Haiti to Monsanto: F*** You

In the hit documentary Food Inc., seed company Monsanto was vilified (and rightly so) for their legal attacks on farmers and seed harvesters for infringing their patent rights. Now, not only does Monsanto have to deal with problems like its public image, weeds becoming resistant to its weed-killer Roundup, and their general dislike by environmentalists; their gift to Haiti, 475 tons of hybrid seeds, will most likely not be accepted, and probably burned. Haitians see the move as an attack on their sustainable farming lifestyle, or as Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay put it, "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds ... and on what is left our environment in Haiti."
Kudos to the poor Haitians, who, even after their nation was devastated by an earthquake earlier this year, still resist the Americanized notion of letting corporations take care of you, if only for their future benefit. I can't imagine the difficulties they currently face, so compound that in five or ten years when Monsanto holds farmers liable for using their seeds, forcing them to buy them and suing them if they happen to drift into their field, since Monsanto can't seem to be held responsible for their own wayward seeds.

Good for youuu!

One of the big yuppie things to do during the 2000's has been to own a hybrid, be it the ridiculously popular Prius, Toyota and Honda's other attempts, luxury hybrids or good old American made POS hybrids like the Ford Escape. It is a feel-good purchase, letting the owner believe that they are helping not just their status, but the environment. Not so fast.
Those massive battery packs in your hybrid? Nickel-metal hydride batteries full of nickel. That cool electric motor? Full of rare, difficult to mine metals like neodymium. All that stuff has to be mined, shipped, processed and fashioned into parts, which are then reshipped to places like Japan where they are built, and then shipped overseas to America's voracious consumers looking to out-green their neighbor or just show up how great they are for pretending to care about the environment. Another study done by CNW Marketing Research has shown just how inefficient it is to produce and maintain hybrids as compared to other vehicles. Even SUV's and many luxury cars are cheaper to produce.
And what do you get for all that extra cash you lay down for that ego boost? Only better city driving fuel mileage and a heavier, less efficient car. The Prius is notorious for its lack of interior space and poor highway performance. Penn and Teller tackled this one on an episode of "Bullshit!". The 'Smug' episode of South Park also went to great pains trying to get the message across that hybrids are not the answer, but just a step in the right direction. Hybrids aren't necessarily a bad thing, they are a testing bed for new technologies and an indicator that as a society, we're becoming a little more than dimly aware of our effect on the planet.
More fuel efficient car are coming out all the time, and ultra-efficient diesel hybrids are starting to make their way across the Atlantic where they have been driven for years. Volkswagen had brought out their L1 two-seater concept car that gets 170 mpg with a 1 liter diesel-hybrid engine. It's 3-4 years away from seeing the roads of America, but car companies are definitely on the right track. At least in Europe.
Next time you see some smug prick in their Hybrid flying past you on the freeway, don't get mad, just remember that they paid a whole lot more and most likely aren't getting any benefit whatsoever from that over-sized accessory. Not until they can figure out how to run a vehicle off of douchebaggery, anyway.

Daily Douchebaggery

It's been a while since someone has pissed me off enough to blog about them specifically, and mister Beck has been on my list for a while. There have been a few things, very few things, that I have agrees with him on, and he's gotten a pass, I suppose, because he isn't as hard-nosed as Hannity and O'really, but when you start attacking kids, you've gone too far. I could care less about Al Gore, and his Inconvenient Truth, you can stack information and statistics to support pretty much anything. Just read 'State of Fear' by Michael Crichton, this book refutes 99% of the supposed 'facts' in Gore's documentary, and he was goddamn doctor and author. Whether or not you believe global warming is real, there is such a thing as climate change, and it's a natural part of nature. Taking an interest in the climate and environment isn't anti-American, you douchebag. Just because the Conservative line is to disbelieve global warming and strive to dig up all the coal and oil we can doesn't mean you should follow it. Don't even dare calling yourself patriotic when you constantly attack other Americans who have different belief than you and wonder what happened to 'your country.' I'm sorry, but the conservative-white-Christian power structure you pine over is a veritable House of Usher. It is already coming down, so realize you live in a melting pot, not pure-white, Christian Republican nation where Mother Nature is our bitch, and it's not okay to brainwash kids with anything other than Christian intolerance and a love of capitalism. Get over yourself, buddy.

Arrr, it's cold out there.

Unsubstantiated PROOF that piracy is linked to global warming, a belief espoused by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, has been shown in recent months. As the number of pirate attacks has increased dramatically, the temperature has decreased respectively.
No reasonable person could deny this cause and effect, as the global rise in temperature over the past century has also correlated to the decrease in piracy on the open ocean. The only logical conclusion is that the sudden increase in pirates has caused the temperatures to decrease over the past two years.
However, there have been a large number of pirates caught by the Indian navy, causing them to cease their pirate ways. Will this lead again to an upswing in temperatures? Will a widespread fight against piracy cause the earth to warm up even faster than previously recorded? Only time will tell.
My the FSM be with us all.