Carbon Atoms

Win?

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:48:27 -0700

Mugabe didn't win any election. It's not an election if you credibly threaten war if your opponent wins. Torturing and killing the opposition supporters doesn't help either.

This word "win" bugs me as it is used. I've mentioned this before.

No, Mugabe lost the election, and everything. Zimbabwe lost too. Fuck.

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Nuclear

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:22:29 -0700

I am in favor of McCain's Proposal on nuclear power. I consider myself an environmentalist and I think that from a practical standpoint, nuclear is our best current option. Here's hoping Obama doesn't take a contrary stance.

Not sure about the other points of his energy policy.

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Yeah, bin Laden won

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:57:04 -0700

"Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation a September 10th mind-set ... He does not understand the nature of the enemies we face," McCain national security director Randy Scheunemann told reporters.

It's true. Our nation has been largely ruined for the time being, since I think about half of us would identify with the above fears. We worry more about this one anomalous attack than all the other challenges to improve ourselves that we could face and conquer. There is more palpable bitterness and distrust of our neighbors than ever before in my life.

One well placed attack. That's all it took.

the complete article

I wonder when we'll be over it. 10 more years? 50?

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Thank God

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:50:50 -0700

I recovered some hope for America with today's Supreme Court decision.

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Good Idea

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:01:17 -0700

Okay, here's a positive development:

McCain challenges Obama to 10 town meeting debates

As the article points out, there's no guarantee this will avoid the rehearsed crap, but it's got a better chance. I respect McCain's suggestion and I hope Obama agrees. I would really like to see these two talk with each other. As I mentioned on my little politics page way back in early primary season, I have ideas about what makes for informative political discourse. I hope the debates turn out along those lines.

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Taxes

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:27:19 -0700

Damn. It's going to sound partisan because I'm picking on McCain again, but here we go:

"I don't want to send any more of your earnings to the government," the Arizona senator said.

That's a fair sentiment, but it just doesn't make sense in the context of 100 years of war. War, even when necessary, is a huge expense. If you want to be hawkish, you better have the guts to tell the people that they are going to have to make some sacrifices to support that hawkishness, either through taxes or currency devaluation.

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Talking

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:08:24 -0700

Okay, despite my best intentions I accidentally stumbled on to Google News today and found this article about McCain.

There's just one bit that makes absolutely no sense to me: the idea that we should not talk with leaders we don't agree with. I don't understand how not talking could help. I don't understand how talking could hurt. If we don't like what they're doing, we visit, tell them the way things need to be, if/when they refuse, we tell them the consequences, we tell them we'll meet with them again, but that our position won't change.

This at least keeps open the possibility of progress. It's not as though refusing to talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Khameni will deprive them of power. They're still, you know, actually in charge of Iran and it's peoples. Any terrorism they sponsor will, you know, still take place. As far as I'm concerned, not talking is just sticking your head in the sand. The less we talk, the less they understand how seriously we take the issue (ignoring someone is more a sign of indifference than conviction) and the less we understand how flexible, stubborn, and/or dangerous they are.

Somehow though, there is a large nodding faction of Americans who think the best thing to do with difficult world leaders is to close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and say "la-la-la".

Obama gets points in my book for calling it out. Shame on McCain for continuing to play off and promote such a immature and pointless idea.

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Bank of America

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:23:13 -0700

Look, it's not "higher than normal call volume" when it's been that way for the past ten years. Hire more people or admit you don't want to talk to me.

Thanks.

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New Take

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:30:22 -0700

I've just decided that, for me, worrying about the world is just a way for me to avoid thinking too much about my own life. So I'm going to take a break from that. Worrying about the world, that is.

I'll get back to worrying about the world eventually, I'm sure. After I get a few more of my own affairs in order. But for now I'm going to stop reading the news and news discussion sites. I figure anything important enough to effect my day-to-day will get to me somehow.

I wonder what and when my next post here would be. It may be a while...

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Global Warming Worries

nobody@vox.com(jfield) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:35:57 -0700

I'm a little worried about global warming, but not in the traditional sense. I'm worried that it's not true.

I'm a fairly strong conservationist, and I believe we do a whole lot of careless things that damage our environment. I think there's a lot we could and should do to better maintain our world. Being carbon neutral is probably one of those things, and I take it into consideration.

The problem is that Global Warming makes very specific predictions about an extremely complex and little understood process. Even if we are causing warming, it may be made irrelevant by other changes the planet goes through which we can not anticipate. But if the predictions don't pan out in a certain time frame, I think the Global Warming movement will damage the idea of conservation in general. It will be used as an example of how conservationists are sensationalist sky-is-falling types, and can be safely ignored. I also think it puts far too much emphasis on one aspect of conservationism, ignoring other important issues like deforestation, overfishing, other forms of air and water pollution, etc.

I hope we can, in a reasonable way, learn to live sustainably. I hope that the flash of Global Warming, true or not, doesn't drown out the rest of the picture.

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