It's become a regular occurrence, something inevitable, expected, and unavoidable--like death or taxes. Yep, now that election time is rolling around, Bush Co. have whipped out the 'terrorists want you' card.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3OfYY31yv9LNOspwKcj73SwDegwD90CCOO00
Is anyone even surprised anymore? Between the fear factor and the rigged voting machines, I smell another Republican 'victory'.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Why the green approach won't clean up the environment
Simply? Because it's been commercialized.
That's not to say that the green mentality, as it's meant to be, wouldn't have worked. Only that it won't work any longer because the companies have gotten hold of it and bent and twisted and pureed every ounce of meaning from it.
Case in point:
Today we received a junk mail advert the size of a large postcard with the similar hard feel and glossy image on the front (in this case from The Boxford Farm in Suffolk). As far as I can see, the point of the advert is to give a coupon for a 50p discount on Copella fruit juice. So? you say, what's unusual about that?
Yes, we all get vast amounts of junk mail each week and that, in and of itself, is not unusual. In this case, however, the coupon, itself, is less than 1/4 of the postcard. The rest is meaningless babble, some personal-sounding smoozy letter that no one will read. This wouldn't even be 'bad' or noticable, just a corporate gimmick, if it wasn't for the labels at the bottom of the card:
'Paper sourced from a FSC sustainable forest
Printed using waterless presses and vegetable based inks.'
So, as far as I understand it, this company has intentionally chosen eco-friendly paper as...?...a sneaky appeal to the conservationist in all of us? It can't be because they actually care about the environment or reducing the size of landfills or their carbon footprint, etc. If that was the case, they might have thought that they didn't need a postcard advert 4 times the size of the coupon! With the same amount of paper, they could have produced 4x the number of coupons/adverts or, of course, they could have printed the same number while only using 1/4 of the paper.
And so, until everyone (companies included) actually notice this specific problem in logic, and until everyone actually cares about this kind of thing (and how many of us really do?), the 'green mentality' is doomed to be relegated to just one more useful tool in the corporate advertising machine.
That's not to say that the green mentality, as it's meant to be, wouldn't have worked. Only that it won't work any longer because the companies have gotten hold of it and bent and twisted and pureed every ounce of meaning from it.
Case in point:
Today we received a junk mail advert the size of a large postcard with the similar hard feel and glossy image on the front (in this case from The Boxford Farm in Suffolk). As far as I can see, the point of the advert is to give a coupon for a 50p discount on Copella fruit juice. So? you say, what's unusual about that?
Yes, we all get vast amounts of junk mail each week and that, in and of itself, is not unusual. In this case, however, the coupon, itself, is less than 1/4 of the postcard. The rest is meaningless babble, some personal-sounding smoozy letter that no one will read. This wouldn't even be 'bad' or noticable, just a corporate gimmick, if it wasn't for the labels at the bottom of the card:
'Paper sourced from a FSC sustainable forest
Printed using waterless presses and vegetable based inks.'
So, as far as I understand it, this company has intentionally chosen eco-friendly paper as...?...a sneaky appeal to the conservationist in all of us? It can't be because they actually care about the environment or reducing the size of landfills or their carbon footprint, etc. If that was the case, they might have thought that they didn't need a postcard advert 4 times the size of the coupon! With the same amount of paper, they could have produced 4x the number of coupons/adverts or, of course, they could have printed the same number while only using 1/4 of the paper.
And so, until everyone (companies included) actually notice this specific problem in logic, and until everyone actually cares about this kind of thing (and how many of us really do?), the 'green mentality' is doomed to be relegated to just one more useful tool in the corporate advertising machine.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
What is the Western World Coming To?
I thought the Nazi's lost WWII but apparently, in this world terrorized by the thought of terror, I'm wrong. In both the US and UK, street photography is strongly frowned on and, in some instances 'illegal'--by which I mean, the police will stop you, sometimes even confiscating your camera, and will make you delete your pictures. Just for taking photographs of public buildings, landmarks, interesting sites.
A few links to show you what I mean:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7351252.stm
http://www.vividlight.com/articles/3802.htm
http://www.alternet.org/rights/22084/
http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2005/05/23/public_photography_becoming_illegal
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/201207_b_illegal.htm
http://flickr.com/photos/21500190@N07/2167976932/
http://digg.com/security/Photographer_Told_Taking_Picture_of_Building_Illegal
I've recently moved to the UK. I thought that, although they had their idiosyncrasies, they were still better with human rights than the US. Now I'm not so sure.
Incidentally, you can check here: http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf for you rights as a photographer (unless they quote 'national security'. Then all rights go out the window).
Interestingly, in all cases it seems you are more likely to be accosted by the authorities if you look professional (ie: are using a 'real' camera vs. a cell phone)!? Does this strike anyone else as a little backward? After all, anyone looking to take clandestine photos would likely try and hide the fact. Although, in reality, any terrorist target is already going to have a million photos all over the net and probably the blueprints to go with it.
Does anyone still believe the 'allies' are winning the war on terror? How can we be when almost daily our rights are being stripped away. I'm sure this is how intelligent Germans felt as the Third Reich strengthened their grip on power, slowly stealing the basic rights and freedoms of the German citizens.
On the chance you believe the state and believe that the paranoia about terrorists is justified, I have the following questions for you (aimed at those living in western countries):
1) This year, how many people in your country have died unnatural deaths? How many of those deaths were due to terrorists?
2) In the last 10 years, how many people in your country have died unnatural deaths? How many of those deaths were due to terrorists?
#2 intentionally includes 9/11 to demonstrate a point. In the US, in the last 10 years there have been more than 160,000 murders ( http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm --that's a lower estimate as I was a bit lazy to add the yearly figures. The upper estimate of 9/11 deaths was 3000. That means that in the last 10 years 'murder' by terrorists accounts for less than 2% in the US (and that's not even factoring in deaths by car accident, accidental shootings, etc.). But financially, including the Iraq war (war on terror) it accounts for a huge percentage of the US budget (trillions).
Incidentally, in the UK, the murders by terrorists in the last 10 years is a much smaller percentage (approx. 60/8000 or approx. 0.75%).
We are killing ourselves at a much faster rate than 'they' (the terrorists) are, so why all the fear about 'them'?
In my opinion?
It's an excuse for a power grab, a convenient excuse to build to unreasonable levels in order to scare the people into handing over sweeping powers to the government. This is no conspiracy theory people, and this is not Orwell's 1984. This is real and it is happening now. And it is only the power of the people that can stop it.
Think I'm crazy? For all our sakes, I hope you're right.
A few links to show you what I mean:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7351252.stm
http://www.vividlight.com/articles/3802.htm
http://www.alternet.org/rights/22084/
http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2005/05/23/public_photography_becoming_illegal
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/201207_b_illegal.htm
http://flickr.com/photos/21500190@N07/2167976932/
http://digg.com/security/Photographer_Told_Taking_Picture_of_Building_Illegal
I've recently moved to the UK. I thought that, although they had their idiosyncrasies, they were still better with human rights than the US. Now I'm not so sure.
Incidentally, you can check here: http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf for you rights as a photographer (unless they quote 'national security'. Then all rights go out the window).
Interestingly, in all cases it seems you are more likely to be accosted by the authorities if you look professional (ie: are using a 'real' camera vs. a cell phone)!? Does this strike anyone else as a little backward? After all, anyone looking to take clandestine photos would likely try and hide the fact. Although, in reality, any terrorist target is already going to have a million photos all over the net and probably the blueprints to go with it.
Does anyone still believe the 'allies' are winning the war on terror? How can we be when almost daily our rights are being stripped away. I'm sure this is how intelligent Germans felt as the Third Reich strengthened their grip on power, slowly stealing the basic rights and freedoms of the German citizens.
On the chance you believe the state and believe that the paranoia about terrorists is justified, I have the following questions for you (aimed at those living in western countries):
1) This year, how many people in your country have died unnatural deaths? How many of those deaths were due to terrorists?
2) In the last 10 years, how many people in your country have died unnatural deaths? How many of those deaths were due to terrorists?
#2 intentionally includes 9/11 to demonstrate a point. In the US, in the last 10 years there have been more than 160,000 murders ( http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm --that's a lower estimate as I was a bit lazy to add the yearly figures. The upper estimate of 9/11 deaths was 3000. That means that in the last 10 years 'murder' by terrorists accounts for less than 2% in the US (and that's not even factoring in deaths by car accident, accidental shootings, etc.). But financially, including the Iraq war (war on terror) it accounts for a huge percentage of the US budget (trillions).
Incidentally, in the UK, the murders by terrorists in the last 10 years is a much smaller percentage (approx. 60/8000 or approx. 0.75%).
We are killing ourselves at a much faster rate than 'they' (the terrorists) are, so why all the fear about 'them'?
In my opinion?
It's an excuse for a power grab, a convenient excuse to build to unreasonable levels in order to scare the people into handing over sweeping powers to the government. This is no conspiracy theory people, and this is not Orwell's 1984. This is real and it is happening now. And it is only the power of the people that can stop it.
Think I'm crazy? For all our sakes, I hope you're right.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Global warming--hate to say 'I told you so', but...
...I did (see my December 10, 2007 entry). Four months ago, I told you that global warming was here to stay and all the well-meaning attempts at carbon-footprint reduction that the few hardcore greens were doing would mean precisely squat. Well, it now seems other scientists, economists, etc. have come to the same realization. As reported in the NY Times, online edition, today:
A Shift in the Debate Over Global Warming
Recommendations are now being made to the effect that, instead of focusing on reducing emissions, we need to focus on new, cleaner technologies. Why? Again, precisely as I said, because the numbers from recent years show that people are not reducing and fuel efficiency is actually decreasing globally. So *surprise, surprise* whatever reduction we attempt (geologically slow as our governments are) will be far too little far too late.
So get out your wet-suits and wax up your surfboards, cause the age of Aquarius is coming (Aquarius being the water bearer of the zodiac).
A Shift in the Debate Over Global Warming
Recommendations are now being made to the effect that, instead of focusing on reducing emissions, we need to focus on new, cleaner technologies. Why? Again, precisely as I said, because the numbers from recent years show that people are not reducing and fuel efficiency is actually decreasing globally. So *surprise, surprise* whatever reduction we attempt (geologically slow as our governments are) will be far too little far too late.
So get out your wet-suits and wax up your surfboards, cause the age of Aquarius is coming (Aquarius being the water bearer of the zodiac).
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