The War On Bullshit

I’ve got good news and bad news. Bad news first: switching from incancesdents to CFLs is not going to halt climate change. Although I agree that they help and encourage people to try them, CFLs, biodiesel, weatherstripping and similar tactics only distract from the underlying causes of inefficiency. The good news is, sound strategies for addressing energy issues aren’t just apparent, they’re entirely obvious if you think about it. Here are my top five ways of saving energy and stopping climate change.

5. Rework taxes and tariffs to punish wastefulness and pollution

This is pretty simple really: slap a tax on anything that emits pollution (especially the greenhouse gases) and a tariff on anything imported from an environmentally unfriendly factory or country. These taxes and tariffs should vary according to the severity of the pollution or waste. Then take all the money that’s collected, and give it right back to the public. This way, those who create the most pollution get punished, the average person breaks even, and that guy at the office who rides his bike to work makes out like a bandit. This has the added bonus of transferring wealth from the rich (who are a wasteful bunch on average) to the poor (who can’t afford to use as much energy).

4. Make extensive public transit free

This is a no brainer. Driving wastes energy. If we want people to stop driving, we should maximize the incentive of the alternative. Yes, this means public transit must be run by the government. What people don’t realize is that the massive savings from having fewer cars on the road, including less road maintenance and construction, can offset the cost of providing public transit. Free public transit also boosts tourism, gets people walking more, increases economic mobility, and decreases drunk driving and accidents.

3. Live in smaller homes

There’s no getting around it: big houses full of appliances waste energy. You don’t need three TVs, five computers, four sound systems and an electric can opener. You don’t need more rooms in your house than there are people living there. All that extra space wastes energy not only in its construction but also in heating, cooling, cleaning and maintenance.

2. Live closer together

With all this focus on more efficient transportation, people are forgetting that if you live within walking distance of work, hybrid cars are a moot point. The huge cost in energy and money associated with transportation is largely due to everything being way too spread out. Urban sprawl is a huge energy sink, not only in transportation costs, but also in road construction and maintenance, extra street lights, power transmission, utility provision, etc. There’s also the huge opportunity cost associated with the land use. And don’t even get me started about entire cities that shouldn’t exist. Los Vegas, Los Angeles, I’m looking at you. The energy required just to move water to these cities is unfathomable. Water-loving humans have no business living in the desert!

1. Scratch Capitalism

People have to start facing facts. Capitalism is antithetical to environmentalism. Capitalism is based on ever-growing consumption. Environmentalism is based on conservation. Our economic system is near perfectly designed to transform the Earth into an uninhabitable garbage dump. I’m not saying communism is any better, but capitalism, as it stands today, is untenable. It has to go. We cannot allow free market principles to freely destroy the natural world.

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Why The World is So Screwed Up

Have you ever been in an argument with someone over some bullshit the U.S. government is doing (like invading sovereign nations), and the dipshit you’re debating tells you that you should be shipped off to some socialist/communist/Islamic/oppressive/European country? Next time that happens, maybe you should consider it a good idea and ship yourself off. Here’s five good reasons why being an expatriate American may just be better than being a U.S. citizen. Many of these points assume you’re not moving to some AIDS-ridden third-world country, and are expatriating to Canada or one of the many socialized nations in the European Union.

1. You’re less likely to be robbed, raped, beaten or shot.

Generally speaking, other developed nations have lower crime rates than we do, according to UN crime rate statistics. The United Kingdom, Denmark, and Finland are exceptions (as well as a host of crappy undeveloped nations) - these countries do have higher crime rates than the United States. Don’t worry, though, there’s still plenty of places that offer a safe alternative - most of the EU, for instance, or Canada, our friendly neighbors to the north. Hell, you could even move to Yemen or Russia if you’re just looking for a lower crime rate.

2. You won’t feel the gas crunch nearly as much.

I’ve already discussed in previous posts how other countries are not affected nearly as much as we are by the rising cost of gasoline. Sure, they pay even higher prices than we do at the pump; that’s why the first thing you do when you move is sell the damn car! Though there are big parts of Canada where this doesn’t hold true, chances are if you head across the big lake to Europe, you’ll find you don’t even need a car. In fact, in many cases, it’s a bigger inconvenience than it is a boon. It’s easier to take the incredibly efficient public transit, or even hop on a bicycle for the scenic route. Most countries in Europe are scooter-friendly, too, so you can look dorky but save a ton of money on gas by putting around on a Vespa. Imagine all the cash you could save right now if you could just stop taking your car to work - personally, I’d pocket an extra $160 a month, and I live within five miles of my job. Unfortunately, it’s only a dream for many living outside the major metropolises in the United States.

3. You won’t face the burden of listening to people talk about their faith.

Alright, so this is more of a personal benefit for rational atheists like myself. Being an atheist in Europe is pretty nice. Very rarely will a European confront you about faith. You won’t have some Bible-beater blaring a megaphone in your ear while you’re having a beer at Oktoberfest in Munich. Ask the Naked Cowboy if you can say the same about Bourbon Street.

However, the benefits of a secular state don’t just affect nonbelievers. Our very own founding fathers knew the wisdom of keeping church and state separate, though in practice they did not do a perfect job of implementing it. It prevents discrimination against both believers and nonbelievers; it does not allow the rights of one group of believers to take precedence over another group. Unfortunately, faith has become a major factor in U.S. elections. It’s doubtful a presidential candidate who did not profess Christianity could win any time in the foreseeable future.

Ironically, many EU nations to which you might expatriate do not have the same clause about separation of church and state which we follow in the United States. They’ve just managed to collectively not give a shit about religion for long enough that the same religious apathy has leaked into their public policy making.

4. Castles kick ass.

Let’s face it: the scenery matters. This is the reason I’m thinking Europe > Canada, assuming this whole Russo-Georgian conflict dies down in the near future. Castles seriously rock, and it would behoove you to live near one so you can see how awesome they are.

Ronneburg Castle, Hessen, Germany. It has a catapult on the other side, just in case you question how much ass it kicks.

5. You’ll live longer.

As if castles and a lower crime rate aren’t awesome enough reasons to leave America, there’s the higher life expectancy the United Nations report in many other countries. Canada, the UK, the EU - all have higher life expectancies. Meanwhile, the United States falls at number 38 on the list - just below Cuba and just above the bustling nation of Portugal. Seriously, people, Cuba does better than us on keeping people alive?

We can argue about the benefits of socialized medicine all we want to, rehashing every argument Michael Moore or Ronald Reagan could drum up for or against it, but the fact remains that folks tend to live longer in all those evil socialist countries to which conservatives so fervently wish to ship all us libs. Even if every perceived evil of socialized medicine is true, they’re still doing their job better than we are, if you consider that job keeping folks’ tickers ticking for longer.

Conclusion

Originally, I’d intended to keep this list down to five good reasons. Unfortunately for any American nationalists reading this, I came up with a lot more than five reasons, so we’ll save the next five for next week. Let’s just hope the Bush croneys don’t ship me off to Gitmo before I get around to posting them.

Listening to the bullshit propoganda being spread in the current presidential race, I was just beginning to think neo-cons couldn’t get any dumber. Then I saw this headline and pissed myself: Neocons Call for U.S. to Launch War with Russia.

That’s right, you heard me. Neocon leader William Kristol says we owe it to Georgia to defend their nation against Russia because of the 2,000 troops Georgia has given to the War on Terror. What is this douche, a comic book villain trying to end the world?

Arkham Asylum: where Bill Kristol should be bunking with the Penguin.

This guy is completely insane, and here’s three damn good reasons why.

3. We don’t owe Georgia a damn thing.

Georgia’s contribution of a whopping 2,000 troops to our bullshit war in Iraq is Kristol’s primary justification for calling troops to war. He says that “for this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious commitment to defend its sovereignity.” And I agree. We owe them vast amounts of moral support and diplomatic maneuvering to make sure they maintain their sovereignity. We don’t owe them a damn thing in the way of troops.

Georgia only joined the Iraq war in an effort to join NATO out of a belief that we would protect them from their large, aggressive neighbor: Russia. I sympathize with their plight. Russia is big and scary. So Georgia sent in their 2,000 troops to help us out. Apparently Georgians are not as astute as I am, but if we need the help of a third-world country whose government has only existed since 2003, what the hell makes them think we can help them fight Russia?! Which brings me to my next point…

2. Our forces are stretched too thin already.

CNN recently asked a group of 34,000 military officers about their situation in the Middle East, so why not listen to the pros: “Of those surveyed, 88 percent believe the demands of the Iraq war have ’stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.’ . . .  Eighty percent of officers believe it is unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to wage another major war successfully at present.” (CNN, 2008)

The truth is, at a time when recruitment for the military is way down, we are fighting two conflicts, and if you think things in Afghanistan are a-okay, think again. It’s idiotic to even think we could carry the battle to a third front - let alone one as vast as Russia. If we learn nothing else from Napoleon and Hitler, we should know the cold truth that Russia will break the back of any force split on multiple fronts.

1. Kristol’s motivations are less than pure.

Hmmm, now why would a neo-con like Kristol push for us to go to war in Georgia? For one thing, the American people are a heck of a lot more likely to vote for conservatives during periods of war, and let’s face it: we just aren’t paying attention to Iraq anymore. The Iraqi headlines have fallen to page 2A, and it’s simply not enough exposure to guarantee a Republican win in the presidential election.

More importantly, though, there’s the BTC Pipeline, the very reason Russia has decided they want Georgia so badly. The pipeline transports petroleum from Azerbaijan over 1,000 miles to a port in Turkey, making it not only the second-longest oil pipeline in the world, but also one of the most important ways oil makes it to the West.

So why would we want to fight Russia over Georgia? Because, what better way for us to sneak in the back door to gain access to the BTC Pipeline. Like Kristol says we owe Georgia for their support in Iraq, how much more do you think they will owe us if we bail them out of a fight with Russia?