@Foxfyre,
Quote:Fine Spendi. Whatever you think. (Who knows what you think?) I tend to be more pragmatic about these things and take people at what I believe they most likely intend.
Well, as a good American republican, I thought you would understand my hint that what he intends first and foremost is the promotion of his career and his name up in lights as a stout upholder of scientific piety as approved by those who sign the biggest cheques. You would look a bit silly saying that the dollar rules the world and thinking it doesn't rule you. I understand Americans goodstyle. I've been reading about them ever since my Auntie Phylis, who wasn't my real auntie, bought me a subscription to Readers Digest when I was about 12. She was of an age which could have brought her into contact with an American base near here. My mother was a PO Box for her. I asked my mother once why Auntie Phylis's letters came to our house when she had a house of her own. She ruffled my curls devilishly and told me not to bother my head about it so, as I always did what she said, I examined one of these envelopes, they were placed behind the clock on the mantlepiece over the fire besides which Auntie Phylis would often sit reading the paper with her legs ajar with me opposite studying a map of the US, Births, Marriages & Deaths mostly, and it had an American stamp on it. They came once a month and after a while tailed off and then faded out altogether like I had better fade this sordid tale out.
It was the famous fireplace which warmed Auntie Phylis's hinderparts when she had just come in from the cold and once my mother had said to her "mind you don't burn your ration book" with what I now know to be a cynical feminine leer. It struck me as a strange thing to say but I thought no more about it.
What I mean, Foxy, is that his spiel gave me the impression that he could just have easily been on the other side had he thought it offered a more glittering career in a nation that pumps it out without a thought for saving the earth or even for preserving the habitat of the greater titted warbler were this species of tree-hopper to become endangered. There was no enthusiasm in the piece, I felt, for disentangling us from this fine mess we have got ourselves in. It seemed to be saying "carry on folks--we don't want the DOW at 2 now do we? Which is mindless enough in my book. The technique was the bullshit.
I don't know if you are a bullshitter and a racist. I don't know how you live. But if you are an average American you are likely to be and if you are above average you are likely to be an above average bullshitter and racist. One only need compare the per capita consumption of fossil fuels in the USA to that of Chad and the stark fact stares you in the face. farmerman, for example, has three different cookers. At least. Three I know of. One in his house, one on his boat and one in his garden when he wants to griddle some shrink-wrapped brisket ceremonially. In Chad they have no matches. And he is a socialist.
And hasn't the wit to know that he ought to light his BBQ by rubbing two sticks together if he is to conduct fire magic customs properly.
It's a bit one sided for those with a deep love for their fellow man don't you think? And your news footage rather rubs it in to the face of the rest of the world. Even the camera work in some makes us gasp with astonishment. Who else could film a dead body being conveyed from the jurisdiction of one set of freeloaders to another with such style. The hearse did look like it was heading for heaven at the next set of lights. It seemed to float down a deep-purple carpet in an orange glow of technological wizardy doing a real time version of slow motion. With flashes of lightning each time one of the many shiny surfaces on the cortege brought a street light into reflective conjuction with the cameras. The Pharoes would have had that but they would be being conveyed into the jurisdiction of the hereafter. I imagine Mr Jackson had imagined his hereafter and set things in motion which he thought might be entertaining in the event, which many think unlikely, of him being able to witness the spectacle. Of, say, thousands of people wrassling over an intractable problem of his design. The more powerful the ship the more turbulent the wake.
It's Americans goody-goodying that makes me laugh. And Europeans. A "concerned Westerner" is an oxymoron.
Check out Malthus and for "food" read "energy". Energy from the underground store of fossils going whoosh over an unimaginably short period of time using the Darwinian calender. It could look like a puff of smoke.
We will have to live without our ration of daily sunlight at some point and if it takes some scare stories about the sea flooding the coastal cities to get the funding for how to do it then who is to say whether they are justified or not.
And those with the best information, governments, are definitely moving in the direction of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Think of the "leverage" fossil fuels have provided. Think of leverage. Its joys and sorrows.
