Posts
A "cult of personality" is created when the media casts a leader in a heroic or godlike image, combined with unquestioning praise and flattery for that person even though they have accomplished nothing in their political career.
A hallmark for dictatorships throughout history, cults of personality have been used to dupe the public ( primarily the youth ) into believing they're part of a movement, when they are fed empty slogans which they parrot without question.
Mr. Barrack Obama a covert muslim communist, His role in the historical drama that is being played before us, is he will preside over the U.S. Perestroika, socio-political restructuring, further police state inegration under the ficticious threat of more terror.
The elite overlords who promote him, want to further humiliate the U.S. by slapping us in the face ( adding insult to injury ) with a Muslim President and whose name ryme with Osama, that is if you follow the official story line or myth of the war on terror. I know them like the back of my hand, I think like they ( elite overlords ) do.
An extreme example of 'cult of personality' is the dear leader of North Korea Kim Jong-il where he is practically worshipped as god of the peasants and armed forces of North Korea.
Looks like Hawaii is making solar mandatory in all new homes.
Hawaii has become the first state to require solar water heaters in new homes. The bill was signed into law by Governor Linda Lingle, a Republican. It requires the energy-saving systems in homes starting in 2010. It prohibits issuing building permits for single-family homes that do not have solar water heaters. Hawaii relies on imported fossil fuels more than any other state, with about 90 percent of its energy sources coming from foreign countries, according to state data.
And a Republican no less.
This may raise the initial price of housing in Hawaii, but it will save the homeowner money over the long term. It is just like any other efficiency investment.
This news I read in the local newspaper about "Casual Carpooling" which being practice in NY and few other cities in the US. All this effort is due to the increasing fuel price which hit majority of people around the world.
"Casual carpools" are informal car pools that form when drivers and passengers meet — without specific prior arrangement at designated locations. There are a number of Car Pool meeting locations, which are listed on the Net. This way it offers more convenient car pooling because no pre-arrangement or fixed schedule is necessary.
Now the big question is "Can we do this here in Malaysia? Are we ready to consider this option?
<<< This pooling is not Casual at all!
If you as me, I will never stop and pick up strangers. With the current rate of events nowadays, anyone can ended up on the first page of the next morning news. Our strange mentality of 'opportunists' adopted my many of us goes beyond mankind imagination.
To find a caring person who will lend his/her help without expecting any kind of return is almost like when Horton was looking for the tiny speck of WhoVille in the Dr Seuss' Horton Hears a Who when the evil Vlad threw the speck into the valley.
Climate report:
Droughts in the southeast and the west, recrod rainfall in the middle of the country. same as last year and the year before. Result: massive flooding in the middle of the country. Widespread wildfires in the west. There have also been wildfires in the east. Lightning seems to be the main culprit.
Math lesson for Monday:
loads and loads of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere = global warming faster than would normally happen
runaway global warming = more severe storms, droughts, and / or flooding or more flooding than normal (aka climate gone bonkers, and those are just a few of the issues)
more severe storms = more lightning strikes
drought = dry forests
lightning strikes + dry forests = wildfires
massive flooding = dead crops, dead animals and dead people
CO2 + CH4 = R
R = a, b, c
a = x
b = y
c = we're f*cked
x + y = oh sh*t
R = Right. Not actually funny. It sucks. R is for reality check.
(last night we had storms in the southeast and the lightning was phenomenal. This after no rain for nearly all of June.I miss gentle rains; where did they go?)
Back in the States for awhile, I have a thing I do to entertain myself when sitting at long traffic lights: I count the SUVs that go by as opposed to the little cars. SUVs always outnumber the little cars about seven to one. (by the way, my car uses no fuel at stop lights) Men’s Health magazine has an interesting article in its latest issue. It rates the cities with the biggest gas (gasoline, aka petrol) guzzler vehicles per capita (Men’s Health what? Yep). Charlotte, of my home state North Carolina, ranked a whopping tenth from the top. (all those NBA moms driving hummers…yuck.) The greenest city in the state based on vehicle fuel-suckage is Durham (bunch of hybrid driving liberals, thanks, y’all). Who ranked biggest wasters (called "fossil fools" by Men’s Health, I love it, I wish I had thought of that term) on the US map? Well, jest y’all think about it. What state do Dubya and Jeb hail from? The grand city of Arlington, Texas wins the prize. Number two for piggy at the pump is Yonkers, New York; number three would be….(drum roll)…again, from Texas: El Paso. Numero quatro, Riverside, California (hour and a half long commute to work one way, anyone?) Five, Birmingham Alabama (in Birmingham they luv the guvna…woo hoo hoo). Number six, Fort Worth, Texas (Dang!)and number seven biggest gas hogs, El Paso, Texas. Seattle ranks number one in least petrol usage per person. Burlington, Vermont is number two in greenest drivers, and Portland, Oregon numero tres. In North Carolina, public transportation (bus) usage is on the rise. Big surprise; nothing like money to get some action when common sense will not. It’s been there all the time, but loads and loads of people prefer to ride alone in their car to work and back, and the roads got more and more clogged. There was talk (and money spent and work started) of a commuter train. But Dubya cut the federal funding that was to go towards the building of it in 2002 (how do I know? I worked where I had access to that knowledge) so it got poop-canned. Fabulous. Instead they spent millions on widening the highways between the Triangle cities, where more and more people move each year from afar and take up residence. (They call it the "New Atlanta" in honour of the horrid traffic problems). Meanwhile, no train. This is the time for change. This is the turning point, and if people can learn to ride the bus, or move to where they can walk or bike to work (and thus lower their trouser size, another problem in the States), they can be part of a transportation revolution that defies the Big Oil companies, General Motors Corp, and the oil dictatorship that sold them out. Sigh…but meanwhile, China’s petrol use is on the rise, ten per cent per year on average. More and more people there want and get their hands on cars….and apparently (which I was unaware of before today, oops) their government ALSO (like ours did) has been keeping petrol prices low to "stimulate the economy" but now that’s all over with. And people there are whinging. Aw…get in line. Personal Spip: I remember when my mom (rest her soul) wanted to buy a new SUV…I talked her into getting a hybrid one. (It’s better than a non-hybrid SUV, but at 35 mpg highway, not a great alternative, but she was determined.) My sister then wanted to trade her Lincoln Navigator (that my mom bought her, thanks) for something even bigger and stoopider, a Cadillac Escalade last year; this with my advice against it. I warned her, prices would rise…I hope she did buy the horrid thing, and is whinging like a champ about gas prices and can’t buy as many Coach handbags as last year. Meanwhile, I drove my Prius about 300 miles on a trip to and from somewhere last month and spent $37 on…weeee… you reap what you sow, baby. The future is bright for me and my kind (and I am not talking about my Dubya-voting family members), cause we have that special thing called vision. Peace out.
A dream well worth actualising, California and the rest of the world:
::linkLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California on Thursday took a major step forward on its global warming fight by unveiling an ambitious plan for clean cars, renewable energy and stringent caps on big polluting industries. The plan, which aims to reduce pollutants by 10 percent from current levels by 2020 while driving investment in new energy technologies that will benefit the state's economy, is the most comprehensive yet by any U.S. state.
Today is the Summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and I am thinking about change.
Change in how you look at a deer is part of this. But also news, other blog posts: How do you change bad habits, how do you change what you do, how you care?
There is a huge feeling that Change may well be a good thing but ... but what are you willing to give up, to do to make that change happen? Probably not much. Oh, you will do the easy stuff, that doesn't really impact your life but gives you that little glow of Do-Gooder. Like recycling your glass (but only if your council comes & picks it up, or there is a convenient bottle bank).
On the other hand there are things that would really impact you personally that you may well say 'Well, I am going to choose to do what I want but feel that other's shouldn't make the same choice as if we all do the same thing that will be bad'. So we have increasing measles etc because fewer parents are comfortable with the MMR jab, thus reducing the herd immunity. So we have places in India where there are just 300 girls to every 1,000 boys among higher caste families. Oh, the last is illegal, of course. And contrasts with the previous quite nicely.
For an individual it is so easy to think you are doing only a little bad, a little damage. It isn't so important per person is it? but when it ads up....
What is a penny or cent worth? Not a lot. Anyone think of something you can buy with 1p or 1c?
How about if you scraped together 50? 700? Can you buy a couple of coffee's from Starbucks, with maybe a slice of something, and change for the tip jar? Or would you walk to the market, buy some own brand cheap stuff, and feed your family for another couple of days? Or buy organic fair trade stuff?
How about voting? about as useless some say as a penny. But if you have 700 you could tip the balance in an election, if you have 70,000 you could really change things....
Until you realise a lot of people are in favour of change for other people, but only want their own lives to get better, or at least not worse. Or that you are herding cats as everyone considers different things important and you are trying desperately to convince people that everyone needs to move in the same direction vaguely for society to have a chance at improving things.
How easy is it to recognise that what you want isn't what the world needs? That you may well be a unique snowflake but that you are just one amongst millions?
How do you inspire a desire for change?
In the White House rose garden, Dubya announced his latest fabulous idea: the lift the current ban on offshore oil drilling in the United States. He also announced that he wants Congress to make it easier for oil refineries to expand. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino described the lift as to "pass legislation lifting the congressional ban on safe, environmentally friendly offshore oil drilling." (if ever there was an oxymoron…Dana is the Specialist. To say the words safe, environmentall friendly and offshore oil drilling together wins the prize. New blockbuster film idea: Dana Perino in The Specialist 2: Oxymorona. It will make the just-released film Wanted look like child’s play.) The President of the President’s (that was fun) Economic Council, Keith Hennessey admitted, this will be "measured in years" referring to, the ability to improve the current situation, which was a perfectly intelligent and informed thing to say. Then he made a complete idiot of himself and stated, that the prospect of more oil in the future will make people use more oil now, which will stimulate the economy, and fix the current problem. (Om….Isn’t our problem that we have been using too much and now it has finally caught up with us? Need I say anything about his last statement anyway? Doesn’t stoopid sell itself?) Now, as things work, someone else actually came up with the dumb idea in the first place. Who did so, you may ask? Well…on Sunday, Presidential candidate extraordinnaire John McCain blurted that he wants the ban lifted. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said in response, it is "a bad idea" (Go, Bill!) and will "take ten years" to get any oil of significance out of the continental shelf. He also stated that it is a "fragile ecosystem" and blasted Congress for failing to pass a bill for a solar energy tax credit. Governor Charlie Crist of Florida has jumped on McCain’s bandwagon (or should we say, SUV) about lifting the ban. This as Congress was poised to extend the ban (since 1981) on offshore drilling. Why ban it, you may ask? Well, first of all, it was banned for environmental reasons. Oil drilling = oil spills. Second of all, it is not the solution for our problems. The process will be this, if the ban is lifted: Thing is, we have been sucking up oil from any source possible at a rate far greater than any other country. Period. Want to know the stats: the US uses 20,800,000 barrels of oil per day (CIA World Factbook) with 303 plus change million people. We are number one. China is number two, and they use 6,930,000 barrels per day. People: 1 billion, 330 million plus change. They have 1 billion, twenty-seven million more people in their country than we do and use one-third as much oil. Do we see a usage problem in the U.S. here?
