So, if you're in a good mood and you're feeling good about the world, you may want to skip this.
( wherein I wax apocalyptic and probably ruin your whole day )

-pb

Sing along now, folks:

On the second day of winter, the weather gave to me: Rain falling sideways and it's a balmy 60°!

I walked outside in shorts and a t-shirt to grab a piece of wood, fully expecting to freeze my nips and nuts off, and it was comfortable. Did I wake up in Australia or something?

-pb

Dear Marketplace,

So, as I'm cruising along on my way to work this morning, I hear your report about hybrid SUVs that says that my Prius gets great gas mileage in the city, but drops off sharply on the highway. So, I double check with my Prius' mileage display to see if I am, in fact, getting worse mileage than the 51mpg highway that I was told I would be getting. Sure enough, I'm not! I'm actually getting over 55 miles per gallon. I guess I won’t complain.

So what's this about the hybrid Tahoe being able to use its electric motor on the highway? Not exactly a novel concept, as I switch screens to see my electric motor helping my gas engine get up a hill, and then start recharging as I head down the other side.

Your story made it sound like a hybrid Tahoe would be, mileage-wise, superior to (or at least on par with) the Prius. I get 55mpg highway, average, and my daily driving is almost 90% highway (66 miles round trip, 59 of that at a constant 55MPH). Even with a 40% increase in mileage for the Tahoe, that's still less than 30mpg highway, over 20mpg less than the Prius is advertised at. Even for Prius owners who do 80mph and wonder why they're not getting the advertised mileage, their average of 40-45mpg is still far superior to GM's proposed Tahoe.

And please let's not forget that the size of these giant SUVs makes them near impossible to see around, accounting for them taking up an estimated 1.4 car lengths in traffic. That increase in city mileage might be great for the Tahoe, but it's not doing anyone else's mileage any favors... except that is, Prius drivers.

-pb

Hey, we're thinking about hosting a Live Earth house party on July 7th. Who wants to watch a bunch of great bands on our TV?

There's free Al Gore for everyone, too!

-pb

I know I've been inundating you, my faithful readers, with my wit-battles with the hopelessly unarmed, but I'm having fun with it. It's sure to get old soon.

Here are the two goodies for the day:

Richard A: All Americans MUST be well informed of the danger of "Al-qaida" to the US and the civilized world. We must also expose the damaging truth about the persons, groups etc. who are looking after their own personal interests rather than the security of our wonderful country.

Me: Funny, when people say the same thing, just substituting "global warming" for "Al-qaida", lots of other people loose their heads and start screaming about Al Gore.

Gilmore: That is because Al-qaida is real and global warming is not. Wake up buddy!

Me: Hey! You got yourself a fish biscuit! How'd you do that?

Next, there's this GLC64 guy who lost the argument big time, and has resorted to "HUR HUR YOU + LIBRLZ KISSNG" tactics. One last smackdown before I just watch him spin:

GLC64 : Did you enjoy the Kool-Aid you drank with George Soros and Michael Moore this morning?????

Me : Look slugger, I know you want to try to keep up here and make your presence known, but seriously tiger, adults are talking. Go out back and play in the sandbox until dinner's ready.

-pb

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070407/AUTO01/704070338/1148

[Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally] intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week.

Come on, Mulally, you didn't have to go to all that trouble.

Seriously, though, how stupid is Ford for building a vehicle that has the potential for the user to blow themselves up by doing something that simple? It's certainly not Bush-proof. Again, we see to stupidity of American car manufacturers. They finally decide to get on the hybrid band wagon, but instead of coming up with their own version of proven technology, they decide to one-up Toyota and Honda almost ten years after the fact by making a car that doesn't use gasoline at all. Great, wonderful. Except that they don't even have the basics of hybrid technology down. They want to skip the baby steps part and go right into giant leaps. Guess what happens? They make something that the average user will blow themselves to smithereens with. Good job.

-pb

I love how auto manufacturers are starting with SUVs for hybrids. Ford has one, Lexus, VW's eyeing one up... And none of them have a hybrid sedan.

Toyota's got the Prius, then they said "OK, SUV". Then they followed that up with a hybrid version of the Camry.

Isn't a hybrid SUV like diet fucking crack cocaine? "It's great! My hybrid SUV gets 28MPG!" Whoop-de-fucking do. My Sundance got that and more, and I managed to move furniture with it. Guess what my Sundance didn't do? Cause 1.5x as much traffic than the average vehicle. Instantly kill anyone it collided with. Block the vision of everyone behind it.

It doesn't matter if you make an SUV more fuel efficient. That's like saying you're making a "safer" cigarette. It's still deadly. It's still going to cause problems. Manufacturers should take the initiative to make their cars more fuel efficient, and then see how the market reacts.

-pb

Oh, lookee! It has apparently decided to snow here in Yardley. FUCKING FINALLY. I want a goddamn snarly-ass Turnpike to drive home on!

I'm looking up at Oswego's 12+ feet and counting and thinking that just once in my life, I'd like to see it snow like that. Because you'd think it's the motherfucking Day after Tomorrow out there from the broadcasts. I've actually heard weather reporters in this town call the impending 1-3 INCHES a "blizzard".

No, fuckwit, that's a dusting. It's certainly not going to stop everyone from driving 5mph.

I love being the guy in the fast lane doing 55 and having everyone look at me and think "lunatic!", as opposed to being the guy in the slow lane doing 55 and having people behind me think "old fuck!"

IT'S JUST A LITTLE SNOW, PEOPLE. DRIVE LIKE YOU'VE GOT A PAIR.

-pb

So, Al Gore Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow, so we get an early spring! I never quite understood that. If he sees his shadow, doesn't it mean it's bright and sunny already? Eh well. Global Warming to the rescue!

Happy Imbolc, everyone!

Who's doing what for the SuperBowl?

-pb

So, while I'm happily watching the NHL Skills Competition, Bush is going to be giving his sixth unwarranted State of the Union address, in which he will declare the state of the union to be "strong". He's also going to continue the theme of last year's chunky vomiting of nonsense about us being addicted to foreign oil (which we should replace with raw Alaskan crude!), and suggest that we turn the lights off cut gas consumption. Oh, wait, one of the ways to do that is to turn the lights off. And they say that Jimmy Carter was stupid. Meanwhile, every auto manufacturer selling to Americans knows that giant gas-guzzling behemoths are the way to go. Think the administration is going to offer any sort of rebate for hybrids? Toyota just upped production of the Prius, but even for states that have rebates, too many have been sold for future buyers to qualify. That's right folks, Toyota sold so many Prii that Pennsylvania doesn't feel the need to offer you a rebate anymore if you buy one. Problem solved! We sure licked that global warming!

No, Bush's call for us to use less gas is a strategeric move designed to benefit oil companies. Come on, people, with an approval rating LOWER THAN NIXON'S, what do you think America's going to do? "Fuck, that asshole told me to save gas? No fucking way! I'MA BUY ME A HUMMER AND LEAVE THE A/C ON ALL FUCKING DAY."

The man can even use his unpopularity to benefit his friends.

-pb

15 inches is the official total from our Doppler 1.6 Gazillion Super-Accurate Scientific Totally Natural Wood-Based Yard Stick, which you can only find here, folks. 15 INCHES!

IT'S TEH DAY AFTER TEH SATURDAY OUT TEHRE! OMFGWTFBBQ! Someone call Dennis Quaid! LET'S GET OUR ASSES DOWN TO MEXICO!

-pb

Remember how I bitched about people saying "today, we are all londoners!" back in July?



Why? Because even though they've lost everything, we will all feel the effects for years to come. hughcasey sums it up, and we're in a shit storm. The economic impact of this hurricane is going to affect me greatly today when I go to fill up my gas tank, but it's going to hit us even harder in the coming months. Christmas is going to be FUN-FUN-FUN for retailers who are just going to pass soaring costs onto us. Did you buy the gladhanding about the economy being shiny as newly-shaven testicles? Yeah, those halcyon days are OVER. We may not be camped out on rooftops, but we're about to endure an anal violation by a very large gorilla. I still feel worse for the people down there, though. I still have a house.

And just a reminder as to some of the people you can lay the blame for this on: partisan priorities after the recess were announced today. Republicans are talking about another tax break for the wealthy, while Democrats are talking about RELIEF FOR NEW ORLEANS.

Anyone who votes Republican in 2006 and 2008 is officially off my "cards I send only to human beings" list.

-pb

Right-wing pundits are screaming, as always, about things that the Left* has said about the fact that New Orleans and Biloxi have been, essentially, erased. "They say that global warming caused Katrina, and if we'd just signed the Kyoto Treaty, NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!" Right. Of course, these wing-nuts are adding two and two and getting an irrational number.

* - in this case, by 'Left', I mean 'environmentalists and people who can read government reports'

Environmentalists are saying that our pattern of environmental abuse set the stage for this storm. I haven't heard anyone saying that Kyoto would have stopped Katrina. Katrina, at this point, was inevitable. Not a matter of 'if', but a matter of 'when' and 'where'. The where just happened to be the worst-case scenario, and the when didn't really matter, did it? It happened, and it's bad.

Now, global warming aside, there's the man-made part of this disaster. Mer Orleans (I actually typed that by accident. what a freudian slip!) is below sea level and requires extensive levees to keep both Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River from sinking the city on a daily basis. Recently, they've begun improving the levees to be 'hurricane proof'. Of course, that's like calling a ship 'unsinkable', and we all know how that story ends. We don't get to see Kate Winslett topless in this tale, though. The 'hurricane proof' levees actually proved to be hurricane proof. 80% of the federal money slated to make ALL the levees this strong was diverted from Louisiana (our 18th state) to Iraq (our 51st state). While Halliburton is off repairing things that we've blown up in a slow and most inefficient manner, the levees in New Orleans were just left to their own devices. "They're still standing, aren't they? Tell you what. Blow them up, blame it on terrorists, and we'll spot you some cash" seems to be the official party line.

It is possible that when the final count is assesed, there will be more fatalities from Hurricane Katrina than US Casualties in Iraq. George W. Bush just doubled the number of Americans he's had a direct hand in killing.

When he was on the news yesterday talking about how turr-ble this was, and how Loozy-anna was gonna rebuild, I noticed something I'd never noticed before. Of course, I typically get nauseated by the sight of him on TV. His eyes, and even the corners of his mouth, were SMILING. There was not a hint of compassion or shock or simple acknowledgement of the magnitude of devestation. HE WAS SMILING.

How many more Americans have to die for this psychopath?

And when I say psycopath, I mean it. According to a PCL-R, Bush ranks at least a 30, which is enough for a cursory diagnosis of psycopathy. And here are the results. Hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq. Low world opinion. Destructive policies. Thousands of Americans dead at home and abroad. Billions of dollars of damage that could have been prevented. America is burning, and we're setting the world on fire. Nero is fiddling on his ranch.

-pb

Overstatement of the day:

"This is our tsunami,"

~Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway on Hurricane Katrina, referring to the December 26, 2004, tsunami that killed more than 226,000 people in the Indian Ocean region.

Yeah. Ok. Right.

	Hurricane Katrina	Tsunami
Type	Already massive hurricane completely juiced up by global warming	Rare, but naturally occuring phenomenon due to geological activity
Dead	68	226,000
Warning time	Days	Seconds
Area affected	New Orleans and Biloxi	Entire fucking Indian Ocean
Dead	68 people who weren't smart enough to LEAVE THE FUCKING AREA	226,000 people who's last words were "that's big swell coming in, don't you think?"

But, you know, other than that, EXACTLY ALIKE.

-js?!

Who gets fucked? The little guy, that's who.

A gas station owner was run over and killed when he tried to prevent an SUV driver from bolting before paying for $52 worth of gas. (there's no small irony that an SUV killed a man of Arab descent over some gasoline there, either). The article above demonstrates something interesting. Gas stations make about $0.01/gallon out of what they charge you. That owner didn't die over $52, he died over the profits he would have made from all the gas I've put into my car SINCE I BOUGHT IT OVER TWO YEARS AGO.

Couple that with the fact that ExxonMobil announced over 7 billion in profits from last quarter, and you've got a giant, gas-powered fucking machine, and not the kind you marvel at in strange pornos. The oil companies, flush with resources garnered from Our Partners in the Great War on Terror, mostly despotic regimes, generate huge profits by selling their products at hugely inflated costs. The station owners, however, barely break even. If oil companies are raking in tens of billions in gross profits every year, do you really think that Hurricane Ivan battered the Gulf Coast is the reason prices spiked? Do you think it's because Saudi Arabia just can't pump it fast enough? No, it's because corporate greed is preying on our addiction to oil. They're priming us for that point where gas isn't as available, and they can continue to soar prices well above their margins. Gas costs them $3/gallon? By the time it gets to that, we'll be paying $6.

By the time it gets to that, smart people (hopefully myself included), will have found vehicles that don't require their 'black crack'.

-pb

Andy Singer applies the Bush philosophy to other aspects of American life:



It's kinda like one of those posters with fifteen different animals smoking cigarettes.

-js?!

Experts check prehistoric Colorado village - Archaeologists find homes, artifacts, possible trade networks

Archaeologists found the remnants of a 5,000 year old settlement in a Denver suburb, which is pretty damn significant.

They've got two months to research it, at which point IT'S GOING TO BE BULLDOZED TO MAKE WAY FOR PEOPLE.

Fuck it. Let's just pave the entire country. Fuck history. Fuck nature. Fuck breathing. Fuck living. Fuck it all.

-pb

Norway to kill 25% of its wolves

"The Norwegian government has decided to kill five of the country's grey wolves - a quarter of the entire population.
It says the decision is necessary to protect domestic livestock, but one campaign group has condemned the cull."

Attention Norwegian Government:

When you have 20 of a single native (critically endangered) species within your borders, and you feel the need to kill 5 of them because THEY POSE A HAZARD TO SHEEP, you need to first consider a few options:

1) Build fences around your sheep.
2) Partition a quarter of your sheep for wolf consumption.
3) BUY YOUR FUCKING WOOL AND MUTTON SOMEWHERE ELSE.

-pb

They're baaack...readers sound off on Thomas and "Mother Earth"

Third one down is mine. Printed twice, and in a conservative publication! Honestly, though, I'm not sure if I want this guy to retort or not. He's really not raising the level of debate. I'd love to go a few rounds with him one-on-one, though =)

-pb

That's right! On December 29th, I posted an article where an Illinois columnist was screetching about how people who worship the Earth are stupid, because they worship something that killed 150,000 people with one fell swoop. I wrote a letter to the editor, which they printed, just to remind this guy that God killed every living thing with a few exceptions, yet 50% of the population of the planet still worships him.

What do you know, this guy wrote a response, and quoted me. infortunately, he missed the point.

Would someone please inform Julian that in Genesis 1:1 God created the earth? It’s His to do what He wants with it.

Well, duh, if that's what you believe. My response:

-------
I hate to contine to make an issue out of Mr. Thomas' continued bigotry, but when he quoted me as saying

"Would someone please inform Mr. Thomas that in Genesis 7:12, God indiscriminately kills every living being of the Earth and Sky, save for Noah's family, seven of every clean animal and two of every unclean animal?"

and responded with

"Would someone please inform Julian that in Genesis 1:1 God created the earth? It’s His to do what He wants with it."

I get the impression that he either missed the point of my statement, or was doing is best to show his hypocrisy. He attacks the sanity of people who worship the Earth as a sentient being in the face of a natural disaster that killed over a hundred thousand. Nature worshippers believe that nature created the Earth. His retort to me is that since God created the Earth, he's free to kill every living being on it if he wants.

So, when a Wiccan worships the Earth, and it kills 150,000 people in one shot, it's stupid, but when a Christian worships God, and he kills all but 7 people, it's faith?

So, does that mean that people who followed Pol Pot were stupid, but Nazis had faith?

Mr. Thomas would do well to take the plank from his own eye before writing about how certain people need to wash the speck from theirs.
-------

-pb

Reader responses flow in to Thomas' column on the Tsunami

My letter is the one at the bottom. The other ones are worth reading, too!

-pb

Fundamentalist points to Tsunami as proof that Mother Earth is not something to be worshipped

Stupid, stupid man.

"What kind of Goddess would, by her very own hand, cause tens of thousands of people to die?"

Uhm, hello? Has this guy even read the Bible? Let me guess... every last man, woman, and child, deer, cat, goat, chickadee and gazelle that died in the flood DESERVED IT BECAUSE THEY WERE EVIL.

Uhm, yeah. Right.

-pb

-[edit]-

I whisked off a letter to the editor:

Would someone please inform Mr. Thomas that in Genesis 7:12, God indiscriminately kills every living being of the Earth and Sky, save for Noah's family, seven of every clean animal and two of every unclean animal?

Were some of the babies that God killed murderers? If he was upset with all the sin that was going on, why didn't he simply strike down the sinners themselves (as he did on a number of other occasions)?

I think it's rather crass of Mr. Thomas to call peaceful practitioners of nature-based religion crazy because a naturally occurring event happened to annihilate tens of thousands of people. I don't recall seeing the hand of God come down to stop that tidal wave.

Paul Bagosy
Norristown, PA

Religious Conservatives Demand Changes at Nation's Parks

"Park bookstores at the Grand Canyon now sell the book 'Grand Canyon: A Different View,' which contradicts science, saying the Grand Canyon was formed by the great flood from the Bible story of Noah.

The book was written by a 'born again' river guide who writes that his view of the canyon's being millions of years old changed after he 'met the Lord. Now, I have 'a different view' of the Canyon, which, according to a biblical time scale, can't possibly be more than about a few thousand years old.'"

When these Paulists piss and moan about being the most persecuted group of people in America today, perhaps they should look at the reasons why.

Of course you're going to be persecuted if you're running around saying "NO NO FUCK YOUR SCIENCE MY LITTLE BOOK HERE SAYS THAT BATS ARE REALLY BIRDS SO IT MUST BE TRUE OMFG JESUS JESUS DIE HOMO FAGGY-FAG-FAG ABORTIONIST BABYKILLER!"

And when you're making a concerted effort to make the government jam this lunacy down my throat, I'm going to sic the ACLU on you. Deal with it, or shut the fuck up, mmkay?

-pb

Just remember folks, according to drunk uncle Rush, "The Earth’s ecosystem is not fragile, and humans are not capable of destroying it".

Bullshit.

-pb

So, my boss is a diehard Republican (although he's not as conservative as I am liberal). I was playing with a can of canned air, which annoys him. When you turn one of these cans upside down, the super-cold accellerant comes out. To this, he says "Stop that! Every time you do that, you waste the accellerant!"

To which I reply: "Yeah! And it's killing the environment!"

To which he says: "I don't care about the environment, I care about..."

I cut him off with "I know you don't care about the environment. You're voting Republican."

I got a high five from another co-worker.

-pb