn Beck started talking about something he said on his TV show that was picked up and criticized by the Think Progress blog. He's spent the last few days of his radio show poking fun at the blogging media "news" circle. Here's the breakdown:

Think Progress posted a video of Glenn Beck asking Pastor John Hagee, "Odds that Barack Obama is the Antichrist?" Here's the rest of the story, according to Beck,

Well, here's the best part, because what picked this up originally was, I don't even know, Think Progress. Think Progress, yes. Let's Think Progress. Do you know Progressive has "Progress" in it? It must be good. Think Progress is the first that picked this up on the blog. They're like, Glenn Beck thinks that maybe Media Matters then picked up the story and put a Glenn Beck think maybe and then they cut and pasted and put it in the TelePrompTer for Keith Olbermann: Glenn Beck thinks maybe he's the worst person in the world! Then Media Matters reported that Keith Olbermann reported the story that Media Matters reported that Keith Olbermann should report. So if they could just now get Media Matters to alert Think Progress and so Think Progress could report that Media Matters reported that Keith Olbermann reported what Media Matters reported that Think Progress reported originally, it would be a feedback loop that would never end and everything would be perfect in the world.

This is actually my biggest complaint with "New Media" like blogging. Beck calling it a "feedback loop" is quite right in many cases. For all our talk of the "liberal media" or "corporate media" brainwashing the public and writing ill-sourced, bogus news stories, that's often exactly what happens on blogs. Then we all eat it up and let it feed our already existing prejudices. For example, look at these comments on the Think Progress "story":

• Glenn Beck and John Hagee need to be disappeared. They are a plague to rational thinkers everywhere.
Comment by jdogg333 — March 4, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
Recommend (2) | Report Abuse


• We know from hard evidence that George W. Bush is the anti-christ
Comment by nofltwlt — March 4, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
Recommend (3) | Report Abuse


• You’ve gotta be kidding me. We need to write more letters to CNNHN about this guy.
Comment by tnrc75 — March 4, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
Recommend (4) | Report Abuse


• As opposed to the grinning , braying , stupid @$#! that has fouled the Oval Office and our reputation throughout the world , Glenn Speck(of @$#!) ?
@$#! friggin’ @$#! ; what exactly is it that these morons actually see in Chimpy the Wonder Monkey that all others are insignificant at best , and make them laughably and hysterically view a moronic , colossal absolute FAILURE as the 2nd Coming ?
Comment by MCMetal

None of these people even watch Glenn Beck. They just read the little blog post and watched Keith Olbermann's rant and furiously typed their scathing insults in the comment box. But did any one of them actually stop and think for even a half second before damaging their keyboards with their unbridled ferocity? It doesn't appear so. Although there was one comment, the very last of 100+ comments to the post, that injected an opposing view,

The same thing could be said for every single one of you hypocritical numbnuts every time you call George Bush “Satan, the Anti-Christ” or whatever else you can come up with to insult someone. Am I really the only person who noticed that Glenn was LAUGHING as he asked the question? Am I the only person here with the intellectual honesty to admit that Beck WAS NOT BEING SERIOUS when he asked it? AM I THE ONLY PERSON HERE WHO SAW IT IN CONTEXT AND HEARD HIM JOKE ABOUT IT IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS, HEARD HIM PREDICT THAT IDIOTS LIKE THE PEOPLE HERE WOULD TAKE IT OUT OF CONTEXT AND POST IT AS IF HE WAS BEING SERIOUS!
Comment by ISSHunter

So what was Glenn Beck doing asking this kind of question? Listeners to the show will remember a segment a few days previous where Beck talked about some recent statements from George Clooney and Angelina Jolie that he thought showed a lot of integrity and open mindedness. At the end of the segment he summed it up by saying,

"But everybody on both sides have either deified their candidates and made it absolutely right on everything and it's that way or it's nothing, or they've taken the other side and they've looked at the other candidate and said they must be the antichrist. "Oh, George Bush is the most evil guy ever to be in the presidency." And now people are doing exactly what they did to Bill Clinton. I mean, I'm getting the mail that, you know, Barack Obama is the antichrist. Come on.

When we strike the reasonable balance and say, okay, I can completely disagree with this guy's policies but you know what, this part over here is pretty decent or this part over here, we may actually have a chance to be able to make some real progress."

Beck's getting letters and emails from people warning him that Barack Obama is the Antichrist, and he thinks that's stupid. Then a few days later he's got this right wing Pastor on his show so he jokingly asks what he characterized as "a light hearted question belittling those who believe every new politician on the scene that doesn’t agree with them is the antichrist." He's making fun of the nutjobs people! Ironically, it's the same nutjobs that the Think Progress/Media Matters/Keith Olbermann's of the world make fun of.

But these groups are so enraged, so ideologically hateful, that they can't even see that.

Biofuels Kill Children

Last November I wrote about Congress's bill which pushed new mandates for biofuel production. I called it an "Environmental Kneejerk Disaster". Why did I call it that? Because politicians and activists, in a "we've got to do something!" response to global warming's dire predictions, decided that biofuels was the way to go. But back in October 2007 Jean Ziegler called for a 5 year ban on biofuel production, stating that diverting corn, wheat, and sugar crops to the biofuel industry would cause huge price increases in foods that are staples in the world diet. He said,

“It is a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil which produces food stuff that will be burned into biofuel.”

What did the US do in the face of these warnings? Why, they mandated huge increases in biofuels of course.

We can already see the consequences of that action. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program was reported to have said recently that there are "newly hungry people" in Latin America, Africa and Asia, and that there have been food riots in Burkino Faso, Cameroon, Senegal and Morocco. And why are they hungry and rioting? Because food prices are skyrocketing. According to Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural and Rural Development,

"Although we are coming off a record corn harvest, the 2008 new-crop corn harvest is more than $5.00 per bushel. The new-crop soybean futures price is more than $12.50 per bushel. In contrast to the 1995/96 high price period, the markets today are not indicating that these record prices are temporary. Farmers can sell their 2009 and 2010 crops for about the same price...

Crop prices at these levels dramatically increase the cost of raising hogs, finishing cattle, and producing milk and eggs. These costs will have to be passed on to consumers through higher retail prices for meat, eggs, and dairy products to keep livestock producers in business. Competition for land between specialty crops, oilseeds, and food and feed grains will also increase the prices of other products such as hops, malting barley, beans, and vegetables. Consequently, we should expect to see increased food prices over the next year or two as these cost increases are passed on to consumers."

These higher prices especially affect the poor, both here and abroad. They already spend a significant portion of their income on food, and have less flexibility to respond to higher costs. People are starving, and will continue to starve, largely because this country's politicians and environmental activists ignored reality, ignored economics, and pushed for this "solution" to global warming.

Jesus the Christ

One of my favorite books is "Jesus the Christ" by James E. Talmage. I recently discovered that the LDS Church has a downloadable audio file of it on their website, so I put it on cd and have been listening to it on my commute each day. The website can be found here, and you can download the entire book at once, or individual chapters. (Two additional notes of interest, www.lds.org has mountains of audio files on its website, including scriptures, the Ensign magazine, General Conference talks, and even hymns. Also, "Jesus the Christ" is in the widget on my sidebar called "random books from my library". Click on the link to see the actual book. I also highly recommend two other books by James Talmage, "Articles of Faith" and "The Great Apostasy".)

I'd been meaning to write this post about my audio file discovery for about a week now, and in the meantime the Church has started a new website called JesusChrist.lds.org that has some great content. Also, the March edition of the Church's monthly magazine, "The Ensign", is dedicated to articles on the Savior.

Thunder! Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats, Ho!