Has Anyone Considered?

How the human race manages to use (that is, waste!) resources at such a pell-mell pace? Well, consider this example: Four trillion (that's 4,000,000,000,000) plastic trash bags sold annually worldwide (Worldwatch Institute, 2003).
A product whose only purpose is to be tossed onto the midden heap of civilization! Four trillion. Purchased by... WHO? I didn't look it up, but the usual suspect is the famous American Consumer.
Four Trillion-with-a-T divided by 6 Billion-with-a-B comes to about 666 trash bags per person per year, worldwide. That's including the population of the impoverished tribes scattered around Africa and Asia who have no idea what a trash bag even looks like. I suspect they aren't big consumers of throw-away items of any sort. Remarkable! Where do people put all those bags? No wonder the dumps are filling up. Just the bags to put the trash in are going to fill up a lot of space in the local dump. And at whatever price the things are, that's a lot of dollars. Especially with the value of a dollar these days (not very much), and the value of the oil used to make the one-way plastic bags (pretty high). I'd say the marketers have pretty well proven there's many more than one born every minute.

Can Anybody Tell Me

what's going on here?

There's all these Suicide Bombers! They're in Iraq, they're in Afghanistan,they're in Palestine; in fact they appear now to be everywhere. They're showing up now in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal. Now, it's pretty clear that the poor and the weak and the poorly armed civilians can't compete with hundred-million-dollar attack planes with star wars-ish Electronic Warfighting capabilities. But still, so many of them! In Iraq alone, "The American military has reported more than 1,400 since January 2004. Before the U.S.-led invasion, there had been no suicide bombings in Iraq." Studies: Suicide bombers in Iraq are mostly foreigners(McClatchy, August 8, 2007)
Now, I'm not about to rant and moan about this situation. That the United States is losing at least one, and probably two, wars, is pretty obvious. The feckless President and his hegemonic sidekicks are fierce believers in military power, and nobody can say them nay. I have long claimed that it's impossible to defeat an enemy that won't stop fighting. All you can do is kill them all. A sort of modern-day Final Solution - one which I hope the world is not willing to accept any more.
But, at long last, to get to the point: There are literally thousands of people who balance their present life against the prospect of blowing themself up - and think that setting off a bomb in their pants is a reasonable thing to do. This is a remarkable decision. Has anybody even thought to try to figure out why they come to that conclusion?
Yah Yah Yah! Brainwashing. Religious Fanaticism. Islamofacism. "Threats Of Hell And Hopes Of Paradise". I don't buy it. All of this can sway people, but it's not going to create a suicide bomber unless the person is accessible to the idea in the first place. What makes someone vulnerable to such a crazy idea? Why are so many so willing to leave this life?
Just asking.

Spotted in a Bangkok Newspaper

...
A poll by ABAC (Assumption University of Thailand, Bangkok) indicating that some 83% of Thai voters think it's perfectly acceptable to accept money in return for their vote in the upcoming election! There has been a lot of shock and awe surrounding this number, in spite of the fact that in Thailand, unlike the food, statistical numbers tend to be rather poorly cooked. Lots of pontificating by farang (foreigners) about the simpleminded rural Thai people not understanding Democracy - as if the citizens of the United States understood it. Which the evidence shows they do not.
In any event, here is a letter (e-mail, really) that appeared in the Bangkok Post a few days ago:

The secret ballot is a truly wondrous thing. You can
sell your vote to whomever you wish, as many times as
you wish. When it comes time to cast your ballot, you
are entirely free to bless the candidate of your
choice. Witness the classic movie "The Great Man
Votes" (John Barrymore, 1938), wherein the hero is
courted, wined and dined; his arrears of rent is paid
up. In the final scene he is driven to the polling
place. He saunters up the steps. He turns to the
camera. He smiles. He winks. The message is clear - he
is voting his choice, NOT the corrupt politicians who
"bought" him. Of course, the audience doesn't get to
know who gets the Great Man's vote; that's not the
point of the movie, is it?
I think it's wonderfully appropriate to accept money
from corrupt candidates. And then vote as you will.
Of course, it all depends on the secrecy of the
ballot. The secret ballot used to be a given in the
USA. That's why vote-buyers were forced to look for
votes in the local graveyards. In some places people
continued to vote for decades after their death!
However, with the wonders of the computer age, that's
being done away with. Now the computer can cast your
vote for you, even decide what choice you will be
making. Progress!
Thank you,
Aj. Frank,
Bangkok

Sorry General...

... You don't get do-overs!

Here's Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, telling us now (No End In Sight) about how the whole Iraq disaster is the fault of his superiors - civilian (that is: The President) and military (that is: OH! Commander Of US Forces In Iraq: Umm, that would be Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez!). The General was quite willing to take the job, and do the will of the feckless President George W. Bush, but when the failure becomes undeniable, the General bails out, denies responsibility (Just Following Orders, General?), and points the finger at everyone else. Sorry General, that dog won't hunt. You took the man's salt, you did the work. If the building you built collapses, you're on the hook for it. As Lt.Col. Paul Yingling eloquently points out here: “If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results,”
Now, Gen. Sanchez isn't the only bumbling idiot in this Greek Drama. There's plenty of blame to go around. In fact, just as in the plays of Aeschylus, it seems there's blame enough for everyone - even the Gods. Perhaps, looking at this Tragedy from the outside, it's really more of a Comedy. A wierd comedy, certainly. Maybe it wasn't written by Aeschylus. Perhaps it was Aristophanes'. With the main character wearing a Giant Phallus attached to his fly. If so many people weren't dying from the play, it would have to be called a comedy. Now I suppose we have to await the entrance of Lysistrata.

Congratulations Citizen Gore

And to the
U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Sorry, I guess the IGPCC (or whatever) is too obscure, or was, to have a logo, unlike The 2005 Winners: the IAEA and it's head Mohamed ElBaradei. But 2005 was a long time ago and for all their work, they never managed to get the United States to waver from it's lies and misstatements about Iraq's WMD; claims the administration is now making about Iran. I don't imagine this Nobel Prize will dent the denial of the President and his friends.
While the IGPCC (or whatever) doesn't have a logo, they do have a few facts on their side. Inconvenient of them, isn't it? Here's one interesting graphic. Submitted by Stanford University Solar Center (which I didn't even know there was one of such a thing!).



As you can see, the measured values track the predicted values pretty well. That's generally considered the mark of a good predictive model. In spite of all the cherry-picking of local discontinuities - generally pointed out by those with a vested interest in (energy) business-as-usual.
Now, as I hear (read, really), there seems to be a new groundswell of support for Citizen Gore to run for President. I have to confess in my innnermost self, I'd really like to see him as President. But, given the toxic political climate of today, I have to think it would be a Bad Idea!
Let's face it; Citizen Gore is too much the gentleman to respond in kind to the sort of attacks the cabal once labelled by Sen. Clinton as the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" though, in fact it's really only half-vast, would mount on Candidate Gore. Still, it's a powerful group, and as highly disciplined as the NRA when it comes to attack politics. And the Half-Vast Cabal stands ready to go after anyone who can even be imagined as a Liberal. Al Gore would certainly qualify as fodder for their cannons. As Candidate Gore, he'd be fending off their assaults full time, unable really to do anything important; whereas Citizen Gore can spend his time as he wishes, and need not worry about the perception of the electorate. One could only wish that the electorate of today was ready to vote for an intelligent educated thoughtful candidate. But it seems that what's wanted is a dauntless unwavering bull-in-a-china-shop leader. The President appears to be correct in this; the educational level in the country is a disaster! The people for the most part are completely unable to understand where their own self-interest lies.
I think (hope) Nobel Laureate Gore is too smart and too secure in himself to be willing to put up with it all.
Good luck to the candidates who are submitting themselves to the toxic mud of today's political process.