Just recently, the CEOs of the American “Big Three” automakers came before a congressional committee hearing to make the case for receiving huge, steaming hunks of taxpayer money to bail out their rapidly-failing businesses. Not the first time, not the last, certain.
What rapidly became the main object of this hearing? Allowing the individuals who were members of the congressional committee to play “My Righteous Dudgeon’s Bigger than Yours” as most of them used their free television exposure to excoriate the CEOs for the maximal sin of using their corporation’s private aircraft to make the trip to Washington.
Get that – they used their own transport rather than a domestic airline (or railroad? More on that anon) or road transport. These are, even if failing, huge corporations that have had their own aircraft (owned or leased, I don’t know) for decades, to service more efficiently the needs of the executive corps as they rode herd on their far-flung empire. These costs have been sunk for a long, long time, and the use of this corporate resource is likely as natural to the CEOs as franking a brag sheet every quarter is to the members of the panel.
These sanctimonious panelists seemed more worried about the appearance of this “heinous” act than the ostensible subject of the hearing, being whether or not private companies deserve to stick a siphon hose into the public purse just because they’re really, really big. Or maybe they were just worried about their street-sanctimony “cred” and in exploiting this opportunity to add to their personal highlight reels to impress the voters back home. And to proclaim what kind of car they drive and how old it is.
In the end, though some sort of waffling decision was reached viz. the car companies’ desire for largess and the hoops they need to swarm through to “deserve” such, the hearing played more as a piece of theater than as an actual attempt to forge a new policy path or uphold principles (whether congress critters actually have defined principles beyond the overarching need to gain and retain power is a subject for another time).
The panelists obviously wanted to spend time making themselves look better and their subjects back home feel better by being seen to spew scorn and chant “shame, shame” to the designated national villains of the week. They competed to see how much more “in sorrow, not in anger” they could appear, while disallowing any possibility of recourse or retort from the objects of their passionate performances.
I’m not necessarily defending the CEOs against all opprobrium - certainly not. They’re the ones with the ultimate responsibility, after all, for these huge, far-flung manufacturers’ empires and the immense, almost unimaginable amounts of cash and capital they embody. That responsibility for such vast masses of cash and cash equivalents (which all come from people voluntarily giving the corporations their money to husband and increase by buying their stocks) is why they get the really big bucks and the perks that come with a position of that gravity. They’ve overseen the current slide into the hole they’re all in by (a) not being objective in their analysis of the likely changes to their market and (b) jamming both hands into their money piles and raking it in for all they’re worth. (CEO overpay is a subject for another time, too.) There’s plenty there to discuss and debate about: legitimate lapses in judgment and incorrect decisions that could affect thousands upon thousands of people as directly as a lost job and as indirectly as a contraction of their investment portfolio.
That didn’t seem to the primary point of this gathering, though, as I’ve pointed out. Now, anent railroads: if using a tool you have available makes you appear worse to your inquisitors and drives them to a public “image-flaying” (or an attempt to do so), would it be better to dress the part of shamed supplicant from the beginning? If flying a private aircraft is this horrible, would flying a commercial carrier be that much better? (“You make cars, don’t you? Why don’t you trust your own product to carry you, like the struggling people of this great country are forced to do every day [although they should be riding eco-friendly mass transit, of course]?”) Then, if commercial air travel isn’t contrite enough, should they have ridden a bus or a train? To take it to an extreme, how about if these men had ridden to the meeting by hopping boxcars, and showed up looking like “Freddie the Freeloader,” complete with toes sticking out of shoes, torn clothing, and the aroma of forced poverty about them?
Would that have made it better, or would the panelists have turned and made that the subject of ridicule and called it “. . . an obvious and transparent attempt to gain the undeserved sympathy of the public”?
Frankly, the self-centered thirst for image-building displayed by these our “betters” is as unsurprising as it is disgusting. Most hearings, I believe, serve the panelists more than the truth for this same reason - the only thing important to them is their position of power followed closely by their being seen to be in that position. Thus and ever shall be, amen.
And we forget it at our everlasting sorrow. Unfortunately, many people in the nation seem to like being sorrowful.
And that makes me shake my head in sorrow.
Al Dente here. Just wanted to write a quick note to thank ALL of our friends who purchased carbon offset credits from us. I thank you, and obviously the earth thanks you too! The data is in. Global temperatures are falling slowly but surely. There is a correlation between Good Ideas Gone Bad carbon offset credit sales, and global temperatures.
But I don’t want you to think the battle is won. We must keep up the fight. Now is not the time to walk away from the long war on climate change.
If we stop purchasing credits, I am afraid the temperatures will start to climb once again. Sure, the nay-sayers will spout some scientific jargon about a decrease in solar insolation or inaccurate computer models that overestimate the effect of CO2 on temperature by some 500%. Two words for these people. Flat Earth.
I challenge each of you to double your credit purchases in the next few months. Let’s drive the temperature downward and save the polar bears - together.
Hey - AG here. Long time we’ve had no new content here, but we weren’t entirely static!
First, all kudos to Al Dente for setting up this Wordpress account to take over from the difficult-to-manage version of the page we had before. That was quite a bit of work for him to get everything transferred over and working. Thanks, Al!!
Second, we’ve got a new product to sell! Are you as tired as we are of the useless, suboptimal hacks the two wings of the national government political party (read: Ds & Rs) keep putting up there for us to choose from? Are you tired of having to always vote AGAINST, and never vote FOR? Are you tired of feeling like you’re choosing the lesser of two evils (which of course is still choosing evil)? Are you tired of the lengths to which the two wings of the government party have gone to virtually exclude any parties that may challenge them?
Then have we got a deal for you: Universal Campaign Signs: “Vote None of the Above: Always Your Best Choice!”
We’ve got yard signs, T-shirts, and more in our second store at: http://www.cafepress.com/gigb. Please come by and show your disgust with the status quo!! It’s also called “NOTA Gear”.
And third, we’re going to be making changes to our primary offering, the “Fart Offset”. Watch this space for a gala launch of the revamped product soon!
Thanks for stopping by. Please, go buy something and give us some of your money! (How forthright is that?)
–AG Pym
OK, I have HAD IT with the stupid “War On Drugs” (WoD) and the mindset that it has inculcated into so many of the media? Last week most “news” outlets carried the same article about the big, scary “increase” in the use of painkillers in the US (reported, of course, by the government).
So what? Maybe that means that MORE PEOPLE ARE PAIN FREE for a change? How can that be bad?
Sure, a few folks will get pills they don’t really need and use them to have what they think is fun. So what?
The government’s insane WoD has created a fear (a not unreasonable fear) among those dedicated to treating pain that they will be harassed and themselves brought to ruin if they dare to actually treat their patient’s pain. So now they don’t prescribe as much in many cases, and people don’t get what medicine they need.
And that means that people at the end of their lives, their bodies twisted and decaying around them, are left to die in intractable, untreated pain - essentially tortured to death as a result of government actions. These people are GOING TO DIE - what would it matter if they DID get addicted to an acceptably strong analgesic substance? They won’t be addicted long, and they will end their days without being tortured.
What the hell is wrong with the people in government that that can be OK?
I know that this isn’t too awfully cogent or pithy - I have a hard time reining in enough not to just spew a long scream of hatred and anger about this. Go read Andrew Vacchss’ “Pain Management” for a much better explication.
And tell your elected “servant” what you think of a government that forces the worst imaginable deaths possible on those least able to defend themselves from it.
–A.G. Pym
Al Dente
Mr. Gore had a hand in creating this web site, in a roundabout way. I read the stories about Al Gore’s mansion, the small town that could be powered from the amount of energy used at “Casa Gore,” and his justification for using that much power. I became interested in the climate change phenomenon and did quite a bit more reading.
I was mulling over the idea of the “Carbon Offset Credit.” The earth is a fairly closed system, just like people riding in an elevator. Is it possible to fart in an elevator and not be a jerk? How about if I pay someone else to not fart? Would that make the atmosphere any more pleasant? This line of thinking brought about the birth of “The Fart Offset” we sell here in our store. These offsets use the same carbon offsets that the Hollywood elite use to assuage their conscience. We purchased a large volume of carbon credits from a reputable dealer who invests in wind-farm projects, bio-mass energy projects, and industrial efficiency upgrade projects. Those credits are divided up at our Boca Raton headquarters and sold as certificates for “personal emission mitigators.”
Back to the environment:
Now, Old Mrs. Dente’s little boy Al is not a scientist, although I have worked in technical fields most of my adult life. I am technically literate. I read articles from both sides of the global warming controversy and have come to a few conclusions about this climate change problem.
Mankind has very little to do with climate change. There. I said it. Natural forces control the vast majority of any climate change. No matter how much CO2 is put into the atmosphere, it has very little consequence other than making the plants grow better. If we are to be concerned about what mankind is doing to affect global warming, then we should concentrate more on banning irrigation of all kinds, as water vapor in the atmosphere has a much greater greenhouse effect than CO2. We’ll worry about who is going to feed us later; we need to solve the global warming crisis first.
Heating and cooling of the earth is cyclical. When discussing the horrors of glaciers melting, I am amused by recalling the story I read about the silver mine in Switzerland that has been recovered as the ice has retreated. It appears that the miners stacked their tools neatly inside the mine and left for the winter. That year, the snows just never went away, and the ice eventually took over. Greenland’s ice covering has not always existed. The Vikings had vast farms in Greenland that produced a lot of food.
Insolation seems to be the major driver for the climate cycles. Although surface air temperatures are not affected by variations in solar output, the troposphere and the ocean’s subsurface temperatures are. It turns out that Venus and Mars are increasing their temperatures at the same time we are. Could it be the sun warming things up? Interesting, isn’t it, that solar output has also increased during this time?
There is money to be made in global climate change hysteria. Lots of it. Most of the money will be made by scaring the bejesus out of people and making them do silly things to try and stop the change, such as the Kyoto accord. It is estimated that if the US signs on to Kyoto, we will spend trillions (that is trillions with a T) of dollars to prevent a 0.06 degree centigrade warming over the next 20 years.
Once again, back to saving the environment. I agree we should do as much as we can to not pollute. Everything we throw up into the air comes back out one way or the other. We should strive to make our environment as clean as possible. But although limiting air pollution of any kind is a good idea, bankrupting Western Civilization to do so is a bad idea.
A. G. Pym
I use a Nokia® 9300 Communicator for a cell phone, and there’s one thing about it I really get frustrated at: the keylock / unlock routine.
Sure, I absolutely know why you need a way to lock the phone’s keys when you’re going to carry it in a holster or pocket or purse or somewhere else that might cause buttons to be pushed at random. My first cell phone did NOT have locks, and at one Sunday brunch, I became aware of a tiny voice screaming at me from my hip - somehow 911 had been dialed, and the Operator was understandably upset that noone was answering. So, you need to be able to secure the phone.
I can even understand why you might want to password the function - in a house with small children or snoopy companions, it might be an embarrasment (or worse!)-saving precaution.
But, to have to enter a password (minimum 6 digits) each time you both lock AND unlock the keys, is maddeningly excessive, to my mind. When you’re trying to make a call or text message quickly, or if you’re walking somewhere and need to use some function of the phone, to be forced to perform this time-wasting seven-keystroke ritual is maddening beyond the miniscule amount of time it takes to perform. It just really gripes my fleen, you know?
I’d really love to see a means to select between a “simple” lock (say, a two-second push of the “Lock” button) function, and a “secure” lock function (with password protection, as now). That would let the user customize their tool to match their needs - and save a lot of sotto voce cursing!
Al Dente, July 28, 2007
Don’t get me wrong. I love the environment. I work in it when I can. I love the fresh air, I drink fresh water from my well, and I eat food that I have grown or raised myself. When I go shopping, I look for environmentally safer materials. I like to think that every little bit I do to help out will be multiplied millions of times by all the others who do the same.
I recycle all glass, metal, and plastics that are taken by the local recycling company. And you would be surprised at how much cardboard my family collects on a daily basis. We don’t have curbside recycling here, so we go out of our way to store the material and make trips to the recycling center once or twice a month.
I have investigated buying an electric car or perhaps one of the Brazilian imports that can run on 100 percent ethanol or gasoline, or anything in between. Perhaps a hybrid would work well for us, since we no longer have to take the entire soccer team places, and usually there are only two of us in a vehicle for any trip into town.
I buy compact fluorescent lights (CFL) whenever I can as they do save me from replacing bulbs as often, and I believe that they do indeed use less electricity than incandescent bulbs. Sure, in some locations I use a mixture of incandescent bulbs and CFLs. In a few reading lights, I use only incandescent because Mrs. Dente does not care for the quality of light the CFLs produce. Being a guy, I don’t seem to be anywhere near as particular.
Good ideas all. However, I think that perhaps they have gone bad . . .
Those CFLs that I like contain mercury. As far as I know, there is no way around having the mercury in the bulb as it is important to the ionization of the gas in the tube that produces the light. Although I don’t sweat the load over a little mercury, I do get concerned when I think about all the CFLs that will end up in the landfill.
Our landfill has a household hazardous waste facility that will take residents’ hazardous waste for free. Sounds good so far. But a business has to pay 25 cents per linear foot for disposal of CFLs because they are not allowed to dump the bulbs into the landfill. I would think that they would have built the landfill to handle most wastes, and have it permitted to do so, but apparently that isn’t the case for mercury-containing wastes. Well, I know what should be done, but will I really take those bulbs in for proper disposal? Heck no. I’ll end up throwing them into the normal trash for the truck to haul off. Into the landfill it goes. I won’t want to hold onto just one bulb to take to the facility in a month or two when I get over to that part of town. How many more will be like me? Too many, I think.
I’ve been reading a little about the manufacturing of fluorescent tubes and CFLs. I was hard pressed to find a company in the U.S. that made these bulbs. Almost all of the work is done in China or India. Our environmental laws have made it difficult to perform the work here, so we just ship the work out to countries that don’t pay close attention to harm done to the environment by their manufacturing processes. In our quest to save the environment by reducing energy use, are we helping make a time bomb in those other countries that will cost mankind dearly in the future?
Along with CFL manufacturing, I understand that we no longer make stainless steel in the U.S. (chromium is a hazard), and we no longer tan much leather here because of the acids involved being . . . too hazardous to handle.
Please tell me. Am I am wrong? There is only one environment. I would feel better about doing my part to save it, if I were convinced the steps being taken in the U.S. to protect the environment are not just shifting the problems to another part of the world.
