Humans Deserve to Go Extinct

I've found that if I assume people are stupid - and then wait for them to prove me wrong in their particular case - I seldom have to be disappointed. When it comes to the environment, I'm almost never disappointed believing that people will do exactly the wrong thing.

It's so much more comfortable being lulled into somnolence by the mega-corporations who are blind to anything beyond the next fiscal quarter. It can frustrate even the most ardent environmentalist:

Brazil has been accused of turning its back on its duty to protect the Amazon after the resignation of its award-winning Environment Minister fuelled fresh fears over the fate of the forest. The departure of Marina Silva, who admitted she was losing the battle to get green voices heard amidst the rush for economic development, has been greeted with dismay by conservationists.

Brazil "owns" the largest areas of remaining rain forest in the world. Rain forest has been called the planet's lungs, producing a large fraction of the atmosphere's oxygen. Now its best - and perhaps only - advocate in Brazil's government is gone.

What's at stake?

The Amazon basin is home to one in 10 of the world's mammals and 15 per cent of its land-based plant species. It holds more than half of the world's fresh water and its vast forests act as the largest carbon sink on the planet, providing a vital check on the greenhouse effect.

Unfotunately, once again, I'm not disappointed.

What Have We Become?

For all our ultra-patriotic chest thumping, America has become the home of the afraid.

...the United States has injected hundreds of foreigners without their consent with dangerous mind-altering drugs for trips returning them to their home countries, according to government documents, medical records, and interviews with some of the actual people who were drugged.

These are not terrorists, and this is not part of the shameful practice of extraordinary rendition - these are just people that our immigration officials were deporting to their home countries. And if they didn't want to go - maybe because of the risk of punishment on return or because there was nothing to return to - what then?

...forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includ[ing] dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

This is what fear has brought us to. Fear and the willful manipulation of that fear by BushCo. and all their collaborators.

Who will hold them - us - accountable?

Weather at the Tipping Point?

Coincidence is a strange thing.

Yesterday I read about 350.org - the website of well-known environmentalist Bill McKibben, who has said that 350ppm is the magic number of CO₂ in the atmosphere; the tipping point of Global Warming. If you're in the know, you'll also realize that we are past that number.

Then today there's this story about the record number of tornadoes in the Mid-West so far this year and all the people they've killed.

Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar could wind up killing close to a quarter million.

Stephen J. Gould claimed that humans are pattern seeking primates, that our brains were built to find patterns and that could lead us astray when we try to force patterns on phenomena where there are none. If that is so, how can so many of our fellow travellers on this small planet not see a pattern that is so clearly there, one which scientists have very forcefully shown to be there?

Yes, coincidence is a very strange thing. But what about when it's not coincidence?

Circuit City the Next Wal-Mart?

This puts Circuit City in the same league as Wal-Mart:

Circuit City Stores' (CC) decision to lay off 3,400 employees in order to hire lower-paid replacements is raising questions about the impact of severe cost-cutting on employee morale.

Not to mention local economies all around the nation.

I've sent them an e-mail letting them know that I will no longer give them any of my business and will try to tell as many people as possible. If anyone still comes around here, please pass this on as well.

What we don't need right now is more uncertainty, more low paying jobs, more people unable to afford the basics.