I'm watching this live -- this "Live Earth" or whatever it's called -- on the Sundance channel. So far this morning I've watched Robert (gag) Redford, Snoop Dogg and Bianca Jagger in Hamburg. Bianca just read something about how we have to act quickly to save the butterflies and flowers and now an army of children are calling us to arms in a variety of languages. It's like so moving.

Not.

But it does call to mind (if not to arms) the old saw about giving up the child until he is seven...

You and me and mother nature...

now the breakdancing part...

and the ululation part...

And I'm sitting here trying to remember what happened to the Biafran, Ethiopian, Farm, Katrina, Bangladesh, Hands Around the World, etc. concerts to save all the suffering whosits. This time it's a really big goal -- the earth. Next... Live Mars? Live Pluto? Live Sun??? I understand she's burning out though not without a last minute global heat wave.

Let's save the polar bears.

Let's save our children's children.

Now we're at Wembley in England and a video is playing with camels walking across the desert sand. The burning desert sand. Fireballs on the horizon. Maybe John Williams did the funeral dirge-like piano score to this li'l piece. Argh.

Oh well, maybe each person watching will buy one ugly blue-cast fluorescent lightbulb and well, then all the upcoming death by global warming will be avoided. Maybe if most of the people watching go on eBay and get one of those "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" bags the disaster will be averted. But let's face it. The best we can hope for is to postpone the inevitable and the devastation will take that much longer to 86 the planet. Any way you look at it, we're doomed. Hell in a hand basket. It's gonna be rough. And HOT. But let's rock until that time!

Jesus, Mohammed someone come down and save us...

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Now that does sound like a show, Chris! 

I am so heartened to read this article where Bob Dylan is referenced as to global warming.  And Roger Daltry too!  Good stuff follows:

July 06, 2007

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

It always struck me, the way environmentalism only became mainstream when MONEY got in line.

I mean, if they are to adress these important issues, why do they first have to convince us with the economic repercussions?

I thought the environment had to do with clean air and water and soil and healthy animals and plants to live in them, not some stupid novelty bag, eco-friendly SUVs or conscience-laden congressman with a newfound agenda...

Why do we have to translate this in terms of economy? Money serves, not the other way around. Money should take the back seat, doesn't it sound almost passé to think in terms of money? Consider a second: what would money do? Especially when corruption is in... What good does it serve you to pile stocks of gold, when the day you need that money, you are told that no, this money serves for this, that, basically stuff that help keeping the decrepit system in place, no more...
Since almost 100 years, the economic agenda has been pushed at the expense of everything else.

In 100 years we'll be mad with our money that's worth nothing...only good to buy more crap from Bestbuy. I'm serious: I am tired of this medieval system. When the 21st (century?)

It's easy to dismiss something that is too big to get ahold of than to actually consider this thing and the day we all have the proof under our big vacant eyes, that day we can all eat our money and drink our oil because that day it might mean we are in the middle of the crisis, once again we could see it coming but, no, we could not move our lazy asses, we simply could not. Inertia rules. "Let's stay the teenagers at heart that we are!" We collectively aspire to a good, plain kick in the teeth about how bad things are run around here, and about how we didn't react in time.

Yeah I guess I'll go take a smog-bath instead and catch a respiratory ailment in the meantime.

Anyway, keep it basic.

PS Liberals are humans too. Don't know if that can help, though.

The sound wind makes through the pines. The sentience of animals. What we fear and what lies beyond the darkness.

Sigh. I'll give it a shot. Money. Coins and bills. Stocks, hedge funds, mutual funds, bonds. They are only symbols for exchanges of goods. it doesn't have to be money. It could be beads. Or bags of flour. Sugar. Diamonds. Tulips. It doesn't really matter what the item of exchange is. What matters is that humans live among others. Some have more of one thing than others. It could be more water, more oil, more arable soil, more brain power, more human resources, or more natural resources. Best case scenario, those who need will work out a fair exhange. But since best case scenarios rarely last too long before someone figures out it's easier to get the edge on another -- get more for less -- then tempers flare. Could be war. Could be a hostile takeover. Could be higher taxes. Tariffs. Price controls. Strikes.

Whaddever. The beat goes on. Remember the New Testament story about Jesus and the money changers? Same old, same old.

Don't be frustrated with the nature of man. Desire for goods is not just a symptom of the past one hundred years. It's the nature of the beast for time immemorial to want a little (or a lot) more than is actually necessary to survive. These desires fuel the creativity of the best minds to come up with ever newer products (that cost money, yes, but employ workers) that improve the overall quality of everyone's lives. This begins with figuring out how to the move water through aqueduct systems, to building of durable roads to transport goods and people, to building of faster more durable sailing vessels, chariots, then later trains, planes and space shuttles. All of this costs money unless you use slaves. But slaves cost money too and were functionally another commodity.

It's unavoidable.

Making a personal decision that you want less is fine. Makes life simpler. But others may have a different idea of how to design a life and have less trouble managing their toys. For example there are those who eschew all electronic devices. No computer, no cell phone, no microwave, no DVD, no iPod, no digital cameras, no navigation system, no Sirius radio, no plasma screen HDV widescreen TV with TiVo. Actually sounds good!  Others have the cutting edge items the moment they come on the market. Some actually excel at their use and make those products work for them. Some others buy them and then don't take the time to learn HOW to use them; or are unable to figure out a use; or force themselves to use it even though they prefer the earlier incarnation of an item. (I did this with the old Casio datebook before the battery died taking with it all my data) The marketplace will eliminate the useless gimicky stuff though. But the entire economy of a country improves with each real contribution whether it be disposable biodegradable supermarket bags or high pressure -- low water volume toilets. Or it could be an i-Phone!

Embrace capitalism, my liberal human friend! See the half-full cup!

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Thanks for taking the time to answer. If it is human nature then I must be not human because I feel it is contrary to my nature. I wanted to make things clear: I am not a liberal, I just wanted to go back to the original poster who exposed the polarization. Liberals have to realize they are part of the problem too.

Anyway I don't even think it sums up in terms of what party you believe in. Politics as it is are a joke. I know it is hard to shake off the notion that all trickles down from the mighty economy but really it is ingrained in our minds and souls since we are born. What I was pointing at is that for like these 100 last years, western civilization is based on economy, whereas I think an economy is something that is created in any system involving exchange. Like politics is a thing that happen when you run things for people. It should not be the main concept that everything else is based upon, because that is false.Who really profits from this Economy anyway? Honest people, perhaps? If all was as transparent as you seem to suggest, what use for money? Water and food and some housing and goods is what we need, the rest is superfluous.

What about other riches? The water, the land, all that it can produce? I know what you will say: same old, same old.
We are alienated to the point where we can not even see a treasure where there is one.

I don't advocate banning all technology, that would be plain stupid. Put it to good use, yes, and it could be better, too, more durable, if all was not done for mass consumption, quick production and crass consumerism. Sure the world would be a lot different today if we had the kind of ideas that are slowly popping up (nothing new, mind you). Maybe I could not blabber on the net or watch digital TV, but would I be so unhappy since I wouldn't know it existed? There would be other venues explored. I like to imagine I could be better off without all the by-products that "civilization" offers. I firmly disbelieve all these gadgets contribute to the betterment of life. Of MY life at least. There are inventions, ingeniosity, yes and some good comes out of it, but is it really worth all the turmoil it creates? The pollution, the waste of ressources? Goods that fall into obsolescence are not engulfed by the marketplace, they end in landfills or become soot and smoke in the air.

Why people have to polarize, I don't know. Seems it's either all good or all bad. I guess it's only human.

Embrace capitalism? I guess I have no choice for now. I happen to live in one of those countries where I have to sustain my work force in order to be able to produce more goods that I will eventually have to buy in order to maintain myself ready to work more. Catch-22?

The economy that was ultimately created is a system that is devised by dominating forces in order to maintain this system and reinforce the domination.

The sound wind makes through the pines. The sentience of animals. What we fear and what lies beyond the darkness.

ABC showed "The Great Global Warming Swindle" last night, and followed it with a very spirited debate between the scientific protagonists.  I'm sort of in-between on this issue, and get the feeling the truth is being stretched by both sides.

While many of the claims strike me as alarmist, at the end of the day, I think it's better to take action rather than do nothing - the risks are too high.

No, maybe it doesn't come down to party affilliation but there are often commonalities more likely to be found in those on the left as opposed to those on the right, don't you think? Such as a generalized disgust with large corporations that seem prevalent within the sensibilites of the left. If I could distill what seems to be the most common practice of the left and the right in terms of their characterizations of each other, this is how I think it most often shakes down: Left feels the Right is evil. Right feels the Left is silly.

I was out of town for a couple days this week. Happened to catch Charlie Rose interviewing a book author who was discussing business advances in a connected world. Something he said might apply to this conversation as well. He was talking about how today's consumer (meaning everybody) can easily express their opinion to the entire world on any product or company through Internet. This has put new demands on corporations and their CEOs. Time was the company might be written up positively or negatively by a newspaper or magazine. Its success was measured by its annual report and stock earnings. Those who used the product had only word of mouth from one individual to another with a limited impact on the corporation. Today a series of negative e-pinions can have a gravely detrimental effect on a company's existence.

Anyway the author talked about Mr. Marriot of the hotel chain. He had long been the type of CEO who was actively involved in customer service. His practice was to regularly visit his hotels with pen and notebook in hand, interviewing staff and clients alike to formulate ideas for improving his business. But recently he set up his own blog for the purpose of expanding the idea that has worked well for him in the past -- gathering opinions and suggestions thereby serving his clients while improving his company. Good for the hotel guest, the hotel worker and the stockholder not to mention good for the communities with Marriots.

Soooo, the point is, Marriot embraced the technological change rather than carping about how unfair, mean or useless Joe Q. Public's cybertalk was. He found a way to make it work for him and for Marriot. And all I'm trying to say is...

A. It is much easier to state all the reasons why your era and your society are not in synch with your own personal spirit. Your own personal nature. And maybe the nature of your friends with a similar disposition and...

B. It really is more satisfying to move past the point of mere criticism of societal change, advances, or movements while moving toward discovering your own niche within it.

Who prospers from this economy? I'm not sure which economy you mean. Capitalism in general? Western affluent economies? Or the entire world's economy with wealthy countries versus poor countries? Anyway volumes have been written on this subject. My simple answer as to who prospers -- almost every human on earth.

I was glad to read you don't advocate banning all technology. Not that you'd find too much support in such a goal if you had it. Having made my way from a frame of mind that was not too dissimilar to yours over to favoring the marketplace mentality, I would not even be in favor of banning the worst Chinese Christmas tree lights that I buy en masse every year for about $4.00 a 100-string even though I bitch and moan about them every December. Would I buy a $20 strand of lights guaranteed to last 10 years? In a heartbeat! Would I prefer it to have been made in the USA? Probably, but I think the Chinese could make a good set of lights too. But like you suggest, the consumer sees the cheap box and figures, so what if they're not as good; they're soooo cheap! Let the marketplace determine what prevails and what fails. I'll be onboard either way. Just an example.

Technology isn't just having an iPod (I still hold out on this one) or a computer. Some of the improvements I have known and loved in my long life to date:

1. Frost free refrigerators

2. Water-filtered water from frig

3. Ice cube makers in frig

4. Microwave oven

5. Self-cleaning ovens

6. Dishwasher!

7. Still waiting for the perfect vacuum cleaner

8. Navigation system in cars

9. Back up alert in car

10. Cell phones (having been without telephone reception makes me appreciate it all the more)

11. Surgical procedures such as arthroscopic and laser techniques -- I cannot say enough about the medical advances of my lifetime that gave my father an additional 11 years of life he wouldn't otherwise have enjoyed and saved the eyesight of my son and me for starters. I would not have wished to live in any other era when it comes to medicine.

12. Air bags in cars

13. DVDs and CDs offering beautiful clarity and sound on a small flat object usable both at home or on the road

14. The Internet for saving me so much time in every way from checking out a restaurant, finding a location of a company, being able to email a writer or individual previously unavailable so directly, shopping from home, learning how to remove a tick from my dog's "armpit", learning about rattlesnakes and coyotes, ratings of any product I'm considering, checking out individual doctors' backgrounds and records, travel planning, and reading the newspapers of any country I would like in ENGLISH! Maybe one of the best things about these past 15 years. Unprecedented access to information.

15. Lightweight teeny digital cameras -- no more film cartridges! Amazing!!!

16. Printers, fax machines, answering machines -- thank you thank you thank you!

17. Air conditioning

18. Plastic shampoo bottles (I remember glass Prell shampoo bottles that would break if they slipped from your soapy hand in the shower) Plastics in general in fact are another one of those great inventions that come with a new set of problems but also a new set of advantages.  Take your pick -- enjoy the good or revile the bad.

19. HBO (It's not TV)

20. The Concorde -- may it return! (I've never flown it but always loved it)

21. Satellite technology -- if all this did was let people know the course of an approaching storm system, it would still be a wonderful contribution to the well-being of mankind.

Well, that's enough. I could do this all day long. Making lists of things I appreciate has become a new habit of mine. Better than counting sheep.

I underlined a section of what you wrote that I don't understand. What do you mean you have to "sustain your work force?" This word "sustain" has crept into the vocabulary in a way I'm not grokking these days. I keep seeing it in restaurants -- "sustainable" food or something, and I have no idea what it means. But it reminds me of when the term "politically correct" came into the common parlance. I guess I know what it means now but how that meaning evolved from that awkward choice of words beats me. Further explaining why number 22 on my list is not "new dictionaries."

Let's say that food, water and housing is really all we need and the rest is superfluous, as you suggest. Well, I guess that's true enough but there are always those pesky compadres who, after a while, will start to ask, "Mmmmm, this raw meat is mighty tasty but what if we cooked it over charcoal and stuffed it into a bun!" Other guy says, "What's the point? We're already getting the proper nutrients this way." Pesky guy says, "I just think it might be even BETTER." Other guy retorts, "Where you gonna get charcoal? What are you going to put the charcoal ON?  Where you going to get a bun? And what is a 'bun?'" Another nearby pesky guy says, "Hey I'll make a grill and my brother can make some li'l charcoal briquettes. I think our wives can make these buns if we plant some wheat too." Other guy goes, "Oh brother. Can't leave good enough alone, can you? Count me out," as he gnashes his teeth over a raw slab of giant sloth ribs. It's human nature to recognize what you view as a problem. It's higher human nature to come up with a solution. And it's just life that often times the solution comes with a fresh set of problems.

Your last sentence expresses the mentality of the university professor. It's is so patently false that I don't know where to begin. Plus, I've already written too much. It's pure unadultrated bunkum that doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny. Further, I don't even believe that you believe it though I do believe you've heard it often.  Included in that same type of logic would be talk of "distribution of wealth" as if some overlord of finance hands out the stuff.

Lastly I'll just throw one more at you. The romantization of the past. You use the "last 100 years" as the problematic times. I think that's just your era-ism at play. If you could delve deeply into any other 100 year time frame within any past civilization I'm sure you could hyper-critically analyze their shortcomings with similar ease. But because you have lived in another century, and are more intimately familiar with its specifics, it's the object of scorn. One of my best buddies whom I've known for 40 years and I frequently have these type discussions, he being unable to grasp my shift to the right. And what he continues to acknowledge is that the Left is more unhappy than the Right. If for that reason alone, and for the reason that happier people are more pleasant to be around, it's enough to justify a shift in attitudes and a surrender, don't you think? Unless you are a poet.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Sorry, catching up with the subject...

You sure are wordy in your comments and the argument sounds nice. But really, no. I won't spend more time talking to someone that is keen on caricature and coming up with an idea of progress that reads like a mall store catalogue.

I never suggested anywhere I was against technology: that was the assumption that you made all this time because you were trying to portray me or anyone that thinks differently as an idealist, at worst a leftist, a frustrated quaker or what-have-you, if possible someone really backwards and an hypocrite.

Your list is pathetic at best and please let me tell you that at least 3/4 of the world is living right now without most of what you have mentioned, and believe it or not, some are even happy.

It is most convenient to see the world the way you do, through rosy-shaded glasses, than to face the music, really. It is most convenient to be leaning to the side where the majority is standing by stating obvious things such as "the left is more unhappy than the right". How old are you? Personally I am 30, and I don't think I am living in the past. I happen to believe every word that I have uttered and probably will for a long time. Sure my view of things might change, but it is my own and no one forces me to think the way I do. Who are you to lecture me about the idea of progress, through an infantile example that would be fine for a Simpsons episode maybe but ill-suited for a discussion between two adults?

Your argument is as shallow as your idea of how one views political subjects. I am sorry but I don't want to be the object of your fantasized vision of a leftwing poet, looking back to Rousseau's good savage. You have already done enough damage as it is, you and your "ideology".

Educate yourself. And I mean no school. Open your ears and eyes.

I may come across as downright offensive, but people like you are using their power of reasoning to excuse and promote anything they deem might be in accordance to their own idea of what is right and diminishing all that they see as wrong (or left, as you call it) and just add another voice to the deafening chorus. Your idea of dialogue is corrupted by the dominant ideology of power that has been infused in you all your life. It's not really my problem if you don't want to have a conscience because it hurts too much. I don't mind you working for these big companies, never have I issued one complaint about people earning their lives. But if we are to truly discuss matters, please consider someone who has thought differently about the subject and don't take all this time trying to come up with excuses and justifications why the world is world.

The world changes, that can be scary. Particularly if it conflicts with a certain idea of it that you made up in your mind to accomodate your present activities.

I can understand a lot of things but not why one would want to be so bold about plastic shampoo bottles. Now you sound like you want to make me lose my time arguing about stupid matters as if you were running out of ice cubes. Go on and rationalize all you can, analyze me through your distorted capitalist lens, you'll never stop me thinking about ever more revised ways of getting my point across, which I think was somewhat respectable before you turned it into the carnival of misconceptions that your head generates.

Over

The sound wind makes through the pines. The sentience of animals. What we fear and what lies beyond the darkness.

Well, okay then, Alleyghost. If it's over, it's over.

If you ask me, I think the problem with our above discussion is that it was  too vague and all-encompassing. When writing/talking about the Big Subjects, I like to hone in by offering some specifics (like ice-cube makers and plastic shampoo bottles) but that was not in jest. It was simply an off-the-cuff list of real world everyday advances I've personally observed and appreciated over the years.

Those two choices you picked from my list of 20+ demonstrates the perils of wordiness. I was trying to give some concrete examples to explain my views rather than wafting about in an airy realm comparing generalized notions of history's civilizational economic systems. I could create a separate list detailing the advances that have made a difference in the "lives of 3/4 of the world." Ah, but it's over. So I won't.

So, okay. Disengage if you must. I will miss that brief moment in time when we shared our mutual beliefs in what I at least took to be a spirited conversation.

Susan

PS It's not so bad to be a poet, is it?

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Al Gore, $100,000 Man

No SUV when Democrat hits road for "Environmental Multimedia Lecture

Algore (and Edwards) have the solution to poverty and the environment.

"JULY 17--If you're looking to book Al Gore for a 75-minute "Environmental Multimedia Lecture," the former vice president will cost you $100,000, plus travel, hotel, security, and per diem expenses. Gore's standard speaker's contract, a copy of which you'll find below, also stipulates that the Democrat's ground transportation be "a sedan, NOT an SUV." Additionally, Gore requests that speech sponsors make every effort to use a hybrid vehicle for his transport. The Gore contract, ... stipulates that no press be permitted at the event and that the Democrat receive approval over the distribution of photographs from the appearance. Gore's contract for a May 21 appearance at the University of California, San Diego was released by the school. Though the contract seeks "absolute confidentiality" when it comes to the deal's terms, since UCSD is a public university, the California Public Records Act requires that the document be released upon request"

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0717071gore1.html

Ahem.

Over for over-the top, maybe? :p

Anyway, Susan, I didn't say over and out, so I'm back at you! I don't really mind you all that much. Or anyone, for that matter. If I did, I'd probably get a heart attack, because I get your kind of response almost daily by people from all walks of life.

I agree it is a big vague all-encompassing subject, that is what makes it so difficult. I mean if you are to talk about the environment, which I thought we were doing, we have to look all around us and it includes a lot of things.

Now if you want to talk about Al Gore, who I personally don't really pay attention to, there is a justified sense of irony growing, and I can relate. But the time is ripe, or so I thought, to double-check the reality around us. Sometimes I feel I and others are alienating ourselves from the real problems at hand, because precisely of politics, that thrive on controlling our lives, our thoughts, to gain more attention, more popularity for themselves...but anyway, delving again.

I respect your opinion, but now I have other stuff to do than nit-picking on trivial stuff. Sure technological progress can help humanity, there is no denying that from me involved, but we have to look at the costs, the advantages, the drawbacks, but not from a human-centered view, because humans tend to justify what gives them a practical advantage or instant gratification, but that is my POV, only. It could somehow be verified, but that would be rather pointless. So before it all becomes a political circus, modelled upon the elites we look upon with hope, I prefer to let the argument alone for a moment and focus on more pressing matters, like a better mutual understanding, for example.

And sorry but poets are not all the rage of today's technophile, hedonist, modern masses when it comes to real life, see me sorry for it, they'd probably have a lot more intelligent stuff to say than me, for example. Or so I feel.

Keep your eyes open, sorry for my clunky English

and btw, I am an A/V electronics technician.

Back to liberal-bashing, now

The sound wind makes through the pines. The sentience of animals. What we fear and what lies beyond the darkness.

Raymond - get off Gore's back.  He needs at LEAST $100K just to pay the electricity bill at his mansion each year...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,501145,00.html

Jordan .

"The economy that was ultimately created is a system that is devised by dominating forces in order to maintain this system and reinforce the domination."

Susan picks up on the familiar and ascribes it to it's main authors -professors. The next sequential sentence being to call for the redistribution of whealth. ( As Susan notes , by some overlord of finance dishing out the whealth.  : )  Well, Hillary Clinton proposes just that- to take oil company profits and distribute them for inefficient wasteful lower education projects. Notice she does not propose that the unheard of profits of the entertainment business, movies, music, tours etc.- from another but different industry - be touched !! And definitely not the profits of her millions $$$producing books !! Hmmm.

She would work well with the Venezuelan dictator and his "egalitarian" plans. Kill all geese who lay valuable eggs like technical progress, employment for human beings, warmth etc. Sh-t assed plan and similar thinking between the two.

A liberal/socialist like Hillary wants to redistribute other peoples money -not her book profits or Rose Law Firm and Whitewater scams. What a selfish dangerous loon.

Remember how we've been hearing that there is a "scientific consensus" for man-made global warming, and that if you disagree with man-made global warming, then you're just a bonehead?

Read this.

Here's a snippet:

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category  (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.  This is no "consensus."

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of  consensus here.  Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming.  In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

Jordan .

Sooooo, when will Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize be revoked? 

Old and out of context and harsh, but fitting, if you ask me.  (you did, didn't you?)

Susan 

You've thrown the worst fear

That could ever be hurled

Fear to bring children

Into this world.

For threatening my baby

Unborn and unnamed

You ain't worst the blood

That runs through your veins. 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

*sigh* This just confirms my belief that people who have had no education in the Earth or environmental sciences have no business running around spouting "facts" to the public about global climate change or anything else science-related. I was appalled that Gore received the award in the first place; it would be one thing if he was presenting 100% supported scientific theory, but we know he wasn't. His film and everything that has come out of his mouth since then has been mostly hamfisted scare tactics. To me, awarding him with a Nobel for his "work" cheapens and detracts from the prestige of the award itself.

When it comes down to it, we still do not have enough scientific data to have the luxury of making grand "ZOMG PLANET IS HAWT" statements, and to continue to do so is going to pretty much ruin anyone's faith in the sciences and start turning a lot of deaf ears and blind eyes to the concept of environmental cleanup and conservation as a whole. Yes, we have made a bit of a mess of the planet, and it's just generally a good idea to reduce waste, pollution, deforestation, fossil fuel consumption, etc. But to muddy those waters by linking them all to the great Global Warming debate is harmful and Gore and all his followers should be ashamed for doing so. They're doing more harm than good. Period.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Jordan .

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

That was pretty funny!  Just watched a Boston Legal clip .  Who knew how wonderful William Shatner is?

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

The Boston Globe: Brrrr, where did global warming go?

THE LINK

Man, thanks for shrinking that link I put on here that blew out the sides of the page. I came back later to do a " tiny url" change. TPG is a class act.

The global warming folks are probably hoping for a really hot summer this year. :) 

Jordan .