the shrewdness of apes

post-election memes, via friends' Facebook Status Updates:

joy
"[friend] cannot belive the overwhelming excitement on the streets tonight. It happened!!"
"[friend] is yesterday was a magical day."
"[friend] is so excited about the future. Wahoo!"
"[friend] is giddy!!!!"
"[friend] is WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!"

pride
"[friend] is so proud of Ohio going Blue and not Red"
"[friend] now lives in a blue state....how great is that!"
"[friend] s very proud to be an American. What a day. And for me personally, a long way from South Carolina in the 1970s. God bless America."

relief
"[friend] is relieved it wasn't all a dream :)"
"[friend] is so glad it wasn't all a dream."
"[friend] is relieved."

overconsumption
"[friend] has a hangover, a smile, and a healthy respect for Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight." (amen to that - i've been glued to that site for weeks)
"[friend] has the best hangover ever."
"[friend] had to teach class this morning with an election hangover (but was happy to do it!)"
"[friend] is intellectually hung over."
"[friend] has never been so happy to be so hung over."

patriotism
"[friend] has never felt so patriotic!"
"[friend] is proud to be an American for the first time in her adult life and can breathe again."
"[friend] is feeling very optimistic about the future of our country right now."
"[friend] is going to actually say the pledge of allegiance with his homeroom tomorrow for the first time."
(bonus from my sister-in-law: "I may even start saying the pledge again.")

retreating disbelief
"[friend] still doesn't think it's sunk in."
"[friend] It's still sinking in."

small dissatisfaction
"[friend] is so excited about yesterday, and can't describe what an amazing night it was in Harlem. But her heart is a little broken over Prop 8."
"[friend] is wtf prop 8??"
"[friend] - is Ted Stevens really going to win? Are we sure we don't want to let Alaska just go ahead and secede?"

there's some crossover between these, but i'm pretty sure i felt all of these at one time or another over the last 18 hours. but it's gonna be a long 76 days.

Posted by Jamie at 11:42 AM | Permalink

ohmygod, just when i thought she couldn't be any more pandering and just generally awfulawfulawful, Hillary has to go and make herself even more unpalatable. her campaign site was recently running a contest to have people choose the theme song for her campaign. i find it ridiculous that she doesn't even have the conviction to just pick her own song. no, she has to make sure that she gives herself plenty of wiggle room and minimal responsibility. i wonder if she even owns any actual albums or if she listens to nothing but motivational tapes. yes, i know it's all web 2.0 to have the masses all jammin' together, but even that feels like she's trying to co-opt something. whatever, the whole thing is only made more annoying by the presence of Smashmouth, Shania Twain, Jesus Jones (!?!) and 2 different U2 songs (goddam she can't even decide which U2 song to include!).

anyway, now she posts a video on the site to announce the winner, and of course it's a rip-off of the Sopranos finale with Bill (and a cameo by Johnny Sack), and of course it's just stilted and awful. and what ends up winning? Celine Dion! holy flipping Christ can it get any worse? yes it can because the song was not even on the original list of songs put up for vote. which means that either it was suggested as a write-in candidate (leaving yet another escape hatch open!) or that she went off the list thereby showcasing what terrible, terrible judgment she has. Celine mothereffin' Dion? whether it was chosen by Hillary and her staff or by a popular vote of supporters it just sums up everything about her candidacy that has me hoping against hope that someone will find a way to beat her come primary season.

please, Democrats, come to your senses. she is a dead end. a roadblock on the way to Progress. a ticket to a matinee of "More Politics as Usual". i understand the allure of an electable female candidate and i hate to agree with Rush Limbaugh about anything, but Hillary Clinton should not be our next president. and if you're looking for somewhere else to throw your support, might i suggest Bill Richardson? you know, someone who actually wants to get us out of Iraq (or did you forget that's why we elected all those Democrats back in November?).

Posted by Jamie at 06:25 PM | Permalink

in the constant battle over energy policy in this country, we've finally started to see some progress as Al Gore and Hollywood combined to push global warming to the fore, and the newly Democratic Congress considers bills with actual teeth. there's a good chance that we're going to see serious action on the issues of carbon emissions and renewable energy in the next year.

that said, the global warming deniers have enough ammunition (ridiculous and misinformed though it may be) without people like Gore and John Edwards giving them extra ammunition. first Gore has his own energy use questioned by groups who wonder why his 10,000 square foot Tennessee home has an average monthly electric bill of $1,200. then i read today that Edwards' new home near Chapel Hill is over 28,000 square feet and includes a recreational building and 11 bathrooms. how ridiculous is that? this guy likes to play up his working-class roots and is pushing for a new global warming treaty. and while i'd certainly vote for him over the sickening pandering of Hillary, he's not helping his cause here (at least with me)

so much of the global warming and pollution debate had focused on vehicles like Hummers, while buildings quietly account for 43% of carbon emissions in this country, compared to 32% for transportation. buildings really represent a significant opportunity to reduce energy use in this country because the technology and materials to make them more efficient already exist. and by building "green" you save money in the long run through energy savings and potential tax breaks, even if you pay a small premium up front. all those extra rooms to heat, cool and power are much more wasteful than the terrible gas mileage of an SUV.

i'm not saying that people can't live in any home they choose, just that anyone who is preaching the cause of environmentalism, emissions reductions and responsible consumption needs to seriously consider their own actions. plus, these vulgar and wasteful displays of wealth serve only to highlight the disparities between them and the average American, making their admonitions and exhortations ring hollow. no one is asking them to take a vow of poverty, but a little more walking the talk would be helpful. build a (smaller) Energy Star home. utilize green building materials. put some solar panels on the damn thing. show people that it's easy to do these things and that cutting consumption doesn't mean cutting back on quality of life, and that practicing resource conservation doesn't have to mean dropping out of society and living off the land.

for those interested, my organization is helping to organize a large public rally and installation called Sea of People on April 14th in Lower Manhattan. check out the website and come out and participate to encourage Congress to take action on climate change. i think it's going to be a pretty cool event.

Posted by Jamie at 11:46 PM | Permalink

weasel's had a bit of a run through on the whole Islam/Denmark cartoon dustup that has created this worldwide furor, and it was in thinking about who had the right to be upset and how these things are supposed to play out in a free and open society*. as it happens, i re-discovered the following thesis statement from a David Foster Wallace essay in which he reviews Bryan Garner's A Dictionary of Modern American Usage and talks about the state of the fight over what determines correct English usage. it seemed highly appropriate and so i'll reproduce it here:

"A Democratic Spirit is one that combines rigor and humility i.e., passionate conviction plus a sedulous respect for the convictions of others. As any American knows, this is a difficult spirit to cultivate and maintain, particularly when it comes to issues you feel strongly about. Equally tough is a DS's criterion of 100 percent intellectual integrity -- you have to be willing to look honestly at yourself and at your motives for believing what you believe, and to do it more or less continually.

This kind of stuff is advanced US citizenship. A true Democratic Spirit is up there with religious faith and emotional maturity and all those other top-of-the-Maslow-Pyramid-type qualities that people spend their whole lives working on. A Democratic Spirit's constituent rigor and humility and self-honesty are, in fact, so hard to maintain on certain issues that it's almost irresistibly tempting to fall in with some established dogmatic camp and to follow that camp's line on the issue and to let your position harden within the camp and become inflexible and to believe that the other camps are either evil or insane and to spend all your time and energy trying to shout over them.

I submit, then, that it is indisputably easier to be Dogmatic than Democratic, especially about issues that are both vexed and highly charged."

so how does that apply to the situation at hand - one in which neither side of the argument is particularly palatable? the mature/Democratic thought process would seem to prescribe that you allow for the cartoonists right to draw the cartoons and the newspapers right to print them while also acknowledging Muslims' right to be upset about being personified in such a grossly stereotypically, potentially hateful light. then the artists and newspapers refuse to apologize and some Muslims threaten and then execute violence in retaliation. so you have the overly permissive Dogma of Free Speech against the overly restrictive Dogma of Islam. but the problem is that Islam's Dogma at its most extreme levels refuses to recognize the right of differing viewpoints to so much as simply exist, whereas the extremist side of Free Speech contributes to a diversity of ideas and viewpoints. which is why i think that we can not let a small cadre of extremists shape the debate by shouting down those with whom they disagree and demanding vengeance. history is too fraught with religiously-backed violence. it's also too fraught with stereotyping/racism/mistreatment/genocide so we certainly have to guard against any indications of active persecution. there's more to say about this i'm sure, but i can't make it come out right.

* your humble author is all too aware that these adjectives don't describe a lot of the Muslim world and they may barely apply to the U.S. a lot of the time.

**UPDATE** - for a much more informed perspective, please read Daniel Radosh's coherent breakdown of this situation including the American media's standardly ham-handed attempts to cover it.

Posted by Jamie at 09:48 PM | Permalink

heard on the radio Friday: "certainly no one is talking about any sort of military strike against Iran." [paraphrased]

tonight's headline: "Senators say military strike on Iran must be option"

buckle up, everybody it looks like the Democracy Express has another stop to make. the fact that Bush has spent 4 years going after a faux-threat in Iraq while ignoring a serious threat in Iran seems like it will reflect poorly on him in the history books, successful elections or no.

elsewhere in failed U.S. policies of the past, Chile further cemented Latin America's full swing to the left, electing a socialist woman to the presidency continuing the tradition of leftist governments that have ruled the country since the illegally installed (with covert CIA help), human-rights violating murderer Augusto Pinochet stepped aside in 1990 after 17 brutal years in office. that legacy of attempted U.S. influence to resist Marxism of other left-of-the-spectrum governments south of the border continued into the 80s with the well-publicized, illegal sale of arms to Iran to help fund the Contras' insurgency in Nicaragua and has now come back to haunt us in the form of numerous heads of state who, to put it nicely, don't care for us very much (unless they can show us up by offering oil to low-income Bronx residents). meanwhile we're now trying to stop another insurgency from toppling a legally elected government in Iraq - an insurgency that might get help from Iran if they get pissed off (moreso) at the U.S. during this process. elsewhere, an angry Iran subjected to sanctions may also cause another rise in oil prices and/or encourage new attacks on the U.S. and Europe, neither of which would be particularly great for the economy. as Earl could no doubt explain to Nixonites and Reaganites in simple terms, karma's a bitch. let's just hope it doesn't decide to take us all out now that we have to try to prevent Iran from arming, rather than arming them covertly.

Posted by Jamie at 11:32 PM | Permalink

first, a happy new year to all of you out there in the land of apes. gotta get something up here for this month, so here goes.

my views on the diamond industry have been expressed in this space before, but this past week's expose in the NYTimes has revealed the seamy underbelly of the gold industry as well. the lede will give your the gist of it, but read the whole article to really get your dander up:

The closest most people will ever get to remote Papua, or the operations of Freeport-McMoRan, is a computer tour using Google Earth to swoop down over the rain forests and glacier-capped mountains where the American company mines the world's largest gold reserve.

What is far harder to discern is the intricate web of political and military ties that have helped shield Freeport from the rising pressures that other gold miners have faced to clean up their practices. Only lightly touched by a scant regulatory regime, and cloaked in the protection of the military, Freeport has managed to maintain a nearly impenetrable redoubt on the easternmost Indonesian province as it taps one of the country's richest assets.

so essentially, my feelings are that the entire jewelry industry is built on lies; either the lies that the companies are telling those regulating them, the lies the companies are marketing to get you to shell out hundreds and thousands and millions of dollars, or the lies that you're telling yourself and your loved ones about the state of purity of the jewelry itself, or the purity of feeling that the jewelry represents. perhaps that's an extremely cynical statement for this yearly time of renewal and hope, but these companies rival any others you could name in terms of evil in the service of profit, with the possible exception of those bastards at Genocide and Rape, Inc.

mining waste is one of the biggest sources of pollution in the U.S. and the world, as the byproducts of the extraction and refining processes result in the creation of acids and dangerous heavy metal compounds, especially those that contain lead and mercury. this page has more information on this, but here's the critical part: "The metal mining industry reported the largest total release of toxic chemicals, accounting for 45 percent of the nation's total, followed by the electric utilities industries with 17 percent and the chemical industry with 9.5 percent."

yet how often do we ever hear about the mining industry and its regulation or lack thereof? this points to the continuing importance of setting a goal of "Zero Waste" to reduce the waste stream and recapture and reuse all kinds of usable materials (especially the metals used in the electronics and the like), rather than continuing to send them to landfills and incinerators where they do nothing except sit there, or else leach into the water table. earlier this year, Seattle set a Zero Waste goal for itself, and there are groups working to adopt similar goals for New York. for ways that you can help achieve this goal in the coming months, go to NYCWastele$$ for lots of great ways to prevent waste before it becomes a problem.

Posted by Jamie at 04:38 PM | Permalink

things are getting interesting in the Republican controlled Congress these days as many of the the more moderate members feel they have more to gain from standing their ground on certain issues rather than blindly following the lead of Bush and Co. this played out in an interesting way this week as the House dealt with a budget bill that included drilling in the Arctic while the Senate Finance Committee faced the possible extension of Bush's welfare for millionaires, i mean "tax cuts".

normally i could care less about much of the inner workings of government, but i do have a very real interest in the issue of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) - a priority for Bush since he took office, as he has a lot of palms to grease in the energy industry. i'll set aside for now the ridiculousness of the hearings that Congress held on gas prices and the record profits of the world's largest oil companies in the 3rd quarter of '05 ($9.9 billion for ExxonMobil alone) that might actually be a harbinger of their doom. the fact of the matter is that we are fast reaching the tipping point where oil production will be unable to keep up with the demands of a rapdily growing world population, with resulting shortages and skyrocketing prices. U.S. oil production has dropped by 3 million barrels per day in the past 20 years (about 30%) while imports have risen from about 4 million to 12 million barrels per day during that time. this is where the ANWR comes in.

with fewer reserves of oil untapped, the energy companies are under increasing pressure to develop new sources. so for them, drilling in the pristine Arctic wilderness makes sense - they're attempting to ensure the long-term health of their companies. the problems arise when you start to take a look at just what new exploration and drilling in Alaska will actually produce. first, any production in the area won't likely begin until 2013 at the earliest, with peak production not reached until 2025 or so. keeping in mind that these are estimates that could easily be high or low, the best-case scenario for peak ANWR oil output is about 1.5 million barrels per day, with the average scenario predicting closer to 1 million. by 2025, we will be importing an estimated 70% of our oil. adding ANWR oil to the mix lowers that to 64% at best while also reducing any trading imbalace by $6-$15 billion. so basically we would be providing less than 10% of our actual oil needs while having a minute impact on world oil prices and our balance of trade. oh, and we'll need 10-20 years just to do that - time in which market forces will likely continue to wreak havoc on oil prices and time in which a more forward-thinking government might invest in resources that might still be around a century from now. oh, i almost forgot, it would also mean encroaching on one of the last few wildernesses that we have left. you know, polar bears and caribou and all that jazz.

so it was heartening to see a group of 22 Republican representatives refuse to back the budget bill before them until the provision for drilling in the ANWR were removed. this led to the House leadership pulling the budget off the floor entirely when many reps were still not sold on the cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, student loans and farm supports that were part and parcel of the bill. without those provisions, many hardline conservatives would not support the bill. meantime in the Senate, the permanent extension of the tax cuts could not get out of committee, and even a proposal to extend them for just a year did not get off the ground. again the hardliners were at odds with the more moderate sectors of the ruling party.

so where does this leave all of this legislation? it's hard to say. both sides of the Republican party seem unwilling to budge and there will also be the distractons of Supreme Court nominee hearings and a Defense bill that is getting contentious over the revelation of secret prisons ans suspension of due process. so i'm cautiously optimistic that the specter of Arctic oil drilling may be beaten back fr good and that the Democrats may be able to seize on their chance to turn the tide in next year's general elections. but i've been disappointed before and the Democrats have yet to offer anything resembling a cohesive policy vision, so there's still lots of room for things to go sour.

Posted by Jamie at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

attempts to alter (some might say censor) language and perceptions to be more sensitive and/or inclusive are derided by conservatives as politically correct. affirmative action is ridiculed as reverse discrimination and "quotas" that cater to minorities. and yet many of the same people who hold those beliefs have no problem derailing Halloween in schools, thereby forcing school districts to cater to a minority sensibility for fear of offending those who can't just let their kids play dress up and eat some candy because it's not in Revelation (which is plenty scary, actually) or the Qur'an.

Binghamton University philosophy professor Eric Dietrich sums up my feelings pretty well when he says, "Halloween is a flare-up of huge social problems we're facing. If you show me a United States with no holiday where you can be creatively weird, I will show you a United States with no hope."

Posted by Jamie at 01:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

this photo greeted me while reading up on today's violence in Iraq revolving around two undercover British soldiers who were stopped at a checkpoint and ended up shooting two Iraqi policemen. furious crowds in Basra attacked Britih soldiers resulting in the above picture. after the undercover soldiers were jailed, British forces stormed the jail with tanks to free the two men, alleged freeing up to 150 other prisoners in the process in what was called a ""barbaric, savage and irresponsible" act by Mohammed al-Waili, the governor of the province. British officials to this point refuse to even acknowledge how the soldiers were freed, though it doesn't seem like they'll be able to stonewall much longer. what the hell is going on over there?

on the non-violent corruption side of things, early indications are that the Iraq Defence Ministry has been robbed of over $1 billion - nearly 100% of the ministry's budget. this money was supposed to be providing the means for Iraqis to begin defending themselves, but instead was spent on 28 year-old helicopters from Poland that the manufacturers said should be scrapped after 25 years; knockoff guns worth about 1/20th what was paid for them; armored cars that could not stop bullets; and a Pentagon-style deal where 4 cent bullets went for 16 cents apiece. to quote from the article "The Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit says in a report to the Iraqi government that US-appointed Iraqi officials in the defence ministry allegedly presided over these dubious transactions." any chance that Halliburton is somehow involved in this down deep?

somehow, it gets even worse with reports that upwards of $500 million has also gone missing from the electricity, transport, interior and other ministries and that the grand total stolen may end up topping $2 billion.

news on the domestic front of Hurricane Katrina recovery is also littered with the abonimable policies of the Bush Administration. fortunately, Jim from Maine has the lowdown on that garbage (in brief: cronyism, no-bid contracts, elimination of quality work standards for rebuilding while reducing wages paid to construction workers, removal of preferences for small and minority-owned businesses). definitely worth a read if your rage quota remains unfilled for the day.

Posted by Jamie at 12:24 AM | Permalink

some people fight for equality while many others indirectly make a case for the need for improved public education.

progress
earlier this week, the Massachusetts Legislature voted overwhelmingly (157-39) to reject a constitutional ban on gay marriage in that state. this means that such a measure will not appear on ballots in 2006, and that equality under the law will continue indefinitely. some part of that rejection came from opponents of gay marriage who want a more restrictive amendment, though that will have to wait until 2008 at the earliest. and given how little furor there's been in the past year as over 6,000 couples have been married, i think it unlikely that a a more restrictive measure could possible pass, especialy given quotes like this one:

"Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry," said state Sen. Brian Lees, a Republican who had been a co-sponsor of the amendment. "This amendment which was an appropriate measure or compromise a year ago, is no longer, I feel, a compromise today."

meanwhile, Connecticut has passed a civil union law set to take effect next month, Rhode Island and CT may recognize gay marriages performed in Massachusetts, California has passed a same-sex marriage bill (about to be vetoed by the Governor), and Maryland has become the latest place where legal challenges hope to take down laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman.

setback
sitting at #2 on the most recent bestseller list is Kevin Trudeau's "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About", which has spent 13 weeks in the Top 150. this may seem like just another ripple the self-help pool filled with snake oil, but is actually much more insidious: Trudeau is a twice-convicted felon for check kiting and credit card fraud who has been banned from appearing in infomercials, has been prosecuted by 18 Attorneys General and the U.S. Postal Service. he's also a veteran of numerous multi-level marketing companies that are basically nothing but pyramid schemes. meanwhile, while Trudeau claims to be fighting a medical establishment that it for some reason sitting on the cure for cancer, his $30 book seemingly contains very little except plugs for his webiste, which costs another $10 a month to utilize. the New York State Consumer Protecton Board has denounced the book as a fraud. this part cracked me up:

�Throughout the book, Trudeau tries to fool readers into thinking he knows the cure for specific diseases when all Trudeau really offers are different theories on what causes an illness or a disease.�

�It�s like the old joke where a patient complains to a doctor that it hurt to lift his arm and the doctor says, �Then don�t lift your arm,�� said Chairperson Santiago. �Trudeau even has the nerve to tell that joke in his book � not once, but three times.�

you almost have to admire his audacity before remembering what a total douche he is. the author claims to have sold over 4 million copies, which like everything else he says is dubious. but at 13 weeks on bestseller lists, there's a significant number of these things out there contributing to the massive black hole of ignorance that is threatening to turn this country into a place from which no light can escape while Trudeau goes to sleep on his pile of money surrounded by many beautiful ladies. the people buying this book must be the same folks falling for the Nigerian e-mail scam. how do they keep earning money to then throw away?

Cockeyed.com has a long but rewarding series of e-mails regarding multi-level marketing as part of their ongoing quest to expose these schemes for what they are and the havoc they cause for many people.

Posted by Jamie at 03:52 PM | Permalink

the wife has already espoused the benefits of having the World Almanac in the house, so i won't go on at length about it except to say that even in this internet age, there's something about a reference book and it's segmented continuity that is especially pleasing to the left hemisphere of the brain. you never have to worry about pop-up ads or hyperlinks or plug-ins when you're reading a book.

so while flipping through the Almanac last week, there was a timeline of American history that led me to something i had never previously learned - the 1954 shooting at the U.S. Capitol carried out by Puerto Rican nationalists who shot off 30 rounds and injured 5 Congressmen. this is a huge story that - if my experiece is any indication - gets very little play in our schools and press and i have to wonder why that is. in these terror-addled times, it's almost calming to realize that this sort of thing was happening during an otherwise tranquil time in our history. perhaps that's why these things don't come up, because they poke holes in the "things were so much better/simpler/easier back then" nostalgia that we're constantly being spoonfed in order to sell us religions/wars/TV News*. or perhaps i'm simply in the minority for never having heard about it.

regardless, it seems pretty fascinating to me and the internet has proved its mettle by pointing me to several sources of information. i found an article from last year around the time of the 50th anniversary of the attack, the Wikipedia entry for ringleader Lolita Lebron and a copy of an article from last year's Washington Post Magazine about Lebron. amazingly, President Truman reduced the death sentences given to the perpetrators to life sentences. even more amazingly, President Carter pardoned them all in 1979 after 25 years in prison (some say the move was motivated by Cuba's release of several American prisoners around the same time). maybe that "soft on crime" label the Democrats have been lugging around for decades isn't so underserved after all. can you imagine something like that happening today? the outcry would be swift and overwhelming.

* my earlier praise for books was not so much nostalgia as simply pointing out how a book is a discrete, static entity that just feels different than reading on a computer. perhaps it is a function of my remembering a pre-internet world that for longer-form online pieces, i often prefer to print them out and read them in analog form. i find it easier to concentrate on what i'm reading that way. however, i certainly would not advocate for some sort of roll-back-the-clock Luddite Valhalla like some terrorists i could name.

Posted by Jamie at 01:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

anyone who counts themselves among those who are just exasperated with the current administration of this country and the direction in which it has us pointed should definitely not read this article about Bush & Co.'s continued efforts to avoid acknowledging global warming and/or doing something about it. an excerpt:

U.S. officials pressed negotiators to drop sections of the report that highlight some problems tied to global warming, warn of more frequent droughts and floods, and commit a specific dollar amount to promoting carbon sequestration in developing countries.

Instead, U.S. negotiators substituted a sentence that reads, "Climate change is a serious long term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe."

also not recommended for reading is this expose by Salon and Rolling Stone (who knew they still did anything that mattered?) about the coverup by the government and drug companies concerning the effects of mercury-based additives in vaccinations administered to infants. studies show that thimerosal is the likely culprit behind the epidemic of autism, hyperactivity and other neurological disorders in this country. yet, depsite this evidence, use of these vaccines continued until very recently in this country and are still being widely used in the 3rd world. meanwhile, there have been efforts in Congress (surprise!) to protect the drug companies from prosecution. again with the excerpts:

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line.

anyone else feeling a little pessimistic about the world today?

Posted by Jamie at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

i wanted to touch on an exchange that transpired on Listmaker regarding the assertions by some that Christmas/Christians are under attack by the godless, politically correct liberals and that there is these days less tolerance for their beliefs. setting aside that anyone who claims that Christians in this country are in any way being persecuted on a large scale is lying outright, one of the comments made by an avowed Christian (a non-Republican who nonetheless felt attacked when people objected to getting a copy of the New Testament with their newspaper) got me to thinking:

"I am going to make a point of letting everyone know how proud I am to be a Christian and how happy I am that Jesus was born so that the world could be saved and how much He loves each and everyone one of us."

to me, this is exactly where the impasse in this country comes from. far too many people operate under the impression that Christianity is the national religion of America (or as some like to say, that America is a "Christian Nation"). the fact that the majority of this country is Christian does not mean we are a Christian Nation. just like the fact that the majority of this country is white does not make us an Aryan nation.

while you may be very happy and proud to have accepted Jesus as your savior and that He plays an important role in your everyday existence, if you insist on bellowing that to every passerby, you're going to start getting ignored at best and shouted down at worst. if it's that important to you that you can't spend time with friends or go out in public and not bring it up, then you need to find people with whom you can share that common interest. i'm sorry if you feel like you need to "save" every last person on earth but there are many of us who have had the opportunity to weigh our options and make what we feel is an informed decision to forgo evangelicism and live our lives as best we can in accordance with our own morals which may or may not coincide with yours and we don't need a constant barrage of moral and salvational grandstanding from the true believers. you need to accept that for the U.S.A. to function as a pluralistic society, there have to be certain places (i.e. our government and other public institutions) where no set of beliefs is allowed to run roughshod over others and that the fact that this means that there are times when promoting religious beliefs is inappropriate does not mean that you are being attacked. you're simply being treated like everyone else. and really, the whole proselytizing thing smacks of condescencion considering the history of Christian missions that set out to civilize the "savages" who in many cases had their own historic, well-defined spirituality that was caustically tossed aside.

i have my own spiritual beliefs, but personally put a lot of faith in the logic of mathematics and science and believe that we need to foster a society that is more open, more understanding, more peaceful, more equitable and less selfish. that's my decision based on a lifetime of experiences and i'm quite frankly sick and tired of people who are systematically attacking and persecuting my belief system because it happens to conflict with their assertion that the earth is only 6,000 years old or that bling is king. i will argue and fight for my beliefs but i will not feel persecuted simply because someone disagrees with me. i also know that there are occasions when airing my views is not appropriate and that people don't want to hear me constantly going on about what i believe.

something to think about: this holiday season, people in the U.S. spent about $220 billion dollars which is four times the GDP of Ecuador. if Christmas is under attack from anything, it's from the triumph of commercialism over spirituality something of which even the most pious among us is likely guilty. if the season was truly about Jesus, wouldn't most of that money have gone to help the poor or to the victims of the deadly earthquake/tidal wave? (figures from Gregg Easterbrook's TMQ column which somehow manages to be about football and a million other things all at once).

Posted by Jamie at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

what does $10 billion dollars a year buy you? well if you're a US taxpayer and you're doing some holiday shopping at the Missile Defense store, there's plenty of failure for sale:

The first test in nearly two years of a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield failed on Wednesday when the interceptor missile shut down as it prepared to launch in the central Pacific, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said.
About 16 minutes earlier, a target missile carrying a mock warhead had been successfully fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska, according to a statement from the Missile Defense Agency.

In 2002, President Bush (news - web sites) pledged to have initial elements of the program up and running by the end of this year while testing and development continued.

Posted by Jamie at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

for those so inclined: please check out the new endeavor in which i am involved that aims for a bluer America - though perhaps the term "progressive" is a little more to the point. progressive in this case means creating jobs, insuring the health of all Americans, mitigating poverty, saving social security, cutting the deficit and just generally not acting like despots. should be a piece of cake - if you'd like to contribute, let us know and we'll get you set up. this space will continue to be a repository for the random time-wasting nonsense you've come to depend on.

Posted by Jamie at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

before heading off for the bucolic splendor of Vermont and the palatial HQ of the official brother of t.s.o.a., a couple quick things:

in the 70s, the Washington Post took down Nixon. now they subject us to this. you'll have to click through because it's so horrible that i can't even discuss how much it pains me. seriously, we're headed for another civil war.

on the bright side, the wife and i watched the documentary about They Might be Giants on Sundance last night which was very entertaining. lots of interesting stories and interesting people that they got to talk about the Johns from Brooklyn. i know not everyone loves their music, but you could do a lot worse for people to admire than a couple of guys who play because they love doing it and who are genuinely nice and down-to-earth.

have a great holiday all. this space will be re-occupied come Monday. and don't forget, Friday is Buy Nothing Day. travel safely.

Posted by Jamie at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

with all the real war in the world right now, not much has been said about the totally crap "war on drugs" that's been going on for over 20 years now. in fact, i don't think drugs or crime came up once during the election cycle. but the following paragraphs from a recent Black Table piece are all it takes to realize why some feel good "say no" campaigns and a bunch of draconian zero-tolerance, mandatory minimum shite completely miss the point:

It's been two years since I last did heroin, but I know if someone were to walk in with works and a bag, I would have that needle in my arm before you could say HIV. I miss it. Sometimes I wonder how I have gone this long without even dosing once. And I look forward to a time when I can dose again. I even know when that day is, and I am counting down. It's not until April though, so I have a while to wait. You might ask, "Why would you quit for two years only to take another shot?"

I'm not going to pretend that heroin is okay -- most people who develop a real addiction to heroin never quit. I don't know the exact statistic, but I know this previous statement is true. I am lucky to have been born with the willpower I have, and as stated previously, I only know of one other functional addict. I'm lucky to remember what I wanted before heroin. And what I want from life is much bigger and better than one small moment of heroin bullshit. But that one small moment of bullshit is something that I can't get out of my head.

as Bill Hicks said: "George Bush says 'we are losing the war on drugs'. Well you know what that implies? There's a war going on, and people on drugs are winning it! Well what does that tell you about drugs? Some smart, creative motherfuckers on that side." But hey, I guess building more prisons is good for the economy.

Posted by Jamie at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

after reading Andrew Sullivan's comments via CSTB, i thought i would reprint the text from an e-mail i sent earlier today:

i think Jon Stewart summed it up well last night when he said "i think in the
end, it just comes down to guys kissing" or words to that effect. put another
way, he said (speaking as a conservative) "we don't much care for 'Will &
Grace', so take this". that's the only "values" argument that can be made by
the conservative side considering that anyone with a 3rd grade education can
see that this president's "values" include lying, war-mongering, plundering and
lying some more. the Republicans certainly have little regard for the well
being of many of the people that vote for them - their jobs are being lost and
the rolls of the insured continue to shrink as corporations are allowed to run
the country more and more. but if you surround all this crap with Jesus, it's
like moths to the flame.

i know some people take offense at this notion, but the more i've been thinking
about it, the more the gay rights movement is very similar to the racial rights
movement that took decades to play out. one look at the red states is all it
takes to realize that the battle lines are almost exactly the same. meanwhile,
gay marriage bans are popping up across the country much as inter-racial
marriage bans did last century. the big difference in this case is the way so
much of the argument is tied up in religious dogma that there's very little way
to combat. like the Muslim fundamentalism that contributes to the violence and
hatred in the world, so does Christian fundamentalism (a bit more indirectly).
but whereas most Muslims try to distance themselves from the jihadists, most
Christians are only all too happy to line up behind those who would do
injustice to the teachings of Jesus.

---

as pissed off as i have been the past two days, moving to another country isn't the answer. but what is? how do we effectively achieve change to make this country better? the Democrats certainly don't know - they couldn't be more lost and there's no way America is electing Obama president. but we're seemingly stuck with them. should we all start running for office?

Posted by Jamie at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

i haven't been able to come up with anything that doesn't make me sound smarmy, self-righteous, elitist or all of the above. and really, the whole thing is just too sad for words. i'll be talking about anything else as much as possible for the next 4 years.

Posted by Jamie at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Jesus would never vote for Bush. courtesy of Woody Guthrie:

Let's have Christ for President.
Let us have him for our King.
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
that you call the Nazarene.

But with the Carpenter on the seat
away up in the capital town
The USA would be on the way prosperity bound!

Posted by Jamie at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

with the MTA heading into dire fiscal straits despite the recent fare hike, here's a piece of electioneering to remember during the next gubernatorial and mayoral elections here in NYC (from the Daily News):

Because no one has any idea where all that money will come from, the entire transit system is lurching toward a financial crisis. Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg are the two men most responsible for the MTA's current policy of "borrow now and figure out how to pay for it later." But until now they've somehow managed to escape any blame for this mess. Pataki exercises the most power over the MTA because it is a state agency and he appoints its chairman. Bloomberg is next in influence because he appoints four members of the regional authority's 18-member board. Both men have sharply reduced state and city contributions to the MTA's capital fund, forcing the agency to either borrow money or let the system decay. Under Bloomberg, the city's contribution to the MTA's capital budget dropped to $75 million annually - the lowest in 20 years. As recently as 1986, Albany supplied 20% of the MTA's capital budget. But during Pataki's three terms as governor, those contributions have dropped to almost nothing, according to state Controller Alan Hevesi.

"The MTA's broke," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign.

despite the fact that New York City has the largest mass transit system in the country with 7 million riders a day, we totally get the shaft when it comes to allocation of funds - just like in the allocation of anti-terror funds. the MTA tries to do the right thing (though their accounting procedures leave something to be desired) by investing in capital improvements to keep the system in good shape and running smoothly, but the lack of federal, state and local government funding will leave working class commuters to bear the burden of constant fare increases (the federal government stopped providing funds to NYC Transit in 1998).

this report from 1999 presciently predicted "NYC Transit's fiscal condition could deteriorate significantly over the 2000-2003 period. This would occur if revenues from dedicated taxes fall back to more normal levels and the need to increase service to relieve overcrowding makes further reductions in expenses harder to achieve."

Posted by Jamie at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

one less thing to hector me about: my voter registration info showed up in the mail over the weekend, and i may now participate in electing a wealthy white man to the highest office our country has. but with Kerry a shoo-in to win New York, do i swap my vote to a Nader supporter in another state in exchange for them voting for Kerry? i think i just might.

Posted by Jamie at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (33)

i like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, and this film presents a good one (the upshot for you low-bandwidth, non-click-thru types: whatever happened at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, there's no way that whatever hit the building was an extremely heavy 757 jumbo jet carrying 5300 gallons of fuel. many witnesses described seeing a smaller commuter-style plane and hearing what sounded like "a missile", while the FBI confiscated surveillance videos from nearby businesses and has not released them, etc.). but what are they saying actually happened? that it was the missle that did the damage? that a bomb went off at the moment of impact? that the whole thing was set-up by the government? the film is pretty vague and therefore ultimately rings hollow, even though there are aspects of it that seem plausible. if we're taking this administration down, we need evidence and conclusions. speaking of which, why haven't we been able to unearth some guy Georgie used to do lines with back in the day? wouldn't that pretty much seal it? if John Kerry had so much as once contemplated buying a hempen hawaiian shirt, wouldn't Rove & Co. be splashing that all over the news?

at any rate, seeing this made me think that Radosh.net was right on yesterday with this line: "even if you don't buy the conspiracy, the poll proves that that the 9/11 commission, widely lauded as a complete success in explaining what went wrong, actually failed dismally."

Posted by Jamie at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

while we're talking about things that are completely not shocking, how about the fact that most of the money going into Iraq is ending up in the pockets of US companies. from today's Washington Post:

Analysis....shows that 19 of 37 major contracts funded by Iraqi money went to U.S. companies and at least 85 percent of the total $2.26 billion was obligated to U.S. companies. The contracts that went to U.S. firms may be worth several hundred million more once the work is completed.

Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., a subsidiary of Halliburton, was paid $1.66 billion from the Iraqi money, primarily to cover the cost of importing fuel from Kuwait. The job was tacked on to a no-bid contract that was the subject of several investigations after allegations surfaced that a subcontractor for Houston-based KBR overcharged by as much as $61 million for the fuel.

i wonder how much of the "economic recovery" we're experiencing is directly related to war expenditures and revenues? i also wonder if maybe Bush & co. weren't secretly excited to be going in without our European Allies so there would be less comeptition for the rebuilding $$$ necessary to get Iraq back up and running. here's a little more:

The CPA's inspector general found in audits released last week that the occupation failed to establish "effective funds controls and accountability" for hundreds of millions of dollars that were held in cash. In fact, the investigative unit said, the keys to one of the safes that held the cash was "kept in the disbursing officer's unattended backpack."

It also studied 60 disbursements from assets seized from the former regime and found that no documentation existed for five of them, totaling $99.1 million in payments. Paperwork had not been properly filled out for items such as furniture, carpets and vases, meaning, the inspector general said, that the CPA was not able to ensure that the assets "would be available for the use and benefit of the Iraqi people."

Posted by Jamie at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to the advice of the military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who upholds the Constitution of the United States."

John, you actually managed to move me, which i wasn't sure you were capable of. now to quote Oakland Raiders head honcho and certifiable lunatic Al Davis: "Just win, baby!"

Posted by Jamie at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

now that the whole VP thing is settled, do we really have four more months until this election? that simply seems wrong. and what happens if Bush somehow wins? is anyone properly prepared for that possibility? meanwhile, this week's Onion pretty much sums up my current state of mind:

"With so many right-wing shams to choose from, it's simply too daunting for the average, left-leaning citizen to maintain a sense of anger," said Rachel Neas, the study's director. "By our estimation, roughly 70 percent of liberals are experiencing some degree of lethargy resulting from a glut of civil-liberties abuses, education funding cuts, and exorbitant military expenditures."

Posted by Jamie at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Bush - We are saddened greatly by the death of former President Reagan. But this administration had no advance warning of his death. Had we known, we would have certainly done everything in our power to prevent this unfortunate event. There may have been a memo that mentioned his Alzheimer's affliction, but if there was, it was produced before we had any indication that his death may have been imminent. And anyway, that memo was simply informational and contained no actionable items. Rest assured that this administration is devoted to seeking out and destroying this evil-doing disease in order to protect this nation and its ex-presidents. I would also like to take this chance to announce that we will be slapping Ronnie's name all over town in tribute to the fact that he was too senile by 2000 to tell everyone what a shit I was during the 80s. The White House will now be called Reagan Manor and will be located at 1600 Ronald Reagan Avenue. Also say hello to the Reagan Monument, Reagan River and Ronald X Park.

Kerry - It's a great tragedy when a nation loses a former leader. But even at a drooling, vegetative 93 years old, Ronald Reagan was twice the president that George W. Bush is. Under a Kerry administration, the health and safety of all of this great nation's former presidents would be our number 1 priority. But we would not act unilaterally, imposing our will simply because their was a rumor that Gerald Ford has a head cold. We will seek to amass solid evidence and intelligence and work with our allies in the UN and elsewhere to ensure the proper support. And we will hold ourselves to a standard of conduct and health that we can be proud to show to the rest of the world. What good is it to cure cancer if we have alienated our friends in Europe in the process? We won no friends wiping out Rubella in Vietnam in the 70s I can assure you. So in commemoration of this day, I would like to outline my rollback of this administration's self-serving tax cuts for the rich: the Ronald Reagan Memorial Fat Cat Tax Hike. Trickle down on this, Ronnie!

Posted by Jamie at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

i don't know whether this will end up being delightful satire or bland liberal hectoring (the caricature of Katherine Harris gives me my doubts), but i've signed up to see either way: Republican Survivor courtesy of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. the tagline* could use a little tidying up, but the image of a naked Dick Cheney playing frisbee on the beach was rather amusing. (thanks to Kristie)

in the good news department, here's some of the latest poll numbers in the "battleground" states. Kerry leads in most of them, in some cases by even more than the margin of error. what the hell has happened in New Hampshire?

* "a destination for Democrats who need a quick break from the serious issues facing the country, who want to laugh a bit at the folks on the other side, and who want to do it by playing around with cartoons and games."

Posted by Jamie at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

a study of two headlines from today's NYTimes.

first, the lead story which should have been run with a sub-head saying "No Shit, Sherlock": Bush Lays Out Goals for Iraq: Self-Rule and Stability.

second, from the Sports section, and a story about Smarty Jones: A Simple Strategy for Smarty: Arrive Early, Win Belmont (nb: the online version has a new, different headline from the print version).

while the similarity is fairly obvious, what is the difference? well those training the horse understand this basic concept: your goals and plan to achieve them should spelled out before you enter into the contest. you know, before the money or people's lives are actually on the line. it took Bush & co. 14 months to come up with this worthless plan and a speech that leaves many questions unanswered? and they're still trying to peddle this whole "[Iraq is] the central front in the war on terror" farce? how arrogant and idiotic can these people be? they make Michael Moore look demure by comparison. it all simply leads to the conclusion that his poll numbers haven't even come close to bottoming out yet.

Posted by Jamie at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

here's something i'm sick of: athletes getting in trouble for making "war" references when talking about an upcoming game. have we reached the point where metaphors are not allowed any more? is this only inappropriate because we have troops fighting overseas right now? i don't recall big stinks being made pre 9/11 when guys talked about "getting ready to do battle" or things along those lines. and anyway, can anyone tell me when the last time there was no war going on somewhere in the world? it would have to be measured in the hundreds, if not thousands, of years. according to this, two people are dying every minute in a conflict somewhere in the world. how about using some of your righteous indignation where that is concerned? chill out, people. we know it's just a game, they know it's just a game, so just get back to stifling criticism and dissent and stop worrying about what's coming out of some power forward's mouth.

UPDATE, 2:20pm: unbeknownst to me, CSTB was already all over this last night.

Posted by Jamie at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

could anyone have predicted that the media sources who would finally step it up against this corrupt and morally bankrupt regime we call a presidency would be The New Yorker and 60 Minutes II? The Washington Post has some 'splaining to do.

Posted by Jamie at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

if you live in New York (hell, even if you don't), t.s.o.a. urges you to send in your support for the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) which "would require New York state to draw 25 percent of its electricity from clean renewable resources such as wind, solar and fuel cells by the year 2013." the Natural Resources Defense Council has already written the letter for you, and comments are due by May 14th.

Posted by Jamie at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

too many rants and not enough raves today, plus real work is rudely intruding on the week with no signs of stopping before the weekend. which is too bad because this would have been a great week to recover from a weekend that included: over 24 hours spent in a car; meeting numerous in-laws and being relentlessly attacked by nephews aged 7 and 10 with no respect for the groin region; a shower that smelled of sulfur when turned on, rendering any therapeutic effects null and void; mayonnaise consumed at every meal.

rants: disney sucks (and they're dragging ESPN down with them); i must now refrain from seeing Spiderman 2; the Red Sox and Yankees are now tied atop the AL East.

raves: the new Defamer blog (Nick Denton's entry into LA) has some promise; i'm going home.

bonus UPDATE rave: CVS slightly less evil than originally thought

Posted by Jamie at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

while waiting in line for my lunch, the guy behind me noticed i was reading something football related. he asked if i had heard about the former NFL player who was just killed during fighting in Afghanistan. i said i had and we chatted for a few moments about what a tragedy it was, this player giving up millions of dollars because he felt an obligation to go fight for his country. then he said something that gave me some great insight into the American political climate:

y'know, a lot of people don't understand what's really going on over there. 'cause if we lose over there, they're coming here next.

fortunately my food was handed to me at that point and i was able to scramble away with a quick "so long". as i walked, i couldn't decide what was the biggest problem with that declaration. the fact that "they" are already here most likely; the fact that "they" was so vague as to be meaningless; the fact that the domino theory is still being cited 30 years after Vietnam; the implication that the U.S. was not the agressor in deposing two governments (the desirability of each not withstanding); or the fact that i wanted to escape rather than try to talk to him.

but it reinforced for me that fear is powerful, and that the polls don't lie: there's still a ton of support for a president who could care less if what he's saying is truthful so long as its pandering and/or designed to belittle any criticism; who conducts every press conference with a smirk on his face like he just pissed in your pool and got away with it; who graduated from one of the finest institutions on earth, yet has more trouble communicating than my dog; whose extremist Christianity could give extremist Islam a run for its money from a suppressing freedom standpoint; who believes that the government should not have to protect the environment because, you know, companies can be counted on to do the right thing.

with each passing day, and each sign of "economic recovery" (note to self: check value of 401(k)), i become increasingly concerned that we could be in another 4 years of this bullshit that makes the previous bullshit look like chocolate ice cream. i swear, if i somehow end up with a son like Alex P. Keaton, i'm selling him to the gypsies. you could do a lot worse than that Meredith Baxter Birney in the wife department, though.

Posted by Jamie at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

New York City finally resumes its full on recycling program today with the return of glass recycling and pickups on a weekly basis. this is especially heartening given the amount of beer and pickles consumed in the t.s.o.a. household.

the cutbacks made two years ago were supposed to save money, though that ignores the fact that NYC has to pay other states to take our trash since Fresh Kills closed. less recycling = more trash = higher costs. not to mention how it helps to reinforce the city's image as a trash haven where dumpster juice flows through the gutters at all hours. the idea of charging people based on the amount of trash they produce is great, and would actually make people pay attention to their recycling habits as well as the packaging of the products they buy. of course, it's a challenge when you have so many multi-family dwellings, but it's worth looking into in order to save the city money that could be better spent on a 2nd Avenue subway or making sure thousands of 3rd graders aren't held back in school.

Posted by Jamie at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

apparently you can create your own custom Bush/Cheney posters that say whatever you want. well, not quite whatever as they've blocked out a number of words, but there's still a ton of comic potential here.

via Wonkette. i recommend that you go read some of the posters already submitted with taglines like "because Nixon's still dead" etc.

Posted by Jamie at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

the t.s.o.a. math corner is gonna work a couple things out here based on what we read in this article in today's NYTimes about Saudi oil production.

Saudi Arabia currently produces about 8 million barrels of oil a day, which is described as "roughly one-tenth of the world's needs". They also have a proven reserve of 250 billion barrels, which is "one-fourth of the world's total". OK, so that means that the world goes through about 80 million barrels a day, and that there are 1 trillion barrels out there to be harvested (this total is borne out in this Department of Energy chart).

if we go with these numbers on their face, we can see that 80 million x 365 = 29.2 billion barrels of oil used worldwide each year. 1 trillion barrels in reserves/ 29.2 billion barrels per year = 34.25 years before all that oil is gone.

this of course assumes two things: 1. that oil consumption does not rise - which it is projected to do; 2. that no new reserves are found - very unlikely given the motivation of oil companies and governements. but the kicker is that many billions of dollars need to be spent to locate and extricate those theoretical untapped reserves. but those dollars could just as easily go to developing technology that will allow us to stop using oil almost altogether, which seems pretty smart given that the oil is going to run out eventually anyway. even if we find more can we really expect to depend on it for more than the next 50 years? since we know this now, wouldn't this be the best time to prepare for an oil-free future?

the US Geological Survey estimates about 8 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in the Arctic National Wildllife Refuge. that would extend the world's supply by 100 days at current consumption rates. insert righteous indignation here.

while researching this entry we came across this disturbing piece of knowledge: the group running the ANWR website is unabashedly pro oil development. what little information about the refuge exists on the site simply talks about very few people visit and how it is "unbearable cold and dark" for most of the year. it's not a refuge for people, you jackasses.

Posted by Jamie at 12:34 PM | Permalink

4 years ago, Ralph Nader galvanized a sizable number of voters (2+ million), especially those of my generation, to send a message which essentially boiled down to "politics sux". i think a lot of people, even Nader supporters, were surprised at how many people felt that they couldn't find a voice within the two party system. and Nader could have garnered a lot more support if many Democrats hadn't been worried about Bush winning which he didn't, but he did. i think this is largely the same group of people who pushed Howard Dean to the front of the Democratic class for a few months before his demented Iowa cowboy speech.

so now, in the face of super liberals Dean and Kucinich having been relegated to the dustbin, Nader is suiting up again to bring the government back to the people. too bad it's never going to happen, at least not this year. i like Ralph, and i think that he brings a lot of good issues to the table, but i think the last election cycle made pragmatists out of many idealists. certainly, the last 3+ years have taught the lesson that there are most certainly discrete levels of evil and that Bush is a couple rungs lower than maybe we thought.

this country was founded by government, not by business, and while neither Kerry nor Edwards would be a cure-all for the woes inflicted by corporate profiteers on our citizenry, neither would Nader, so let's just make sure that Bush is dispatched, OK?

Posted by Jamie at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

the phone rings at 8:30pm last night and almost before i can eke out a "hello" the software on the other end kicks in and a digitized man is bellowing "hi, this is Bill Ritter from WABC and we're asking you to spend about a minute answering some questions for us."

super. a chance for me, the little guy, to make my voice heard. to have a say in shaping the American political landscape by being lumped in with a couple thousand other demographically diverse people who are capable of pushing a few buttons on their phone. and then the lies started.

now i wasn't intentionally trying to skew their results, but i know how these things work and if i didn't want to be cast down with the "undecideds" and the "unregistereds", decisive action was necessary. so lie number 1: "are you registered to vote in New York?" sure thing, Bill! ok, so i'm not registered, but i did try to register when i got my New York driver's license a few years back, but the paperwork never got processed for some reason, which is less surprising every time i have deal with a government agency in this city.

lie number 2: "are you registered as Republican, a Democrat, or as an independent or with another party?" Democrats all the way! yes i tried to register as an independent during my failed attempt to become a full member of the electorate, but i hardly see how that's relevant here. independents don't get to vote in primaries and no one cares about them until November.

lie number 3: "how likely are you to vote in the upcoming primary?" very likely apparently. after all, many of the poll results are often given as such: "well, among likely voters, Dennis Kucinich appears to be about as popular as a $100 handjob." and i am jazzed up about these elections - i think a Kerry/Edwards ticket can blow bush out of the water, but the truth is that the nomination may be all but sewn up by then rendering the voting process significantly less exciting. so not only am i not registered, and not a Democrat, but i might not vote even if i were.

then there was the last question, which was prefaced by Bill telling me "we know this question is sensitive to some people, but in order to make sure we are accurately representing the New York City area, please tell us if you are: 1) Hispanic/Latino/Mexican; 2) African-American; 3) Caucasian; 4) Asian-American or some other race?" why are all other races lumped in with people of Asian descent? that doesn't seem horribly scientific. but this one i answered truthfully.

sorry, Mr. Poll Designer. i know you do your best to make these mean something, and to eliminate the kind of error and unreliability i introduced, but i couldn't help myself. but i'll watch for the results tonight at 6pm on NewsChannel 7! and don't worry, by the time November rolls around, i'll be a card carrying Democratic voter, ready to exercise his right to choose those who will represent his interests. after all, there's a first time for everything, even if this will be the second time a bush loses out after only 1 term.

Posted by Jamie at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

i didn't plan to keep harping on this, but the quest to waste money continues! a base on the moon? manned trips to mars? how has it come to this? i believe we have truly succumbed to the sci-fi geeks. literally, the best reason i can think of to send a person to mars is because Bush must think "well, they did it in the movies!" now we've got all these Star Trek-addled engineers and physicists with control over NASA's checkbook planning to search other planets for signs of the Lost Tribe of Menarche, who will undoubtedly submit to their every whim. warp speed Mr. Sulu!

and just when i was ready to give Bush some credit for his immigration initiative, even if it is fairly blatant election-year posturing and pandering to the Hispanic community. it would at least have helped members of the lower tax brackets.

meanwhile, thanks to Phil and Claire for info regarding the very first Washington, DC Presidential Primary, being held next Tuesday with the intention of drawing attention to the lack of equal congressional representation for DC residents. while it will be the first primary in the nation, it is non-binding and features only 4 of the Democratic candidates, of whom only Dean has any shot at winning (the others are Moseley-Braun, Sharpton and Kucinich). so how does this bogus vote draw attention to the plight of DC residents, when polls show that most Americans don't even realize that DC doesn't have equal representation? considering that most Americans also seem to be unaware of this vote taking place, i would dare say "it doesn't." Phil makes the good point that holding a vote concerning the presidency may have the opposite of the intended effect to many casual observers who will probably hear about the results and just assume that people in DC get to vote for all the same things they do.

at any rate, t.s.o.a. loves the "taxation without representation" license plates in DC, and especially loved it when lame duck Pres. Clinton decided to put them on the presidential limo.

Posted by Jamie at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

please forgive the policitization, but the front page of the NYTimes had another provocative photo today. in it the prime ministers of Pakistan and India wave to a crowd after agreeing to restart peace talks between the two nations.

but what might be more shocking than this diplomatic about face is that while they wave, the two men are clearly holding hands. could you imagine president bush holding hands with another world leader under any circumstances that didn't involve him about to fall over a cliff? what kind of reaction would there be if he and jacque chirac held hands in front of the UN Security Council? bill o'reilly would have a field day and the democrats might start looking forward to November. yet here are two men who run volatile countries that aren't exactly at the forefront of homosexual acceptance clutching each other as if it were de rigeur.

so why, in this queer-eye-era of US history, do i feel the need to point this out? i guess because it was the first thing i noticed about the photo. and that in turn made me realize how far we still have to go in this country when it comes to acceptance on a subconscious level. we can date lesbians and grill our gay friends about their latest nerve.com crushes, but the sight of two women kissing or a man in a miniskirt will continue to turn heads and wag tongues. and athletes will continue to spout slurs at each other while their gay colleagues remain closeted for fear of being ostracized.

and yes, i know that nerve.com reference is already dated.

Posted by Jamie at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

sorry marc, but here's the caption from a picture on the front page of today's NYTimes that shows two NASA guys in 3-D glasses looking at pictures: "The images gave scientists a clearer view of a circular depression that Spirit [the Mars rover] may be sent to explore." it's a freaking impact crater!! we have those on earth and it wouldn't cost us $1 billion to investigate them. and we also don't feel the need to give them stupid names like "sleepy hollow" (so named because the scientists were sleepy when they first saw it. awww). we already spent hundereds of millions on two botched probes to Mars in the late 90s, and now we're planning on spending who knows how much more on future missions in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011.

t.s.o.a. is calling bullshit on this whole endeavor, especially since much of the stated goals seem to be "to study the weather and climate" of Mars. we can't even predict the weather on earth, nor do we really know much about the processes of long-term climate change. has Lyndon LaRouche finally infiltrated the government?

Posted by Jamie at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)