cutTheCrap
ok, so enough is enough... this ia America, not the ussr, or red china, or north korea, or cuba, or europe
01_18_2010
A bit more about Haiti...
...and how it relates to Judeo-Christian tradition
The US provides help but...
Well before that, in fact among the very first on scene in Haiti, is Israel
Israel with field hospitals and doctors were among the first on the scene
In other news... Saudi Arabia, one of the richest countries on the planet, sent a condolence message.
So don't talk to me about a dark side of the Judeo-Christian tradition
01_14_2010
Haiti happened.
A really bad earthquake
10s of thousands dead
Horrible
In general, I support sending aid to situations like that in Haiti
But I think it is something that individuals and the voluntarily joined organizations (like their church) should do
It is wrong, however, for the US to send financial aid to Haiti when we do not have the money to send
If the US had a financial surplus then that is something that we could consider
BUT... Sending money to Haiti when that money is money we BORROWED from China is just plain wrong.
11_12_2009
America...
we need to take advantage of what America has to offer
dig up the coal and generate electricity
drill and pump the oil, refine it here and use it for automobile fuel.
cars run so clean now (have you seen how clean the exhaust pipes stay in new cars? unbelievable when compared to what we had 30 years ago) that we should give auto manufacturers a break for at least 10 years
...and while I am talking about cars, GM should have been allowed to go broke and get it all sorted out in the bankruptcy court like so many other businesses have. I guess that the unions didn't want to lose their cash cow and since they have the president's ear, well... what do you expect? Bailout. Death to America.- -if you believe that the kyoto accords are worth supporting... particularly the carbon trading portion, china doesn't have to meet the same standards as America. - -WHY NOT?- -china is NOT a developing country... it is DEVELOPED. (thanks andrew wilkow for that insight)- -see china below but just in case you don't get that far... - -
more about cars... hybrid cars in particular
hybrid cars are not even close to be ing free from pollution issues. Ask the Canadians that mine the lithium that is used in the batteries. Lithium is toxic. The largest Canadian lithium mine has a huge (5 mile?) toxic no-growth dead zone around it.
...and then there's the issue of how efficient a hybrid is. Sure... in town the braking recovery does return a portion of the power that would otherwise be wasted as heat does make sense.
also in town the gas portion of the hybrid shuts off when you come to a stoplight or are hung up in traffic. this makes plenty of sense... but I live in the South. It's hot down here a lot and the auto a/c gets used most of the year.
so... ask a hybrid owner what happens when you have the a/c on and you come to a light. in many of them the blower keeps running but the compressor is dead... and it gets hot in the car... especially in traffic.
finally...
all this great technology is completely worthless at highway speeds. the engine has to run for all it's worth to make the thing make 80 mph and the electric part just sits there being heavy and costing the owner. If the company made the same car with the same gasoline engine but without the electric crap needed for the hybrid portion, it would run faster on the highway and on less fuel because it would be lighter... and it would cost about $5000 cheaper to start with. The only problem is that it would be a dog off the line. Yup, you got it. The main thing that a hybrid does for you if you use it on the highway is to make it accelerate faster.
so...
in that light the hybrid auto is mostly all about high performance, not economy and ecology and green.
about global warming...
global warming... um... climate change is a fact in the sense that our climate has been changing ever since the beginning of time.
global warming... um... climate change is NOT proven to be caused by human activity
I don't care how many scientists you stand up and point to and say "all these scientists say it is human caused"
truth is not a democratic process. An overwhelming number of supporters does not make it fact.
sure, it might be human caused BUT there is NO proof that it is and I am NOT willing to sacrifice the America that I grew up in on the throne of human caused global warming... I don't care if it is proclaimed to be the truth by the inventor of the Internet
about china...
china is NOT a developing country... it is DEVELOPED. (thanks andrew wilkow for that insight)
they are loaning us money not the other way around.
the stuff they build is ok, sometimes... so long as it doesn't matter that it's got lead in the paint or it's made of left-over radioactive iron or the graded aircraft bolts are just plain old crappy bolts with aircraft markings or the baby formula has a few nasty little toxins in it.
and while we are talking about it, recently I went to see the human anatomy show at a museum in Atlanta. the one where the bodies are infused with polymers to preserve them to allow them to be displayed in a museum setting. Funny... they were all asian... HMMMMmmm...
about Christians...
lately people have had a good time at the expense of Christians... Christians killed a bunch of people throughout history... you know, the crusades.
there is some truth to that but can we talk a bit about atheists?
if scale matters the Christians are squeaky clean
Mao was an atheist... millions of people (mostly academics and professionals) have gone missing in china
Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge killed millions of Cambodians... Pol Pot... an atheist
Stalin killed everyone he thought might get in his way... most of the scientists and professional class... Stalin was founder of one of the largest atheist driven political systems... killed millions
sure, Christians along the way have done unspeakable things... but, like I said, if scale matters Christians are squeaky clean
Christians may have problems but humans without Christ are pretty frightening.