Every time there is a post on this, we get a post on the glories of public transportation.
Now don't get me wrong - I love public transportation. I use it back and forth to work everyday.
I love inter-city trains. Love them. My experience of going to London from Paris, for example, on the chunnel was fantastic. Or going from Paris to Geneva by train - perfect. I love the TGV. My trip from Paris to Rome via plane, however, was certainly horrendous - now THAT is a long story.
I'd love to see an excellent train system implemented across the U.S. It could not compete with air travel speeds as far as the journey goes, but the obvious upsides - less sensitivity to weather conditions, likely fewere hassles in security (although security in the chunnel wasn't too unlike airport security), and arriving right in the middle of the city you're visiting are big advantages that mitigate much of that.
However, the problem is with what you casually wave your hand and dismiss at the end - the need for inner city travel.
I live in Provo, UT right now. Public transportation here is actually fairly good - so long as you live in an area with a reasonably dense population. It's a college town, and I'm a student, and even though I bought a house on the outskirs I'm still exactly a 12 minute walk from a bus that provides me with an 8 minute ride to work. Not bad at all.
But let's say I wanted to visit my brother in Las Vegas (I don't have a brother in Las Vegas, nor have I ever been, but whatever). It's a 6 hour drive or, probably, a 45 minute flight from Salt Lake International. I'd probably drive, of course - given that it takes 45 minutes to drive to Salt Lake from here, 2 hours to check in and wait, and then another hour or so for the flight, plus cost, I'd just drive it. But what if there was a high speed train that goes through Provo and would wisk me to Vegas at a fare only a little above gas prices? I'd still drive it. Why? I would have no way to get around on the other end unless I wanted to rent a car or unless the city of Las Vegas wakes up and decides it's going to have a massive transit system that works across the entire city and its suburbs. I would need to study bus routes - often arcane, difficult, and changed by detours, run only once every half hour or so, etc. I would need to pay a fare, which will not necessarily be competitive with my own fuel costs. I lose the ability to make stops along the way where I want to, if I so desire. I also lose cargo space back (unless I want to pay extra, likely), so I'm limited in what I can take.
I LOVE trains and mass transit. I love Europe for this reason among many. But America just isn't set up for it yet. Maybe some day, when we've reached the high population densities of European countries we will be able to do it. But for now, trains just seem like spending an awful lot of money to support non-existent systems. It's a chicken and egg problem, I realize, but it's a problem nonetheless.
A sunny May afternoon. Aziz, a low-ranking man in the Iranian defense force, has become overtaken by his hobby - filming voyeuristic squirrel porn - and has now taken it up even during his work hours
Aziz [holding a video camera, slobbering all over himself, and muttering audibly]: Ahhh yeaaaah... you go for that nut, sugar... go get it... go get it!
Squirrel [climbs tree, gets nut, eats]
Aziz [now muttering noticeably louder]: Yeah.... eat it... yeah.... that's what I'm talkin' about... ohhhhhhh yeaaaaahhhh...
Squirrel [continues to eat nut]
Captain Abu Rahman [enters stage right wearing a freshly starched Iranian uniform and a violently angry look on his face]: Aziz! [Aziz jumps to his feet, hoping the Captain won't notice his... errrr... excited state] What the HELL are you doing?
Aziz [sweat rolls from his body as the sun glints on his unzipped zipper and into his commanding officer's eye... his mind races at a million miles an hour as it gropes for some excuse - any excuse - for his presence and sick actions... suddenly, it comes to him] Uh... I was filming... spies!
Captain [curiously]: Spies? Looks to me more like squirrels, officer [seeing his unzipped fly and thinking, "ya sicko!"]
Aziz [innerly thinking "he might buy it! He could buy it!]: oh yes, spies! American ones! [sensing the need to ratchet it up a notch] Can you believe it, captain! The Americans have fitted these mere squirrels with secret spy devices! Why, they have been here for days, monitoring our every move, depositing secret messages in nuts, beaming information back to their base in America! I personally know that one observed you for the entire day yesterday! ["that might be laying it in a bit thick," Aziz thinks]
Captain [pondering... "yesterday? What was it following me for yesterday? What did I do yesterday?" - suddenly, a thought races through his mind like a bullet - "oh no! I was, err 'visiting' the major's wife yesterday! Now the Americans will know, and they will destroy my career!"]: Quick, Aziz! [draws his revolver] We must get these squirrels at all costs!
Aziz [the sweat stops, his heart leaps, and although he realize that he must sacrifice his beloveds, he also must save his job and keep his secret safe]: Yes, captain! Let's go get those yankee scum!
I know many here are excited about this - although few and far between will be those who actually read the documents - but, as someone who studied the U.S. Intelligence Community a fair amount as a Political Science undergraduate, I can honestly say that I don't see any new revelations in all of this. Much of this was released in the original Church Committee over 30 years ago when the CIA - of its own accord - put together the "family jewels". Everything that wasn't in there has since been released in one way or another. It's fun to peruse primary source documents, yes, but also extremely time consuming.
It's certainly quite hard to argue that the CIA was right in all of this, but it should also be pointed out that each of these programs occurred with orders that came from sources much higher than the DCI - most often the president. As a result of the Church Committee and the "family jewels", legislative oversight has become part of the Intelligence Community's life. While excessive oversight can be a burden - as all excessive oversight is for any organization - I think legislative oversight has been a net positive for all involved. The introduction of a requirement for signed directives for all orders from the President has also helped prevent presidents from abusing the CIA to do their dirty work.
I spoke with a professor who taught my course on U.S. Intelligence and National Security a while back. He had been a staffer with the Senate Intelligence Committee for over a decade and had read the entire classified version of the Warren Commission report. His opinion on it was basically this - there simply isn't any sufficient proof to tie the killing to anyone but Oswald, nor proof that Oswald had acted on anyone's behalf, although he did suspect some sort of Cuban involvement somewhere in the killing. But, he qualified, that his suspicions could not be proven and amounted to more of a gut feeling rather than something based strictly on evidence - Castro by then must have known of the numerous attempts Kennedy had ordered on his life.
I realize that picking on the CIA for what they do is all good fun for many, but the CIA is ultimately a servant of its masters - most often the president, especially before the Church committee which resulted in much more congressional oversight. Not to say the CIA hasn't exceeded its own orders from time to time - it most certainly has, and once is too many times - but instead of saying, "ooh, look what the dirty CIA did!", it may be useful to look at why they did it and where the order came from. Presidents have often used it for their dirty work, particularly prior to 1975 or so when signed directives were not required, which allowed presidents to order the CIA to do their bidding without a paper trail and have plausible deniability otherwise.
An interesting read on this and other espionage/covert action matters is James Olson's Fair Play. After giving a brief overview of what espionage is like, he puts forward 50 or so "hypothetical" situations and collects ethical and other opinions from a wide variety of people. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to look at common ethical questions the intelligence community faces and common pro and con arguments against them, as well as practical looks at how the intelligence gathering is done.
Both are MASSIVE exporters, netting their home countries billions - largely because they're the biggest (and, for some products, the only) players in their industry.
Both are at each others throats. Both are trying to best each other. Both are targets of the intelligence service of the opposing country's intelligence community.
The French economy isn't exactly soaring lately, to be sure, but in this particular industry we want to keep a close eye on our competitors. Espionage, like international relations in general, is based on reciprocity - we do what you do to us, and we expect done to us what we'll do to you. Outrage of the uninformed and falsely shocked not withstanding, those are the rules. Sure, we'll try to counter wherever we can and defend ourselves, but it's all part of the game. The French are known to spy on the U.S. Aerospace industry - it would be foolish of us not to do the same to the French industry as well.
Also note that there is a significant difference between espionage and covert action.
I'd agree that mankind probably isn't having a big effect on it, but the primary source of fresh water in that area (if I'm not mistaken - I grew up there, so this could be embarassing if I am) is water from the aquifer. The more people use that water, the more likely sink holes are to open, or so goes my very basic understanding of the process.
In all seriousness please correct me if I'm way off.
Lake Jackson in North Florida, for example, does it every few years as ground water levels fluctuate. I'm sure that human intervention has something to do with these water levels, but isn't likely the only determining factor.
It's kind of funny that, before you go bass fishing, you have to actually make sure there's water in the lake. Sometimes, it drains very quickly.
This may just be a case of taking the bad with the good, and codifying what is "good" and what is "bad" may be nearly impossible.
I'll assume you missed this part of my post or, more likely, chose to ignore it. Whatever.
Anyways, why make a stink over the public funding of this piece and not others? I'd think the answer would be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of human nature - people tend not to get worked up about things they don't perceive as important to them. If a publicly funded artist produces a bunch of landscapes of the boring Kansas countryside, who cares in general? It gets little to no press and little to no attention because there is no controversy. If people perceive an artwork as offensive, though, it attracts interest, controversy, and responses. People start asking why their money was spent on this. Many of them don't mind public funding of the arts in general, but many do mind the public funding of what they perceive (in this case I would argue that the perception was most likely incorrect) as an attack on their religion, particularly from a government who has become so careful about discrimination. It looks to many like the government taking sides in some sort of religious argument, the sort of thing that Americans generally feel the government should stay out of. How would atheists feel if the government funded artists whose work was extremely pro-religious in nature, or anti-atheist? What about, say, an anti-semitic work? Or a blatantly racist artwork? I personally don't believe the art in this case was anti-Christian, but I also see how a reasonable person could come to the opposite conclusion - one does not generally dip portraits of loved ones or those to whom one feels neutral in urine for fun or to show respect.
The question then is - how does one judge what art gets funded? I don't know, and it could be debated endlessly. We're used to government funding being codified - the proper item from the proper distributor, or bidding processes for government buildings, etc. Art is outside of this system. It is hard to control and its variations are endless. Where does one draw the line in a sea of fuzzy gray? What is censorship and what is a reasonable response to the taxpayer's wishes? Don't those who are paying the bills have some right to decide what is made? Or is this simply stiffling artists and does it constitute censorship? And then, what if the piece can be interpreted in many different ways, as almost all great art can be? Should we throw it out because one of many interpretations is "bad", because it could be perceived as offensive? But why should I pay for something if I find it offensive?
Religion and art share a long history as well, and a great many works will undoubtedly reference religion in ways that many people on both sides may be uncomfortable with - especially when they find out they're footing the bill. I have yet to make up my mind on Piss Christ, but I can see that both sides do have reasonable arguments and valid concerns, and I find myself siding a bit more with those against it on reasons of policy. Then again, as soon as I begin to side with them, many questions from the preceding paragraph pop up. I realize that someone who hasn't quite made up his mind is viewed as a heretic or worse in this polarized atmosphere, but I'm a fence-sitter on this one.
I believe almost basically exactly the same thing as the grandparent. The question with Piss Christ, other than the potentially quite offensive art, is government funding. I can see where the artist is going with this - he wanted to demonstrate how society has treated Christ. To be quite honest I think he's got a point. But using taxpayer dollars to fund something of this sort does not strike me as the best use of our resources. But these are the kinds of situations governments get into when supporting the arts, and let's face it - some of the works produced with that government funding are very good, have a wide appeal, and would never come into existence without government support. This may just be a case of taking the bad with the good, and codifying what is "good" and what is "bad" may be nearly impossible.
That said, the response of American Christians' response to the piece was markedly different than the response to the Mohammed cartoons. I don't doubt that the creator of Piss Christ received threats, but no massive displays of mob violence were present, and despite what many here would say no group approaching the Shiv Sena in power and extremeness exists in the U.S. It is also worthy to note that Piss Christ was reproduced in many American mass media outlets yet the Mohammed cartoons were largely carefully avoided - a very interesting difference.
This is quite typical of kdawson. Just be glad it wasn't a mention of the "stolen" 2004 presidential election.
I'm no partisan Republican myself, but I'm getting fairly tired of kdawson. I don't want to see/. become the next Rush Limbaugh site, but the slow emergence of slashkos is concerning as well. Then again it's the editors' right to tilt one way or the other, so whatever.
but if any western media channel behaved in the way they did, normal regulatory bodies would have shut them down long ago. Imagine the bias of Fox news multiplied by 100 and you begin to get the picture.
Forgive me, but what part of:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
do you not understand?
During the coup attempt against the Chavez government in 2002 the news channels deliberately manipulated news footage to make it look like Chavez supporters were shooting people. What do you think would happen to a US TV Station if it did something like that and the whole Channel was behind it?
Well, the factuality of this claim is in question. Assuming that we're talking about the same deaths during the coup (we might not be, of course), at least Freedom House agrees with the claim.
What would happen to a U.S. station if it incorrectly claimed government officials were involved in illegal murders? Well, we can already see how CNN was treated. Even if they hadn't issued a retraction they would have kept their broadcast license. Take a look around at all of the 9/11 conspiracy nonsense - where is the heavy hand of the U.S. government to silence it or keep it off the airwaves? Excluding the minds of the paranoid and delusional, nowhere. The U.S. government allows it. Why? Because we allow free speech and this is, in spite of all the nonsense we hear about, a free country. If anything the U.S. greatly benefits from having a free market of ideas, which inevitably includes numerous lemons.
What Venezuela needs is effective media monitors like Ofcom, perhaps with international observers.
Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Let's bring the magically impartial people who, unlike the rest of the world, do not bring in bias to their thought process. Then let's make them the ultimate gate keepers of what the people get to hear. And instead of censors, let's call them "media monitors" or "observers". That would be double plus good! No need to let the people hear those pesky claims of others and evaluate sources. They're too dumb for that sort of thing.
Also, the reason we keep hearing so much about Chavez is not because of his actions, it is because he is not a US ally. If he was a US ally and was doing these things, the media would be largely disinterested.
As an American who has lived in Latin America before (2 years in Argentina - slums of Buenos Aires, 3 months Chile - rather nice parts of Santiago), I must agree that media coverage of Latin America is lacking in the U.S.. Most people simply don't care about the area here in the states (prior to traveling to Argentina, numerous people asked me what part of Africa it was in), and that leads to little coverage unless something bad happens like, say, a country turning from democracy to a dictatorship very, very quickly.
We can play with the red herring of "people only dislike Venezuela because he dislikes the U.S.!" all we want. No need to defend the U.S. on this note - it has in the past, does in the present, and will in the future associate with many unsavory characters. That's the way international relations work, and if you can find a single country that hasn't done the same then please let me know. The question is not so much one of International Relations in my book as it is a matter of domestic government. That said, consider the following:
One claim against the station is that it allegedly helped a military coup, making it in the view of many "bad". If that's the case, then what about Chavez, who staged his own failed military coup in 1992? Was that not
Why vote for nerd-men when you can vote for a nerd-god?
Granted, he is total information awareness unto himself, but here's a man who understands some of our problems in the Middle East, like Improvised Explosives, Improvised weapons, improvised planes and improvised... uh... stuff. His strong knowledge in this area of improvisation will no doubt propel him to the forefront much like an improvised rocket of compressed air will shoot him down a zip line as a factory explodes.
I don't think anyone else has mentioned this so I will - why on earth put a print button on the camera? While this may make sense for some cameras and some users (cheap point and shooters especially), they're now popping up on more advanced DSLRs like the Canon 30D. Who buys a $1,000 DSLR and prints directly from the camera with no post processing and not even a look at the images? Worst of all, the button can't be remapped - you're stuck with a useless button. Why, why, why?
"...alter their paths away from densely populated areas?"
If you were to do this to a hurricane in, say, the middle of the Atlantic, perhaps this wouldn't be a bad idea - it could save Georgia and the Carolinas from a lot of damage. But what about hurricanes in the Gulf? As someone who grew up in the Florida panhandle, I can tell you right now that this would not be a very politically popular thing to do. I can see the scenario now:
"Well, the hurricane looked like it was heading to New Orleans (or Tampa, or whatever), so we went ahead and changed its route. Sorry people of Pensacola (or Brownsville, or Biloxi, or wherever) - you lost the vote, so it's your lives, homes, and jobs on the line now instead of theirs. But it's all for the greater good, so stay happy!"
That's even assuming it were possible. Of course, what would really be beautiful would be investment in infrastructure to limit the damage caused by these storms and improve evacuation routes combined with a gigantic beating with the common sense stick for those who choose to live along areas where hurricanes can hit but also choose to not prepare at all for the inevitable storm. Then again, the latter may be as much of a pipe dream as the former.
Propaganda is a funny word with a million connotations. Sure, this could be called propaganda, as could much of the reporting coming out of Iraq from various outlets.
Wars are hard to cover, and the mish-mash conflict/counter-insurgency that is Iraq is no exception. The problems are similar to those of any other big, contentious political conflict, such as elections, only now people are shooting each other, a reporter's access is often limited to a certain area and frequently only to one side, and the emotions run about 100 times stronger.
I like the use of the word "propaganda" in Spanish better, as a word used to describe any advertisement as well as its perhaps less savory meanings. Propaganda tries to influence people, yes, but it can play a role in informing people. A car ad, for example, informs me about say the gas mileage of a car and attempts to convince me to buy the car at the same time. The information regarding gas mileage is accurate and factual, but it is not simply handed to me straight - it's done in a persuasive manner.
News "reporting" has become more of the same, as the 24 hour networks seem to have a system where supposedly unbiased reports - and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're all biased - are viewed, and then commentary from a pundit whose main qualification is having an opinion is solicited, and this commentary runs just as long if not longer than the report itself. I for one am tired of hearing Jack Cafferty, Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs (I particularly dislike Dobbs, but that's another post), Hannity and Colmes blabber on.
The problems are not simply ones of bias - it's a lack of depth, and this problem exists on the supply and demand sides as well. American news outlets have consistently cut back on international news for well over a decade now, and other than a few select cities worldwide most simply don't have correspondents overseas. The results of this problem could easily be seen in the recent Israeli-Lebanese (well, whoever exactly the other party was - it was pretty nebulous) conflict last summer. The major wire services, news outlets, etc. simply didn't have many reporters in Beirut to keep track of things. They flew out their usual talking heads and depended on the information of local stringers, who often have their own agendas and biases built in. A textbook example of this would be the Adnan Hajj photography controversy - a local stringer who doctored photos and used misleading captions to get his point across.
Keeping reporters overseas is expensive, and combat embeds - the safest method of transportation for journalists in Iraq - isn't exactly cheap, either. If you notice, television coverage in the U.S. is often interspersed with clips of combat and other footage from the Iraq conflict recorded during the invasion over four years ago. Or from the latest 12 - 24 hour embed a reporter did with a unit, which is hardly sufficient time to get to know things. Troops also hate these short embeds, something I say from personal experience not as a soldier but from long discussions I had with a French friend talking about his military experience in Afghanistan as a unit commander. Reporters often kept his group from getting the job done. After putting up with a few embeds, he told all those who followed that if fighting occurred they were on their own - and he sure hoped they brought weapons and ammunition.
But there's another reason for this lack of depth of coverage: Americans don't really care about what's going on in the world. Fewer than 20% of Americans have a passport at any given time, and I'd wager that 4 years into a massive troop deployment in Iraq more than 50% of the public still couldn't find the place on a map or identify its capital city. Americans tend to have strong moral feelings about war in general, good and bad, but few and far between are those actually informed. This apathy combined with the extremely
Yes, there is a big cliché about Utah Mormons. And it would seem you've fallen into it.
Perhaps you did serve in Salt Lake, and perhaps you met some people that follow that trend. I can't deny it - I've met a few myself. But the willingness with which you blindly lump hundreds of thousands of people into such a small group is shocking to say the least.
I'm from Florida myself. Born and bred a southerner with no family ties to Utah and into a quasi-converted family. The first time I came to Utah was for the Missionary Training Center experience in Provo. I don't think that really counts, though, as once you're in you barely go outside for anything. I came back to Provo to attend BYU after two years slogging through the shanty towns around Buenos Aires, and in my last 4 years here in Utah I've found people of very diverse opinions, backgrounds, and ideas.
Then they would be forced to live with people who do not agree with them, and be able to expand there knowledge of the outside world.
Generally speaking, most times I've heard people say this, what they really mean is "I wish these people would think like I do." Well, I'm sorry you didn't find what you think you would here, but this is not so. It would seem you experienced time as a "minority" yourself, living with people who did not agree with you, and it didn't do you much good.
I'll agree that rural parts of Utah are fairly close minded. Yet as one who grew up in and around small towns in Florida and Alabama, I can honestly say that the people I've dealt with in small town Utah have been much more traveled and cultured. (I can't remember how many people asked me what language they speak in Argentina or, better yet, where in Africa Argentina was before I left from Florida. I've never heard those questions in Utah.) You can go to the middle of nowhere in Utah - Vernal, for example - walk into a ward meeting, and likely find people who have lived in and speak the language of dozens of foreign countries thanks to mission experience and are generally better educated than most rural populations. Not to say Utah is without its rednecks - it has its fair share - but you're painting the population with an awfully broad brush.
Utah has a lot of political problems. A lot of this has to do with the fact that there is little competition in Utah - the Democrats have situated themselves too far to the left to be seriously considered by many Utahns, and the simple fact is that a lot of Republican incumbents in office now needed to be ousted long, long ago. Similar patterns can be seen in other areas with little competition - Ted Stevens of Alaska would be a classic example. In cases like this, where little competition exists, you get bad laws from time to time, and more often than you would see otherwise.
I'd recommend giving Utah another chance. Move to an urban area for a few months and you'll see something different. I'm not going to lie - it's different than the rest of the U.S. But as a southerner, I felt different about the northeast as well during trips there.
At present, my wife and I own an XBox (a new addition for us - we generally wait for the new platform to come out and buy the old stuff cheap), a GameCube, and a Nintendo 64.
We've mostly used the Nintendo 64 and GameCube for fun, social gaming - things like Mario Kart, Smash Brothers, etc. When we first got the GameCube, though, my wife asked me a few questions:
1) "So, how do I get some gold coins?" - She wanted a simple, side-scrolling, fun game, preferably of the Mario franchise, that she could pick up and play a little without spending much time to learn it or beat it. She didn't want a lengthy RPG - just some fun chucking turtle shells and getting gold coins. Nothing like that exists, to my knowledge.
2) "Are there any games like Secret of Mana/Zelda a Link to the Past?" - She used to like the occasional RPG when it was a more simple, 2d affair from above (a difference from number 1, I realize). But now the controls are much more complicated and it's all 3d - which, in her opinion, just doesn't really translate well to a flat screen with limited periphery vision (I can't help but share her opinion from time to time). The learning curve is too steep, the games too complex and lengthy, and in many cases form has taken over function.
So, other than a few social games, my wife is largely out of the video game world. Games became too complex for her, or took on themes she wasn't too interested in - too much violence, too little story, too much story, etc.
I guess you could say that my wife never really got past the Super Nintendo stage. I still wish for some of that simplicity myself, so we'll be buying one before too long to relive the glory days. What's truly funny is that a used SNES with a bunch of games will cost about as much as the used XBox I just bought - and we'll probably have a better time with it.
They work fine in an older XBox, newer (last 18 months) Toshiba DVD Recorder, on my wife's older iBook, and on my newer (last gen) iBook as well.
I do get a kick out of Sony making their products incompatible with the rest of their product line, though. Especially given the premium they often charge for proprietary components that supposedly have better integration.
Thanks a lot, however, for the info on those events. Very sadly, I will actually be packing to move this Saturday and won't be able to attend, but I appreciate you letting me know about it.
You're missing the point. Perhaps I failed to make it properly.
1. Global warming is highly politicized at the moment, and it seems to be all people focus on.
2. Alarmists are making claims regarding this issue. These alarmist claims are frequently disproved or at least shown not to be as severe as alarmists claim. Alarmists lose credibility with many.
3. The fight goes on about global warming, with many completely ignoring it due to the alarmists' tendency to be well... alarmist. For all we know, the problem does exist, but many have a "boy that called wolf" response and ignore it entirely.
4. In all of this, attention to a matter of likely more immediate importance is ignored. Many conclude that global warming isn't an issue, so no air pollution issues are important.
I'm not yet sure on the human contribution to global warming. Perhaps I'm a naïve redneck in that regard. Whatever. What I am sure of is that the air quality here will only continue to deteriorate without serious measures, many of which are basically the same measures as those one would want to take to limit human contributions to global warming. However, given the alarmist tendencies of people like Al "Katrina is the direct result of global warming!" Gore (yes, a hyperbole, I realize) and the politicization and intense focus on this one issue, we've can't see the forest for the trees (here, at least). Lord knows that voices on the right who further mischaracterize the Alarmists and use stupid arguments like "but this winter's been really cold! there must not be any global warming!" don't help one iota, either. It seems that the good old Drudge report is full of stories like that in the past few months.
I'm not savvy on the history of environmental politics - I'm a political science major with international relations focus, actually. I don't really care who passed what and when. I don't care where blame is pegged and what games are played. I want the problem fixed, and I want reasoned debate on the issue to fix it, and whoever can fix it deserves my vote and my support. Period.
Slashdot Mirror
Every time there is a post on this, we get a post on the glories of public transportation.
Now don't get me wrong - I love public transportation. I use it back and forth to work everyday.
I love inter-city trains. Love them. My experience of going to London from Paris, for example, on the chunnel was fantastic. Or going from Paris to Geneva by train - perfect. I love the TGV. My trip from Paris to Rome via plane, however, was certainly horrendous - now THAT is a long story.
I'd love to see an excellent train system implemented across the U.S. It could not compete with air travel speeds as far as the journey goes, but the obvious upsides - less sensitivity to weather conditions, likely fewere hassles in security (although security in the chunnel wasn't too unlike airport security), and arriving right in the middle of the city you're visiting are big advantages that mitigate much of that.
However, the problem is with what you casually wave your hand and dismiss at the end - the need for inner city travel.
I live in Provo, UT right now. Public transportation here is actually fairly good - so long as you live in an area with a reasonably dense population. It's a college town, and I'm a student, and even though I bought a house on the outskirs I'm still exactly a 12 minute walk from a bus that provides me with an 8 minute ride to work. Not bad at all.
But let's say I wanted to visit my brother in Las Vegas (I don't have a brother in Las Vegas, nor have I ever been, but whatever). It's a 6 hour drive or, probably, a 45 minute flight from Salt Lake International. I'd probably drive, of course - given that it takes 45 minutes to drive to Salt Lake from here, 2 hours to check in and wait, and then another hour or so for the flight, plus cost, I'd just drive it. But what if there was a high speed train that goes through Provo and would wisk me to Vegas at a fare only a little above gas prices? I'd still drive it. Why? I would have no way to get around on the other end unless I wanted to rent a car or unless the city of Las Vegas wakes up and decides it's going to have a massive transit system that works across the entire city and its suburbs. I would need to study bus routes - often arcane, difficult, and changed by detours, run only once every half hour or so, etc. I would need to pay a fare, which will not necessarily be competitive with my own fuel costs. I lose the ability to make stops along the way where I want to, if I so desire. I also lose cargo space back (unless I want to pay extra, likely), so I'm limited in what I can take.
I LOVE trains and mass transit. I love Europe for this reason among many. But America just isn't set up for it yet. Maybe some day, when we've reached the high population densities of European countries we will be able to do it. But for now, trains just seem like spending an awful lot of money to support non-existent systems. It's a chicken and egg problem, I realize, but it's a problem nonetheless.
A sunny May afternoon. Aziz, a low-ranking man in the Iranian defense force, has become overtaken by his hobby - filming voyeuristic squirrel porn - and has now taken it up even during his work hours
Aziz [holding a video camera, slobbering all over himself, and muttering audibly]: Ahhh yeaaaah... you go for that nut, sugar... go get it... go get it!
Squirrel [climbs tree, gets nut, eats]
Aziz [now muttering noticeably louder]: Yeah.... eat it... yeah.... that's what I'm talkin' about... ohhhhhhh yeaaaaahhhh...
Squirrel [continues to eat nut]
Captain Abu Rahman [enters stage right wearing a freshly starched Iranian uniform and a violently angry look on his face]: Aziz! [Aziz jumps to his feet, hoping the Captain won't notice his... errrr... excited state] What the HELL are you doing?
Aziz [sweat rolls from his body as the sun glints on his unzipped zipper and into his commanding officer's eye... his mind races at a million miles an hour as it gropes for some excuse - any excuse - for his presence and sick actions... suddenly, it comes to him] Uh... I was filming... spies!
Captain [curiously]: Spies? Looks to me more like squirrels, officer [seeing his unzipped fly and thinking, "ya sicko!"]
Aziz [innerly thinking "he might buy it! He could buy it!]: oh yes, spies! American ones! [sensing the need to ratchet it up a notch] Can you believe it, captain! The Americans have fitted these mere squirrels with secret spy devices! Why, they have been here for days, monitoring our every move, depositing secret messages in nuts, beaming information back to their base in America! I personally know that one observed you for the entire day yesterday! ["that might be laying it in a bit thick," Aziz thinks]
Captain [pondering... "yesterday? What was it following me for yesterday? What did I do yesterday?" - suddenly, a thought races through his mind like a bullet - "oh no! I was, err 'visiting' the major's wife yesterday! Now the Americans will know, and they will destroy my career!"]: Quick, Aziz! [draws his revolver] We must get these squirrels at all costs!
Aziz [the sweat stops, his heart leaps, and although he realize that he must sacrifice his beloveds, he also must save his job and keep his secret safe]: Yes, captain! Let's go get those yankee scum!
I know many here are excited about this - although few and far between will be those who actually read the documents - but, as someone who studied the U.S. Intelligence Community a fair amount as a Political Science undergraduate, I can honestly say that I don't see any new revelations in all of this. Much of this was released in the original Church Committee over 30 years ago when the CIA - of its own accord - put together the "family jewels". Everything that wasn't in there has since been released in one way or another. It's fun to peruse primary source documents, yes, but also extremely time consuming.
It's certainly quite hard to argue that the CIA was right in all of this, but it should also be pointed out that each of these programs occurred with orders that came from sources much higher than the DCI - most often the president. As a result of the Church Committee and the "family jewels", legislative oversight has become part of the Intelligence Community's life. While excessive oversight can be a burden - as all excessive oversight is for any organization - I think legislative oversight has been a net positive for all involved. The introduction of a requirement for signed directives for all orders from the President has also helped prevent presidents from abusing the CIA to do their dirty work.
I spoke with a professor who taught my course on U.S. Intelligence and National Security a while back. He had been a staffer with the Senate Intelligence Committee for over a decade and had read the entire classified version of the Warren Commission report. His opinion on it was basically this - there simply isn't any sufficient proof to tie the killing to anyone but Oswald, nor proof that Oswald had acted on anyone's behalf, although he did suspect some sort of Cuban involvement somewhere in the killing. But, he qualified, that his suspicions could not be proven and amounted to more of a gut feeling rather than something based strictly on evidence - Castro by then must have known of the numerous attempts Kennedy had ordered on his life.
What on earth that has to do with the comment above?
It's a great recipe for Chicken Pasta BLT salad.
I mean, while we're making non sequitur comments that have nothing to do with the parent post we may as well do something tasty, right?
(Oh, and don't use the Chili sauce - the bbq sauce is much better)
I realize that picking on the CIA for what they do is all good fun for many, but the CIA is ultimately a servant of its masters - most often the president, especially before the Church committee which resulted in much more congressional oversight. Not to say the CIA hasn't exceeded its own orders from time to time - it most certainly has, and once is too many times - but instead of saying, "ooh, look what the dirty CIA did!", it may be useful to look at why they did it and where the order came from. Presidents have often used it for their dirty work, particularly prior to 1975 or so when signed directives were not required, which allowed presidents to order the CIA to do their bidding without a paper trail and have plausible deniability otherwise.
An interesting read on this and other espionage/covert action matters is James Olson's Fair Play. After giving a brief overview of what espionage is like, he puts forward 50 or so "hypothetical" situations and collects ethical and other opinions from a wide variety of people. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to look at common ethical questions the intelligence community faces and common pro and con arguments against them, as well as practical looks at how the intelligence gathering is done.
Boeing.
Airbus.
Both are MASSIVE exporters, netting their home countries billions - largely because they're the biggest (and, for some products, the only) players in their industry.
Both are at each others throats. Both are trying to best each other. Both are targets of the intelligence service of the opposing country's intelligence community.
The French economy isn't exactly soaring lately, to be sure, but in this particular industry we want to keep a close eye on our competitors. Espionage, like international relations in general, is based on reciprocity - we do what you do to us, and we expect done to us what we'll do to you. Outrage of the uninformed and falsely shocked not withstanding, those are the rules. Sure, we'll try to counter wherever we can and defend ourselves, but it's all part of the game. The French are known to spy on the U.S. Aerospace industry - it would be foolish of us not to do the same to the French industry as well.
Also note that there is a significant difference between espionage and covert action.
I'd agree that mankind probably isn't having a big effect on it, but the primary source of fresh water in that area (if I'm not mistaken - I grew up there, so this could be embarassing if I am) is water from the aquifer. The more people use that water, the more likely sink holes are to open, or so goes my very basic understanding of the process.
In all seriousness please correct me if I'm way off.
Lake Jackson in North Florida, for example, does it every few years as ground water levels fluctuate. I'm sure that human intervention has something to do with these water levels, but isn't likely the only determining factor.
It's kind of funny that, before you go bass fishing, you have to actually make sure there's water in the lake. Sometimes, it drains very quickly.
I'll assume you missed this part of my post or, more likely, chose to ignore it. Whatever.
Anyways, why make a stink over the public funding of this piece and not others? I'd think the answer would be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of human nature - people tend not to get worked up about things they don't perceive as important to them. If a publicly funded artist produces a bunch of landscapes of the boring Kansas countryside, who cares in general? It gets little to no press and little to no attention because there is no controversy. If people perceive an artwork as offensive, though, it attracts interest, controversy, and responses. People start asking why their money was spent on this. Many of them don't mind public funding of the arts in general, but many do mind the public funding of what they perceive (in this case I would argue that the perception was most likely incorrect) as an attack on their religion, particularly from a government who has become so careful about discrimination. It looks to many like the government taking sides in some sort of religious argument, the sort of thing that Americans generally feel the government should stay out of. How would atheists feel if the government funded artists whose work was extremely pro-religious in nature, or anti-atheist? What about, say, an anti-semitic work? Or a blatantly racist artwork? I personally don't believe the art in this case was anti-Christian, but I also see how a reasonable person could come to the opposite conclusion - one does not generally dip portraits of loved ones or those to whom one feels neutral in urine for fun or to show respect.
The question then is - how does one judge what art gets funded? I don't know, and it could be debated endlessly. We're used to government funding being codified - the proper item from the proper distributor, or bidding processes for government buildings, etc. Art is outside of this system. It is hard to control and its variations are endless. Where does one draw the line in a sea of fuzzy gray? What is censorship and what is a reasonable response to the taxpayer's wishes? Don't those who are paying the bills have some right to decide what is made? Or is this simply stiffling artists and does it constitute censorship? And then, what if the piece can be interpreted in many different ways, as almost all great art can be? Should we throw it out because one of many interpretations is "bad", because it could be perceived as offensive? But why should I pay for something if I find it offensive?
Religion and art share a long history as well, and a great many works will undoubtedly reference religion in ways that many people on both sides may be uncomfortable with - especially when they find out they're footing the bill. I have yet to make up my mind on Piss Christ, but I can see that both sides do have reasonable arguments and valid concerns, and I find myself siding a bit more with those against it on reasons of policy. Then again, as soon as I begin to side with them, many questions from the preceding paragraph pop up. I realize that someone who hasn't quite made up his mind is viewed as a heretic or worse in this polarized atmosphere, but I'm a fence-sitter on this one.
You beat me to it by a few minutes.
I believe almost basically exactly the same thing as the grandparent. The question with Piss Christ, other than the potentially quite offensive art, is government funding. I can see where the artist is going with this - he wanted to demonstrate how society has treated Christ. To be quite honest I think he's got a point. But using taxpayer dollars to fund something of this sort does not strike me as the best use of our resources. But these are the kinds of situations governments get into when supporting the arts, and let's face it - some of the works produced with that government funding are very good, have a wide appeal, and would never come into existence without government support. This may just be a case of taking the bad with the good, and codifying what is "good" and what is "bad" may be nearly impossible.
That said, the response of American Christians' response to the piece was markedly different than the response to the Mohammed cartoons. I don't doubt that the creator of Piss Christ received threats, but no massive displays of mob violence were present, and despite what many here would say no group approaching the Shiv Sena in power and extremeness exists in the U.S. It is also worthy to note that Piss Christ was reproduced in many American mass media outlets yet the Mohammed cartoons were largely carefully avoided - a very interesting difference.
Speaking of agendas...
/. become the next Rush Limbaugh site, but the slow emergence of slashkos is concerning as well. Then again it's the editors' right to tilt one way or the other, so whatever.
This is quite typical of kdawson. Just be glad it wasn't a mention of the "stolen" 2004 presidential election.
I'm no partisan Republican myself, but I'm getting fairly tired of kdawson. I don't want to see
Well, see ya' in modded-down-to-oblivion-ville.
but if any western media channel behaved in the way they did, normal regulatory bodies would have shut them down long ago. Imagine the bias of Fox news multiplied by 100 and you begin to get the picture.
Forgive me, but what part of:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
do you not understand?
During the coup attempt against the Chavez government in 2002 the news channels deliberately manipulated news footage to make it look like Chavez supporters were shooting people. What do you think would happen to a US TV Station if it did something like that and the whole Channel was behind it?
Well, the factuality of this claim is in question. Assuming that we're talking about the same deaths during the coup (we might not be, of course), at least Freedom House agrees with the claim.
What would happen to a U.S. station if it incorrectly claimed government officials were involved in illegal murders? Well, we can already see how CNN was treated. Even if they hadn't issued a retraction they would have kept their broadcast license. Take a look around at all of the 9/11 conspiracy nonsense - where is the heavy hand of the U.S. government to silence it or keep it off the airwaves? Excluding the minds of the paranoid and delusional, nowhere. The U.S. government allows it. Why? Because we allow free speech and this is, in spite of all the nonsense we hear about, a free country. If anything the U.S. greatly benefits from having a free market of ideas, which inevitably includes numerous lemons.
What Venezuela needs is effective media monitors like Ofcom, perhaps with international observers.
Oh yeah, that's a great idea. Let's bring the magically impartial people who, unlike the rest of the world, do not bring in bias to their thought process. Then let's make them the ultimate gate keepers of what the people get to hear. And instead of censors, let's call them "media monitors" or "observers". That would be double plus good! No need to let the people hear those pesky claims of others and evaluate sources. They're too dumb for that sort of thing.
Also, the reason we keep hearing so much about Chavez is not because of his actions, it is because he is not a US ally. If he was a US ally and was doing these things, the media would be largely disinterested.
As an American who has lived in Latin America before (2 years in Argentina - slums of Buenos Aires, 3 months Chile - rather nice parts of Santiago), I must agree that media coverage of Latin America is lacking in the U.S.. Most people simply don't care about the area here in the states (prior to traveling to Argentina, numerous people asked me what part of Africa it was in), and that leads to little coverage unless something bad happens like, say, a country turning from democracy to a dictatorship very, very quickly.
We can play with the red herring of "people only dislike Venezuela because he dislikes the U.S.!" all we want. No need to defend the U.S. on this note - it has in the past, does in the present, and will in the future associate with many unsavory characters. That's the way international relations work, and if you can find a single country that hasn't done the same then please let me know. The question is not so much one of International Relations in my book as it is a matter of domestic government. That said, consider the following:
One claim against the station is that it allegedly helped a military coup, making it in the view of many "bad". If that's the case, then what about Chavez, who staged his own failed military coup in 1992? Was that not
http://www.specialfarm.net/macgyver2008.html
Why vote for nerd-men when you can vote for a nerd-god?
Granted, he is total information awareness unto himself, but here's a man who understands some of our problems in the Middle East, like Improvised Explosives, Improvised weapons, improvised planes and improvised... uh... stuff. His strong knowledge in this area of improvisation will no doubt propel him to the forefront much like an improvised rocket of compressed air will shoot him down a zip line as a factory explodes.
Macgyver. Think about it.
I don't think anyone else has mentioned this so I will - why on earth put a print button on the camera? While this may make sense for some cameras and some users (cheap point and shooters especially), they're now popping up on more advanced DSLRs like the Canon 30D. Who buys a $1,000 DSLR and prints directly from the camera with no post processing and not even a look at the images? Worst of all, the button can't be remapped - you're stuck with a useless button. Why, why, why?
"...alter their paths away from densely populated areas?"
If you were to do this to a hurricane in, say, the middle of the Atlantic, perhaps this wouldn't be a bad idea - it could save Georgia and the Carolinas from a lot of damage. But what about hurricanes in the Gulf? As someone who grew up in the Florida panhandle, I can tell you right now that this would not be a very politically popular thing to do. I can see the scenario now:
"Well, the hurricane looked like it was heading to New Orleans (or Tampa, or whatever), so we went ahead and changed its route. Sorry people of Pensacola (or Brownsville, or Biloxi, or wherever) - you lost the vote, so it's your lives, homes, and jobs on the line now instead of theirs. But it's all for the greater good, so stay happy!"
That's even assuming it were possible. Of course, what would really be beautiful would be investment in infrastructure to limit the damage caused by these storms and improve evacuation routes combined with a gigantic beating with the common sense stick for those who choose to live along areas where hurricanes can hit but also choose to not prepare at all for the inevitable storm. Then again, the latter may be as much of a pipe dream as the former.
Propaganda is a funny word with a million connotations. Sure, this could be called propaganda, as could much of the reporting coming out of Iraq from various outlets.
Wars are hard to cover, and the mish-mash conflict/counter-insurgency that is Iraq is no exception. The problems are similar to those of any other big, contentious political conflict, such as elections, only now people are shooting each other, a reporter's access is often limited to a certain area and frequently only to one side, and the emotions run about 100 times stronger.
I like the use of the word "propaganda" in Spanish better, as a word used to describe any advertisement as well as its perhaps less savory meanings. Propaganda tries to influence people, yes, but it can play a role in informing people. A car ad, for example, informs me about say the gas mileage of a car and attempts to convince me to buy the car at the same time. The information regarding gas mileage is accurate and factual, but it is not simply handed to me straight - it's done in a persuasive manner.
News "reporting" has become more of the same, as the 24 hour networks seem to have a system where supposedly unbiased reports - and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're all biased - are viewed, and then commentary from a pundit whose main qualification is having an opinion is solicited, and this commentary runs just as long if not longer than the report itself. I for one am tired of hearing Jack Cafferty, Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs (I particularly dislike Dobbs, but that's another post), Hannity and Colmes blabber on.
The problems are not simply ones of bias - it's a lack of depth, and this problem exists on the supply and demand sides as well. American news outlets have consistently cut back on international news for well over a decade now, and other than a few select cities worldwide most simply don't have correspondents overseas. The results of this problem could easily be seen in the recent Israeli-Lebanese (well, whoever exactly the other party was - it was pretty nebulous) conflict last summer. The major wire services, news outlets, etc. simply didn't have many reporters in Beirut to keep track of things. They flew out their usual talking heads and depended on the information of local stringers, who often have their own agendas and biases built in. A textbook example of this would be the Adnan Hajj photography controversy - a local stringer who doctored photos and used misleading captions to get his point across.
Keeping reporters overseas is expensive, and combat embeds - the safest method of transportation for journalists in Iraq - isn't exactly cheap, either. If you notice, television coverage in the U.S. is often interspersed with clips of combat and other footage from the Iraq conflict recorded during the invasion over four years ago. Or from the latest 12 - 24 hour embed a reporter did with a unit, which is hardly sufficient time to get to know things. Troops also hate these short embeds, something I say from personal experience not as a soldier but from long discussions I had with a French friend talking about his military experience in Afghanistan as a unit commander. Reporters often kept his group from getting the job done. After putting up with a few embeds, he told all those who followed that if fighting occurred they were on their own - and he sure hoped they brought weapons and ammunition.
But there's another reason for this lack of depth of coverage: Americans don't really care about what's going on in the world. Fewer than 20% of Americans have a passport at any given time, and I'd wager that 4 years into a massive troop deployment in Iraq more than 50% of the public still couldn't find the place on a map or identify its capital city. Americans tend to have strong moral feelings about war in general, good and bad, but few and far between are those actually informed. This apathy combined with the extremely
Somebody mislabelled the Iran tube, leading to the prudent but perhaps unnecessary blocking of all ISPs from Guam.
Dang tubes. They'll get you every time. Why they had to build the internet out of 'em in the first place will never make much sense to me.
Because every topic must have at least one post making fun of the fact that an 83 year old man doesn't understand the internet... sorry, Ted!
Utah Mormons form a tight cliche
You got the wording wrong, yet quite right.
Yes, there is a big cliché about Utah Mormons. And it would seem you've fallen into it.
Perhaps you did serve in Salt Lake, and perhaps you met some people that follow that trend. I can't deny it - I've met a few myself. But the willingness with which you blindly lump hundreds of thousands of people into such a small group is shocking to say the least.
I'm from Florida myself. Born and bred a southerner with no family ties to Utah and into a quasi-converted family. The first time I came to Utah was for the Missionary Training Center experience in Provo. I don't think that really counts, though, as once you're in you barely go outside for anything. I came back to Provo to attend BYU after two years slogging through the shanty towns around Buenos Aires, and in my last 4 years here in Utah I've found people of very diverse opinions, backgrounds, and ideas.
Then they would be forced to live with people who do not agree with them, and be able to expand there knowledge of the outside world.
Generally speaking, most times I've heard people say this, what they really mean is "I wish these people would think like I do." Well, I'm sorry you didn't find what you think you would here, but this is not so. It would seem you experienced time as a "minority" yourself, living with people who did not agree with you, and it didn't do you much good.
I'll agree that rural parts of Utah are fairly close minded. Yet as one who grew up in and around small towns in Florida and Alabama, I can honestly say that the people I've dealt with in small town Utah have been much more traveled and cultured. (I can't remember how many people asked me what language they speak in Argentina or, better yet, where in Africa Argentina was before I left from Florida. I've never heard those questions in Utah.) You can go to the middle of nowhere in Utah - Vernal, for example - walk into a ward meeting, and likely find people who have lived in and speak the language of dozens of foreign countries thanks to mission experience and are generally better educated than most rural populations. Not to say Utah is without its rednecks - it has its fair share - but you're painting the population with an awfully broad brush.
Utah has a lot of political problems. A lot of this has to do with the fact that there is little competition in Utah - the Democrats have situated themselves too far to the left to be seriously considered by many Utahns, and the simple fact is that a lot of Republican incumbents in office now needed to be ousted long, long ago. Similar patterns can be seen in other areas with little competition - Ted Stevens of Alaska would be a classic example. In cases like this, where little competition exists, you get bad laws from time to time, and more often than you would see otherwise.
I'd recommend giving Utah another chance. Move to an urban area for a few months and you'll see something different. I'm not going to lie - it's different than the rest of the U.S. But as a southerner, I felt different about the northeast as well during trips there.
Just edit the wikipedia entry. Then things will be much more reasonable!
At present, my wife and I own an XBox (a new addition for us - we generally wait for the new platform to come out and buy the old stuff cheap), a GameCube, and a Nintendo 64.
We've mostly used the Nintendo 64 and GameCube for fun, social gaming - things like Mario Kart, Smash Brothers, etc. When we first got the GameCube, though, my wife asked me a few questions:
1) "So, how do I get some gold coins?" - She wanted a simple, side-scrolling, fun game, preferably of the Mario franchise, that she could pick up and play a little without spending much time to learn it or beat it. She didn't want a lengthy RPG - just some fun chucking turtle shells and getting gold coins. Nothing like that exists, to my knowledge.
2) "Are there any games like Secret of Mana/Zelda a Link to the Past?" - She used to like the occasional RPG when it was a more simple, 2d affair from above (a difference from number 1, I realize). But now the controls are much more complicated and it's all 3d - which, in her opinion, just doesn't really translate well to a flat screen with limited periphery vision (I can't help but share her opinion from time to time). The learning curve is too steep, the games too complex and lengthy, and in many cases form has taken over function.
So, other than a few social games, my wife is largely out of the video game world. Games became too complex for her, or took on themes she wasn't too interested in - too much violence, too little story, too much story, etc.
I guess you could say that my wife never really got past the Super Nintendo stage. I still wish for some of that simplicity myself, so we'll be buying one before too long to relive the glory days. What's truly funny is that a used SNES with a bunch of games will cost about as much as the used XBox I just bought - and we'll probably have a better time with it.
And no problems on my part.
They work fine in an older XBox, newer (last 18 months) Toshiba DVD Recorder, on my wife's older iBook, and on my newer (last gen) iBook as well.
I do get a kick out of Sony making their products incompatible with the rest of their product line, though. Especially given the premium they often charge for proprietary components that supposedly have better integration.
I think it's safe to say I'm not the only one calling Gore an alarmist:
0 9-gray-gore_N.htm?POE=NEWISVA
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/research/2007-04-
Thanks a lot, however, for the info on those events. Very sadly, I will actually be packing to move this Saturday and won't be able to attend, but I appreciate you letting me know about it.
You're missing the point. Perhaps I failed to make it properly.
1. Global warming is highly politicized at the moment, and it seems to be all people focus on.
2. Alarmists are making claims regarding this issue. These alarmist claims are frequently disproved or at least shown not to be as severe as alarmists claim. Alarmists lose credibility with many.
3. The fight goes on about global warming, with many completely ignoring it due to the alarmists' tendency to be well... alarmist. For all we know, the problem does exist, but many have a "boy that called wolf" response and ignore it entirely.
4. In all of this, attention to a matter of likely more immediate importance is ignored. Many conclude that global warming isn't an issue, so no air pollution issues are important.
I'm not yet sure on the human contribution to global warming. Perhaps I'm a naïve redneck in that regard. Whatever. What I am sure of is that the air quality here will only continue to deteriorate without serious measures, many of which are basically the same measures as those one would want to take to limit human contributions to global warming. However, given the alarmist tendencies of people like Al "Katrina is the direct result of global warming!" Gore (yes, a hyperbole, I realize) and the politicization and intense focus on this one issue, we've can't see the forest for the trees (here, at least). Lord knows that voices on the right who further mischaracterize the Alarmists and use stupid arguments like "but this winter's been really cold! there must not be any global warming!" don't help one iota, either. It seems that the good old Drudge report is full of stories like that in the past few months.
I'm not savvy on the history of environmental politics - I'm a political science major with international relations focus, actually. I don't really care who passed what and when. I don't care where blame is pegged and what games are played. I want the problem fixed, and I want reasoned debate on the issue to fix it, and whoever can fix it deserves my vote and my support. Period.