And from the editorial pundits at the New York Times comes a new wrinkle in the effort to end poverty and cure disease – “A tiny levy of 0.005 percent on transactions involving the world’s most traded currencies — the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen — would raise more than $33 billion annually for development, while not hurting the market or affecting the average international traveler.”

Or so says Philippe Douste-Blazy, “the French foreign minister from 2005 to 2007, is the chairman of Unitaid and a special adviser to the United Nations secretary general on innovative financing.”

This brings up a dazzling point that the world’s financial geniuses must’ve simply overlooked in their haste to straighten out the world’s plethora of problems – the way to skin the cat is to quit messing around with rinky dinky “tiny taxes” and go for the proverbial jugular – a tax on opinions!

You heard it right – a tiny tax on blogs, blurbs, op-eds, letters to the editor, tweets, blips, and other assorted nefarious brain farts.

And that includes this blog! What a relief, to be compelled to pay for every bit of my blognog being spewed into the Blogosphere. Of course, yours truly wouldn’t actually pony up when the bill arrived. Instead, I could quit this nonsense and get back to what humanoids were meant to do in the first place – laze around the hearth with a leg bone in one hand and a glass of Meursault in the other.

salut!

posted by Mudd

This post will mean much of nothing to most readers; but I post it anyway – because I can.

According the erudite Birmingham News (Alabama), “Workers this week began dismantling [Monkey] island — a popular stopping point for decades and the background for countless snapshots and home movies — as they transform the area into part of the zoo’s new Trails of Africa exhibit.”

Most folks probably don’t understand the complexities of such a thoughtless and retro act. Besides serving as a backdrop to countless home movies (aren’t all home movies shot on location at Monkey Island?), this historic landmark stands as a beacon to what Homo erectus asphaltus has become in a few short years, give or take 10,000.

To see our cousins swinging on ropes across a pile of government built rocky mounds, ever alert for an endless supply of subsidized peanuts via the goodwill of an endless stream of tourists, is to behold our species in its natural environment. Spider monkeys are smart cookies, especially in the presence of gawking humans. It takes a certain skill to manipulate millions of tourists into throwing free food into your habitat. And don’t forget free health care!

This is a sad affair, ladies and gentlemen. One of our nation’s finest laboratories of human nature is being dismantled as we speak. If there’s a silver lining to the story, it has a familiar ring to it – “Visitors can buy pieces of the island for $10 a chunk.”

Laugh if you feel inclined, but I’ll be down there when the gates open, cash in hand. When they offer you a piece of Sigmund Freud’s couch for a measly ten bucks, you jump on it!

Calling Cheeta!

posted by Mudd

You knew it had to happen sooner than later – the Neo-Greens are now after your toilet paper. Chalk one up for Cheryl Crow. To be fair, it’s the ultra-fluffy TP that’s got the Neo-Green’s panties in a wad. They want Industry to make the stuff out of recycled paper. Of course, the consumer drives the market, and “despite environmentalists’ concerns, they say customers are unwavering in their desire for the softest paper possible.”

You gotta hand it to the Neo-Greens: they’re persistent, if a tad lost in the tactics of the 1970s. At least nobody (that we know of) has dressed up as a giant roll of Charmin and busted into the U.N.’s climate change conference. Yet.

Another example of the dog chasing the tail.* Pardon the pun.

* see prior post – The numbers game.

posted by Mudd

In case you were wondering why Utah decided to ban text messaging while operating a motor vehicle, how’s this for a sobering factoid – “In terms of accident risk, you’re more likely to be hit by someone who’s text messaging than someone who’s drunk,” says University of Utah psychologist David Strayer.

According to NPR, “Federal legislation is pending to pressure states into prohibiting drivers from texting while driving — or risk losing a quarter of their yearly federal highway funding.”

Not everyone agrees with using legislation to accomplish social engineering (me, for instance). Instead, Insurance Companies should simply add a clause to policies that reads something like this, “Those insured pursuant to this policy who are involved in an accident while actively using an electronic communications device (phone, text message, etc) shall not be covered under the terms herein.”

That would spin a few heads [no pun intended]. Folks generally don’t appreciate having to pay Court ordered damages out of their own pockets (in the case of a car crash with serious injuries, plus punitive damages, easily in the seven figures.) Wonder how long it would take to pay off a 3 million dollar verdict?

But, alas, asking folks to accept responsibility for their own actions is currently taboo. Much better to have those bimbos we elect (think Congress, with a 28% approval rating) tell us what to do.

Father knows best……

posted by Mudd

Every now and then an article comes along that reminds one of just how strong de-evolution is. Take this piece from the BBC, entitled: Turning a Blind Eye to Obesity.

Here’s the kicker: “A survey suggests the vast majority of those who are obese do not realise they are so.”

Said Dr Susan Jebb of the Human Nutrition Research Laboratory of the Medical Research Council, “We need to give people the confidence to recognise that it is problem, and that it’s one they can do something about.”

No kidding. Pass the chips.

posted by Mudd

You know it’s time to run for the exit door when economists begin waxing poetic on how to “save the planet.” Of course, smart monkeys know the planet doesn’t need saving; we just need less monkeys screwing it up. (See last blog – The numbers game)

Take this pithy piece of nonsense, disguised as erudition – “…..the reason these greens thought the [economic] crisis could be the best thing that ever happened to the environment was fiscal. The argument was that cleaning up the banks and reviving the economy was going to do such damage to governments’ public finances, politicians would have no choice but to start taxing carbon.”

That’s from lovely Stephanie Flanders, the BBC‘s economics editor.

You have to hand it to the neo-greens, taxing folks during the worst recession in a generation is just plain genius. Especially when we all know it isn’t going to happen. At least, not in America.

The neo-greens are certainly faithful to their carbon root tips. But the Emperor remains buck naked despite the rhetorical ballyhoo. Ecology is about biology. And biology is about functioning ecosystems that inhale and exhale energy via a complex matrix of dependent/interdependent exchanges. All of it rests on an infrastructure of carrying capacity. Too many wolves equals a crash in the prey species. An explosion of rabbits is followed by an uptick in predators. And the cycle continues until the equation changes. But the end results follow population dynamics unfailingly. At least until primates with credit cards get involved.

The neo-green argument sells something akin to post-ecology, where technology trumps biology. The logic goes – “If only we could apply our technological mojo to the evils of human culture, the planet will be saved.” Saved for what – more of what got us into this mess to begin with? Stand by for a word from our sponsors: 6.8 billion consumers and counting……

What’s a fun-loving bandito to do? For starters, turn off the TV. Saddle up the palomino. Ride into the desert and wave at the moon. Rethink what it means to be happy.

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” Mark Twain.

posted by Mudd

Who knows what strange quantum mechanisms propel us into the Great Tomorrow? Not I. But it’s interesting to note that what was taboo only yesterday is now the topic de jour – over population. What took so long?

Of course, the news is anything but good. A recent report by the UN projects that “with one and a half million more humans climbing aboard the planet every week, a recipe is looming for ecological overload, famine and broken states.”

“How Niger is going to feed a population growing from 11 million today to 50 million in 2050 in a semi-arid country that may be facing adverse climate (change) is unclear,” said Adair Turner, a member of Britain’s House of Lords.

And I thought Niger was already having problems feeding itself. Alas.

Homo erectus asphaltus can be seriously out of touch with reality on any given day. Or most days. But it’s always refreshing to see a bit of common sense injected into the mix from time to time. Now if we could just get the mainstream environmental groups on board…..

posted by Mudd

In another blow against dams (wishful thinking, a la Seldom Seen Smith), the BBC reports that “Damming and diverting rivers means that much less sediment now reaches many delta areas, while extraction of gas and groundwater also lowers the land.”

Which means? “About half a billion people live in these regions” says the journal Nature Geoscience.

Think Hurricane Katrina and the picture becomes a bit more poignant. Now multiply by a few orders of magnitude and what we have here is (more) damning evidence against dams.

What the article doesn’t explain is the injury to aquatic species who find dams little more than a pain in the head, literally. Salmon and sturgeon come to mind, for starters. It’s kind of hard to migrate upstream when a plug of concrete and rebar stand in the current.

And then – there’s Glen Canyon Dam…….

posted by Mudd

Do you enjoy being confused? I mean really confused. I know I do.
And when I get that itch, the Jones for a deep and profound confusion, I turn to the Quantum Art and Poetry Blog for help.

Hit this link and treat yourself to some down-home quantum-fried mojo. The video on the two-slit experiment [no pun] rocks.

Purple haze!

posted by Mudd

In our culture’s ever-expanding Green-think, the buzz words de jour are “renewable” and “sustainable.” Neither word comes with an instruction manual. Nor do they always mean the same thing to the same person. Which makes sense, in that most Americans haven’t spent more than 15 minutes actually studying the complexities of all things Green.

Soon we will see waves of windmills wafting above the fruited plains, while miles of industrial solar malls carpet the desert floor. How renewable is that? Maybe I’m just lost in a fog of sustainability, but what will folks do with the plethora of Green-watts scheduled to come on line as the Green Machine rolls across the Road Atlas?

Maybe now’s a good time to stop and scratch the noggin.

Here’s a blip from our friends at the New York Times – “The proliferation of personal computers, iPods, cellphones, game consoles and all the rest amounts to the fastest-growing source of power demand in the world. Americans now have about 25 consumer electronic products in every household, compared with just three in 1980.”

It’s kind of fun seeing cheap digi-gadgets referred to as “consumer electronic products.” Stand by for Green-speak!

But it gets better. The Times goes on to say, “To satisfy the demand from gadgets will require building the equivalent of 560 coal-fired power plants, or 230 nuclear plants…..”

Egad! How many solar panels does it take to equal 560 coal-fired power plants? Answer – you don’t want to know.

So what’s the Green answer to this impending proliferation of power-sucking mania? You guessed it – “Most energy experts see only one solution: mandatory efficiency rules specifying how much power devices may use.” And just when I was getting the hang of Grand Auto Theft IV!

A thought – if folks are using more power, and are expected to use even more as they become increasingly attached to their Game Boy prosthetics, are industrial solar farms being designed to replace existing coal-fired plants? Or are we simply expanding the grid’s footprint in order to party on?

Stand by for a message from your National Grid Keeper.

As Kermit the Frog said, “It’s not easy being green.”

posted by Mudd
all quotes New York Times