*yawn* Oh, look, the gas boycott is here again

Yes, here we are again. My inbox is filling up with those e-mails from friends, family, acquaintances, people I barely know ... almost every mailing list I'm on has forwarded one on to me: "Stick It Up Their @$$ Day" and other like appellations. For one day, we won't buy gasoline. Nations will tremble. Oil company executives will cower under their desks. The heavens will ring with the anguished cries of the Middle Eastern oil barons. And the price of gas will instantly halve.

As much of an idealist as I am, get fricking real, people.

I get gas about once every two weeks, once a week if I've done a lot of driving. Does this mean that I'm boycotting the oil companies the other 13 days?

Yeah, OK, maybe if everyone, absolutely everyone in America refrained from refueling (this includes the truckers who bring those frozen pizzas to your grocery stores so you don't have to get up off your ass and make some decent food yourself, and who bring you your mail every day), it might cause a hiccup that they would notice. But it would be nicely offset by the rise in gas sales the week leading up to and the week following it.

A finer example of slacktivism I can hardly envision. It accomplishes absolutely nothing, but makes you feel good about doing it.

You really want to stick it to the oil companies? You really want to complain about the obscene price gouging, the positively criminal level of profiteering?

Get off your ass. Walk. Wipe the cobwebs off that bike, pump up the tires and get riding. Carpool to work. Telecommute. Combine errands into one trip. Decide if you really have to run down to Circle K for a stick of butter. Ride the fricking bus, ferchrissake!

Get rid of that stupid SUV that you never actually use for its intended purpose (even though if you did use most of the newer ones for that intended purpose, they'd fail miserably) and buy a hybrid or a SmartCar. Find ways to save electricity. Etc., etc.

Basically, use less oil over the long term. One day isn't going to accomplish diddly. But a long-term drop in consumption will serve two purposes: It'll make the point that the stuff costs too much, and it'll slow consumption so that the day is delayed when we totally run out; plus, we'll all be in a slightly better position when it finally does.

Gawd, people are stupid.

politics: I'm pretty sure lying is a sin, too, right?

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping; there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all the time." -- Pat Robertson, today.

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it." -- Pat Robertson, Monday.

I'm astonished that he thinks people are that stupid. The man truly has hellfire at his core.

social issues: Intelligent (?) Design

Stumbled across this quote from Neal Stephenson's The Confusion (vol. 2 of the Baroque Cycle, an intriguing and aptly-named historical fiction trilogy of sorts):

"Monads and atoms are both infinitely small, yet everything is made out of them; and in considering how such a paradox is possible, we must look to the interactions among them. ... We're obliged to explain the things we see ... solely in terms of those interactions."

"Solely, Doctor?"

"Solely, your highness. For if God made the world according to understandable, consistent laws -- and if nothing else, Newton has proved that -- then it must be consistent through and through, top to bottom. If it is made of atoms, then it is made of atoms, and must be explained in terms of atoms; when we get into difficulty, we cannot simply wave our hands and say, 'At this point there is a miracle,' or 'Here I invoke a wholly new thing called Force which has nothing to do with atoms.'"

I am reminded, too, of the old maps that left uncharted areas labelled 'Here there be dragons.

Anyway. Submitted for your consideration.

politics: A 'well, duh' epiphany

It just occurred to me why the Bush cabal is now, at least covertly, suggesting they might start pulling the troops out of Iraq. I mean, yeah, it took me awhile to connect this with Bush's 'all options are on the table' crap concerning Iran last weekend.

But that's just it. There's no way he can invade Iran while the military is mired in Iraq.

Here we go.

misc.: Gag.

azcentral.com reports on the new color scheme for the post-merger US Airways planes.

Say what you will about America West Airlines, and there are many things you can say. But their planes are pretty. Their colors are nice. This color scheme is about as exciting as the dress code for male employees at Fry's Electronics.

What part of 'Thou shalt not kill' was unclear?

Pat Robertson. Dude is seriously whack. Televangelist Calls for Chavez' Death, says the Washington Post. Apparently it's God's will that America assassinate a democratically-elected foreign head of state.

Seriously, even if this were the first time he'd said or done something so monumentally evil, I don't understand why this man still has a job.

misc: An engrossing random Web site find

I use Firefox for my Web browsing and I have an extension on it from StumbleUpon, which sends you to Web sites it thinks you'll like based on your ratings of other sites you've visited (sort of like TiVo Suggestions for the Web). Because the toolbar is right above the tabs in Firefox, sometimes I hit the 'Stumble!' button by mistake.

So this morning I found the photoblog PostSecret. The deal is that people anonymously send in 4x6 postcards to the address of the blog owner with a secret written, or laid out artistically, or whatever, on the picture side of the postcard.

Some of them, I'm sure, are invented, and some of them are trivial. Some are funny, some are tragic, some are sad ... but almost all of them are fascinating. I lost a chunk of my morning reading them today.

homosexuality: Dobson's really starting to creep me out

There's so much I could say about this Web site, but really, it speaks for itself.

"My son couldn’t care less about sports and the great outdoors. He’s painfully shy and easily gets hurt. Other kids call him a sissy. I’ve tried everything. My boy even wimped out of Cub Scouts. What am I supposed to do?"

This, of course, is the point in the blog entry at which I obligatorily point out that:

• I enjoy watching several sports and even participating in a couple of team sports from time to time.
  
• Hiking, camping, bike riding, rock climbing ... these are all activities I enjoy very much.
  
• Just about every guy (even the straight ones, amazingly!) I know was called a 'sissy', 'fag', etc., etc., more times than he can count over the course of his childhood. Kids are mean that way.
  
• Shyness is, equally amazingly, not limited to us queers, in my experience. Actually, most of the queerwimpsissyfags I know are actually substantially more extroverted and outgoing than me.
  
• I'm an Eagle scout and veteran of the armed forces. So much for their 'wimp' bilge.
  
• I am far from unique in all of this.
  

I mean, I know I'm no parent, but it seems to me that a paranoid urge to control your child is indicative of your own insecurities and is ultimately harmful to your child.

And, erm, there's this word that's all over this meanspirited, judgmental, psuedopsychological swill ... 'prehomosexual'.

WTF?

politics: Go, Cindy!

Cindy Sheehan is officially my new hero. Thanks to kniwt, I've been reading this blog/running commentary since yesterday, which keeps me up to date. William Rivers Pitt was doing the updating, but he's gone back to Boston, leaving Scott Galindez to keep everyone informed.

I'm captivated.

politics: You poor take courage, you rich take care

OK, quoting a Leon Rosselson song in the subject line, and now to quote one of my own songs (in an act of blatant self-aggrandizement), in the name of truth, we're coming for you ...

Yes, it looks like Schmidt is going to Congress, the woman who I indelicately compared last night to "a schoolmarm who performs the Black Mass in her off hours." But if she can win by such a slim margin in a district that hasn't gone Democrat in decades, it's evident that the backlash against neoconservatism, neoimperialism and neofascism is already well underway.

What lessons can we take from Hackett? Being plain-spoken resonates. An anti-war message resonates. Bland and blatant adulation of the president does not resonate particularly well. Slandering veterans and questioning the quality of their service will backfire. But more jobs, protecting Social Security from the rapacious Republican hordes, and better, more accessible and more affordable health care are popular.

I feel certain the Richt will paint this as a sound trouncing of liberal values and a ringing endorsement of the unholy bloodbath in the Middle East. But to go from consistent 75%-25% races to almost a dead heat does indeed indicate a shift in the tide.