JUST A FEW MORE AND PROFITS REALLY DROP

According to a recent BBC report (Feb. 21, 2007), “Australia has announced plans to ban incandescent light bulbs and replace them with more energy efficient fluorescent bulbs.”

Just like California—if a responsible China were to do what Australia has done, real pressure for change will build. Sorry GE, you’ll just to have do with jet engines for your profit margin.

GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE
ONLY NOT AS OFTEN AS I’D LIKE TO HOPE

I was perusing some tomes while selling books down at the library and came across the following: “Not only will men of science have to grapple with the sciences that deal with man, but—and this is a far more difficult matter—they will have to persuade the world to listen to what they have discovered. If they cannot succeed in this difficult enterprise, man will destroy himself by his halfway cleverness.” —Bertrand Russell (quoted in The Making of Kubrick’s 2001)

Bingo! Well, what can I say? I’ve mentioned more than once in this blog that, if you ask me, the chief difficulty facing humankind is that the rational ones among us are faced with a growing hysteria amongst the more numerous religious who can’t accept global warming, are incapable of understanding the facts of natural selection and darn sure will rebel against evolutionary psychology (a science that deals with “man”—Russell’s word not mine—which has the potential to undermine their belief in free will or, at least, limit it severely. Dorrane and I sometimes debate this idea of free will at our Inland Northwest Freethought Society meetings. My thought is that we’re robots whereas she tries to give us humans a little more wiggle room.

TEXAS FIGHTS TO HOLD ONTO IT’S TITLE AS
“MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD”


The photo accompanying this entry is one showing Texas as it is today in the hearts of its citizens.

Not only does Texas have the highest murder rates in the world and the highest rate of executions, another form of murder (murdering the murderer, thus setting an example to the potential muderer that murder is the way to deal with someone you don’t like), now they are debating more laws to increase their rate of murder. They’re going to legalize paranoid murder by allowing anyone to shoot anyone that they imagine might harm them. Not only will they be allowed to indulge in paranoid behavior in defense of their own homes, but they’ll be allowed to indulge in their paranoid fantasies on any Texas street: “That guy looked crosseyed at me. I knew he meant me serious harm so I shot him.”

That’s okay, though. Any law-abiding, peaceful American knows better than to live in Texas, let alone drive through there. I’m serious—being a peaceful citizen, I know I’ll steer clear of that state. I certainly wouldn’t encourage any conventions to go down there. What if one of the loco locals decides he doesn’t like you or your convention and shoots you down? What’s your defense when he says you meant him harm? Who interprets that? Who reads who’s mind? Which mind do you believe? Of course, it’ll boil down to who’s your friend and who’s not, who’s the Texan and who’s not. Wouldn’t want to be a non-Texan when they get right down to deciding those cases—if you’re still alive, if you survive the paranoid sonofabitch who shot you down. Texas is probably the most paranoid state in the Union.

DID I
ALREADY TELL YOU THIS?

I’ve come to really love clouds, specially the ones that backdrop wheat fields and tall buildings. They frame pictures perfectly. I love clouds so much that I’ve come up with a saying to express my appreciation: “A day without clouds is like a day without sunshine.” Stop me if you heard it already. Whooops—too late!
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