As I did manage to get home by that time, I decided to do my part. Here's the list of things I had ON: Three televisions, two computers, four radios, twenty-one light bulbs (some 100 watt, some 60 watt), my fluorescent light in the kitchen, and the oven (when I could have used the toaster oven).
Yes, it was a meaningless gesture that did nothing but make the house a little bright. But it's no less meaningless than the whole event. If you're serious about MMGWH, then turning off the lights for an hour is a stupid way to do it.
And on to March Madness:
Okay, I admit it. I hate basketball. I have absolutely no interest in watching a single game, I couldn't tell you who's playing and who's left, and who has played (other than the University of Dayton, as their games kept preempting good shit).
Of course this is coming from someone who played basketball in junior high (I sucked).
So the title is simply because everybody else is busy hoping their bracket doesn't go to Hell in a handbasket because they picked some team to go to the final four that got washed out in the first round. Now if you're a basketball fan that stumbled onto this blog through a search, please stay, I'm about to declare an Asshat of the Week. And it involves the Bowl Championship Series:
As for the BCS, I'm sure there are plenty of issues with it. There are teams that have no chance, because they don't play the right teams (no problems with Ohio State, they are always in the running). And I'm sure everyone has an idea how to fix it (except me, I just want to watch football).
Simple question: With a shaky economy, new developments in the War on Terror, and Washington lining up to spend an assload and a half of of money on a whole lot of stuff (more on that later, I'm sure), why the fuck is Congress wasting time worrying about the selection process of the BCS? And so:
Senator Orrin Hatch is Asshat of the Week!
With honorable mentions for Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin), and Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), Lynn Westmoreland (R-Geogia) and Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who are also leading the way on this.
The senile Republican Senator from Utah (whose hometown favorite, the University of Utah, got snubbed in the BCS this year) is leading the way on this one. Under the auspices of He wants to introduce legislation to mandate something like the aforementioned March madness or something. Who knows?
And who cares? Unless you have a vested interest in seeing your team play for the national championship and are on the outs, then it's a minor matter.
Wait a minute, it's a minor matter no matter what. It sure isn't one of those Constitutional powers of the legislative branch. It's as bad as their grilling of baseball executives and players over steroids.
And Orrin, here's a little hint. I know you're feeling a little impotent since the establishment GOP is on the outs again, but perhaps you should be leading the way on fighting massive budgets and new government programs than trying to manage football.
I'd chastise the Democrats more, but based on what they're planning, I'm not going to complain if they waste their time on this. Doesn't mean they're not asshats too.
29 comments:
What? Another little pissy-hissy fit?
As I did manage to get home by that time, I decided to do my part. Here's the list of things I had ON: Three televisions, two computers, four radios, twenty-one light bulbs (some 100 watt, some 60 watt), my fluorescent light in the kitchen, and the oven (when I could have used the toaster oven).
Yes, it was a meaningless gesture that did nothing but make the house a little bright. But it's no less meaningless than the whole event. If you're serious about MMGWH, then turning off the lights for an hour is a stupid way to do it.
No. Not a "meaningless gesture" on YOUR PART at all. The meaning I get from your energy overindulgence is this:
"I'm an energy wastrel because I CAN BE. Why should I do anything to save energy because it doesn't matter, so I'll just show the energy company what a kick-ass, anti-establishment energy hog I can be! Look at me! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!
Your local energy company is sure gonna be pissed when you send it your money in your next month's bill!
As for your rant on basketball and why anyone, during this economic crisis, should be indulging in it?
There's a long history of that Patrick. I'll refresh your memory:
Just after a president of the United States was freaking MURDERED, the NFL played their games.
And Mr. Bush threw out a baseball, IIRC, right after 9/11.
You hate basketball? Should we, who enjoy it, all now just drop dead?
As I did manage to get home by that time, I decided to do my part. Here's the list of things I had ON: Three televisions, two computers, four radios, twenty-one light bulbs (some 100 watt, some 60 watt), my fluorescent light in the kitchen, and the oven (when I could have used the toaster oven).
This is probably the most ridiculous, immature, dumbass thing I've ever heard you say.
Nations in Europe are being forced to redraw their boundaries due to melting glaciers. Do you think that the earth really isn't warming up? And Patrick, if all you're taking issue with is the 'man-made' part of it, certainly you can admit that regardless of the cause, if there is something people can do to help the situation, they certainly should. And it takes an idiot to not see that we are not in any way helping the situation by continuing to dump billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere daily.
Stop being an asshole. It's very unbecoming.
And if 'Earth Hour' was a meaningless event, then so is every 'moment of silence' declared to honour someone's memory. Every Arbor Day, where you go plant one little tree that hell, might not live anyway, is a waste of time. Every Fourth of July, where all we do is get drunk, eat barbecue and send a bunch of idiots to the ER with burns from lighting off fireworks in their own faces, is so much drivel.
A moment of silence, a tree, a day where (possibly, for those who aren't too drunk, cholesterol-laden, and in third-degree-burn agony to remember) we reflect on our history are all valuable and meaningful things.
Earth Hour is a way of raising awareness, opening dialogue, and fostering a realization that there's a problem and we need to find the solution.
Do you think anyone said, 'Gee, if we all shut off our lights for an hour, we'll collectively save so much CO2 that global warming will be reversed'?
No. But it's a way to draw attention to the issue and bring discussion on it. Duh.
Again. Stop being an asshole. I just hate it when you are.
Hope you took the opportunity to drive your SUV to McDonalds at 8:30. It isn't enough to waste power only at home.
Shaw: It's the AOTW post. What do you expect?
"I'm an energy wastrel because I CAN BE. Why should I do anything to save energy because it doesn't matter, so I'll just show the energy company what a kick-ass, anti-establishment energy hog I can be! Look at me! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!
Actually, I'm of a mind to conserve energy. But as Earth Hour was meaningless symbolism, I did the opposite. AND LOOK HOW WORKED UP YOU (AND SATYAVATI) GOT.
That's the point, and I'll address it further in the next post.
As for your rant on basketball and why anyone, during this economic crisis, should be indulging in it?
Actually, I was just explaining the title of the post. I understand getting away from it psychologically.
My beef is with lawmakers holding hearings on the FOOTBALL (not basketball) BCS when they could be doing something useful. This is not their off time, not something for the government to sink it's claws into.
I think you need to put the Kool Aid down on this one.
Satyavati: This is probably the most ridiculous, immature, dumbass thing I've ever heard you say.
It's also true.
My issue is not with doing positive steps to improve the world. It's with this blithering stupidity exhibited in meaningless gestures. If it weren't for the endless hyping of these pseudo-events and the fact I was blogging, I wouldn't have bothered.
I think this will require a more serious post. You'll be even more pissed when I get done.
Arthur: I drive a Toyota Corolla (mainly for good gas mileage). And I wanted food, not minimal sustenance.
"If it weren't for the endless hyping of these pseudo-events..."
You mean events like these?
Shaw: Fair point. You suck. :)
However, I can't imagine people disagreeing with the sentiment that we don't need mindless pork in Washington.
Come on Patrick.
Whining and 'laughing' isn't an either/or. You do both quite well. Simultaneously.
And I think I knew you drove a pokey little car but I see you living large some day. Poetic license.
Perhaps a Tahoe.
Cheers!
You sure know how to work the ladies Patrick.
As far as I can tell, for the time being (may end soon, but in theory it's supposed to be true that) we live in a free country, and Patrick is allowed to use as much electricity as he can afford to use. You all can be in the dark if you wish, if it makes you feel better and all (seems about proper for libs who are in the dark on a lot of things anyway...)
when he said there wouldd be "change", he wasn't bullshitting. I do believe he meant it, but... The kind of change he's imposing fast and furious... I do NOT believe in!
Just watch him change the way the President operates... try not to tremble too much with dread and foreboding... must not panic... must keep a level head... two years, you can dump the Obama-worshiping Democrats in your midterm elections... and you'd better, my American friends!
101: It explains why half my hard drive is given over to porn....
Beth: At least I'm flipping your dinger. Since Shaw and Satyavati are so torqued off, I guess you're it. :)
Beth said...
As far as I can tell, for the time being (may end soon, but in theory it's supposed to be true that) we live in a free country, and Patrick is allowed to use as much electricity as he can afford to use. You all can be in the dark if you wish, if it makes you feel better and all (seems about proper for libs who are in the dark on a lot of things anyway...)
Ah, yes. Greed, waste, and profligacy--conservative values we all can believe Beth holds.
It certainly is a free country.
You're free to be the dissipate wastrel you want to be. Good on you, Beth!
Shaw: Greed, waste, and profligacy--conservative values we all can believe Beth holds.
To clarify, those beliefs are freedom and the motivation of self-interest (which is we that we do what gives us benefit).
My Earth Hour thing gave me something to blog about. And the lack of government control (so far) allowed me to do the thing that gave me something to blog about.
Using one's own lightbulbs and paying for it's electricity bill oneself is not greed, it is merely consumption.
Tell me, is it greedy waste for anti-war protesters that use cardboard signs for their form of protest?
Using one's own lightbulbs and paying for it's electricity bill oneself is not greed, it is merely consumption.
There's consumption and then there's conspicuous overconsumption.
This is the same distinction one would make between, for example, hitting someone with a car, and hitting someone with a car, backing up, hitting them again, backing up, toying with the clutch so as to spin the tires on the remains of their intestines, pulling away, circling back around and finally parking on whatever pitiful grease spot is left.
It's the distinction between a 'supper' at the local soup kitchen and a 15-course meal at Chez Mega costing $735.00.
It's the distinction between one 'social drink' and downing two fifths of Jack and a case of Coors.
It was a childish, ridiculous thing to do that was the equivalent of stamping feet and thumbing noses.
I'd put my bitch boots on over this, Patrick, but you'd just get off on that.
:P
Satyavati: There's consumption and then there's conspicuous overconsumption.
And thankfully we have the freedom to choose whether we want to "overconsume" or not (except the running people over thing (although greasing the axle with entrails is natural lubrication)).
I'd put my bitch boots on over this, Patrick, but you'd just get off on that.
OOOOOOOOHHH, BITCH BOOTS!
*dramatic pause*
Send pics please. :)
I refuse to get back into the abortion discussion because I have enough stuff irritating me right now. But quite honestly, gay couples getting married don't impact me or the planet.
People pissing away energy do.
Exactly how does people using energy impact you?
In the same way as someone pissing upstream or dumping poison into my local water table does. We're talking about finite resources that have to be shared amongst everyone.
Notice I didn't say 'using energy'. I said 'pissing it away'. There is a huge difference not to be overlooked or sidelined here.
When you have one common necessary item, be it water, air, or energy, it's incumbent upon everyone who needs to use that resource to be careful with it, to not waste it, and to not mess it up, because it's something everyone needs.
There were, and continue to be, usage contracts between communities that take their water from rivers; taking more than your share leaves those downstream to go without.
In a more technological example, the sattelite we use to get our internet places download limits on users. They have a finite amount of data transmission space available at any one time. To ensure that everyone gets their fair share of access, they have what's called a (surprise) Fair Access Policy, which allows everyone a certain amount of downloads per 24 hours.
Squandering unnecessarily and arbitrarily is sometimes, in certain cases, punishable by law; when water restrictions are in place, as they were for over a year in our area due to the drought, washing your car or watering your lawn could get you a serious fine. This is because water is an essential resource we all require and when Falls Lake looks like Death Valley, you can't be wasting it on your crabgrass or the bug spots on your Pinto.
In the same way, energy resources are finite. Although you can't get a fine for gratuitious and needless overconsumption, it's still the responsible, thinking-outside-of-your-own-four-walls thing to do to take care of those resources so that there's enough left to go around, fifty years from now.
If you really feel the need to light your house in such a manner that it can be seen from space, the best thing to do would be to rig up your very own and truly solar collection, wind farm, hydroelectric, geothermal or some other endlessly renewable resource. Then, if you like, you can install a 2 million watt halogen bulb alongside your front door, and burn the retinas of anyone who approaches within a quarter of a mile.
Otherwise, I think having some scrap of consciousness about the rest of the planet, and its inhabitants, who also require energy out of this same finite energy pool, is the grown-up thing to do.
I hardly think Patrick putting a few extra lights on for one freakin' hour is even remotely close to all you just wrote.
It was an answer to your question:
Exactly how does people using energy impact you?
Perhaps you missed the point.
If you don't think you are making moutains out of molehills over the Contra-Earth Hour energy usage, then I can't help you.
Libs just crack me up, its okey dokey as a society to let mothers rip their babies out of their wombs, but heaven forbid we use energy in excess!
btw, did you actually sit in the dark for that hour on Saturday, Saty?
Hey, do you think we should protest David Cook for his song "Light On", I mean how dare he sing about being wasteful of our shared energy!
Beth,
You asked me a question and I answered it.
Then you accuse me of making a mountain out of a molehill?
The point, which you either conveniently lost or never found to begin with, is that whether your husband's name is Mike or Michelle has no bearing on me or anyone else. If you got raped by your stepfather when you were 11 and had an abortion as a result, that has no bearing on me or anyone else.
If you dump toxins in groundwater or flagrantly use enough energy to power four villages for ten years just to be a whiny ass bitch, that does have a bearing on me, and everyone else.
What exactly is it you want? Is it that you don't know what you want, or is it more accurately that you don't know what to say when you get yourself tangled up in your own questions?
And actually, Beth, most nights there's just one light on here. Or no lights. We don't have streetlights where we live, either, so you can see stars you can't otherwise see due to light pollution.
Forget about the light, Carol Anne.... come to the dark side.
btw, did you actually sit in the dark for that hour on Saturday, Saty?
I wasn't sitting.
And it was for right much more than an hour.
Who needs lights?
:*
We are discussing the use from one individual of electricty for one hour and when I ask how that affects you, you start ranting (for several paragraphs) about the end of the world type stuff, as if they are related. That was making a mountain out of a molehill.
Patrick was making a counter protest, right? And as I mentioned, sometimes protester make signs out of cardboard. But cardboard isn't always recycled and therefore ends up in landfills. Now if I started whining (in several paragraphs) that protesters are killing the earth because they are needlessly adding to our landfills, then that would be me making a mountain out of a molehill. I did no such thing of course, because sometimes to protest, we need visual signs to make a point. So it's all good in my book.
You may want to think back to your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. They lived through the Depression and wartime rationing.
I am sure yours, just like mine, have admonished you on many an occasion, to "waste not, want not".
This phrase was enthusiastically applied to all areas of life, be it a nickel (change jar for vacation or emergency money), clothing (hand me downs? and rags for dusting), or the rest of the mashed potatoes (made into potato biscuits).
Our forebears, who had to pump water from a well, haul it, and heat it, didn't take a 20 minute shower when a 3 minute one would do.
They didn't burn two lamps (or candles, or electric lights) when one would do.
They didn't turn the heat to 72 when you could put on a sweater.
They didn't ride the horse (or drive the car) if they could walk.
They took care of what they had.
They made old clothes into quilts or rugs and saved seeds from vegetables to plant the following year. Jars were washed, saved, used again. Nothing was wasted, ever. Even food garbage was given to animals or put into compost to use for plants.
Conservatism of resources was considered a virtue: 'waste not, want not'.
Now it's considered some kind of liberal left-wing agenda.
Wonder what your grandparents would say to that.
We are discussing the use from one individual of electricty for one hour and when I ask how that affects you
What you SAID was:
Exactly how does people using energy impact you?
I answered that question. You perhaps might have THOUGHT you were asking:
'How does Patrick being an ass and using enough energy in 1 hour to power half a third world nation affect you?'
But you weren't.
You got the answer to the question you asked.
Be careful what you ask for, Beth, because sometimes, you get it.
Post a Comment