The Bullshit Observer

America: I think we're drifting apart

I don't know when it started, but I suspect it was towards the end of Nixon. We started moving apart as a country.

It started with simple disagreements. Then yelling matches. It eventually deteriorated into a mass migration away from each other. We sorted ourselves based on political affiliation.

According to the official data*, between 4 and 5% of us move each year from one county to another. There are plenty of reasons for this. But one of the reasons that's grown in prominence since Carter and his peanut gallery was political affiliation and the associated belief system. Conservatives, when they chose where to live, chose more conservative leaning areas. Liberals did the same with liberal neighborhoods. And the net result is that, over the years, we haven't really spoken to each other much. The number of "landslide counties" skyrocketed, and the number of voter-mixed counties plummeted.*

In 1976, only about a quarter of America's voters lived in a county a presidential candidate won by a landslide margin. By 2004, it was nearly half.*

The hill I live on in San Francisco, for example, is very blue. You'd be hard pressed to find a single person who voted McCain in 2008. In fact, my whole city is very blue. During Bush, there was nary a functioning car or truck bumper with a sticker expressing support for, or agreement with, the man or his policies. You could feel free to bash Bushy in public and know that anyone within earshot would agree with you. I even heard some people casually talking about the desire for an assassination.

Now, I won't lie. There's some comfort in that for us here. But what was missing was the kind of healthy debate that allowed us to see the other point of view. Clearly somebody support Bush for awhile and for a reason. A good half of us voted for him. Twice. So where are those other half? Not here, I'll tell you that much. And we are the poorer for it, I think.

Cuz, we really need to talk.

Alas, I think we've been stewing in our own juices a bit - all of us. Now we just don't get each other AT ALL. We've drifted apart to such a degree that it could easily devolve into a violent confrontation - as it has over the past year with the health care debates. You see campaigns now and they're not about persuading people that may not agree with you. No, they're about rallying people. Politics is no longer about policy, it's about numbers.

Now I sort of hear you saying, "Well, we have the Internet and the news media if we want to listen to each other."

Yeah, I supposed I can listen to Fox "News" and get your point of view and you can listen to NPR to get mine. Or can we? Does either of those places really represent our point of view? Or is it a gross exaggeration of our point of view designed to get us nodding and agreeing and watching/listening more? Truth is, we really only watch or listen to the things that we are going to agree with. The rest of it, we're inclined to dismiss out of hand. 

So how or when are we going to ever see eye to eye? Are you even as interested in that as I am? Are you out there, reading? Hello? Hello?

Damn.

* Data based on demographic data cited in the book, "The Big Sort," by journalist Bill Bishop.

Side note: look up the cultural make-up of your neighborhood here from the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.

Climate Change Is Speeding Up

None of us has any idea.

Jim Hansen, not the Muppet guy but the scientist guy and one of the prominent faces involved in the discussion on climate change, has slightly more of an idea. But mostly what he adds to the debate is profound sinking feeling that we have no idea what we're in for. One thing's for sure: It's bad.

The following is all happening faster than what scientists had originally predicted:

• The arctic ice is less than half of what it was a few decades ago.
• Mountain glaciers are already receding all over the world. This will have huge impacts on fresh water supplies when they are gone (less than 50 years).
• Ice sheets are losing mass at a significant rate.
• Coral reefs, a critical marine ecosystem, are dying off.
• Sub-tropics have expanded by 4 degrees toward the poles. This is causing severe droughts in places like California whose populations outstrip it's new, lower water supply.

Not even the scientists studying this are able to grasp the speed of it all. Seasons are shifting. Southern temperatures are coming northward. Climatic zones are altering. And with that birds and other animals are migrating to stay where they are most viable. This changes everything. And everything changes everything which changes everything which changes everything again. Follow me? It's all connected, it's all in motion, and we have very little idea what's going to do what to what. Billions of input factors, hundreds of trillions of possible scenarios, and humans are barely scraping the surface of what is going on.

Some of us don't even believe any of this stuff is actually happening. Companies like Exxon pay people to lie to them (even though they promised to stop doing that). But one day those people are going to be dead and their children will be left with a planet that's very very different. For one thing, most of the living things on Earth will be dead too.

Here's the Interview:

Climate Crisis: Feeling Lucky?

My childhood memories of the San Francisco climate are different than what we've been experiencing here over the past decade. The rains have slowed down. There are way more fires. Someone the other day mentioned that the see the soil has changed color. The air doesn't seem as fresh. There is talk of drought.

The climate IS changing, scientifically speaking. Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration.There is a mass extinction underway - with many times more species going missing and presumed dead than at any time since the last ice age.

And yet, what are we, as a species doing?

U.S. emissions have increased by 20 percent since 1992. China has more than doubled its carbon dioxide pollution in that time. World carbon dioxide emissions have grown faster than scientists' worst-case scenarios. Methane, the next most potent greenhouse gas, suddenly is on the rise again and scientists fear that vast amounts of the trapped gas will escape from thawing Arctic permafrost.

World leaders are saddled with an uncomfortable quandary. Cut coal, one of the main recommendations, and energy prices go way up during an economic downturn. This would make the current economic devastation much worse and anger much of the political and business establishements - not to mention many voters who will see the effects of this more or less immediately. Don't cut coal and pretty soon there will be no more ice in the Arctic - sea levels will rise and whole cities will be under-water. And that's only one of the many consequences.

Either way, things are going to change. Where we net out will largely be determined by geography, topography, air currents, sea currents, and the interrelationship between these things - things, in short, that we don't undersand. So, I ask you...

Do you feel lucky?

Yes, Sarah Palin, Apparently You Can Too

You can be uneducated, inexperienced and downright corrupt, but as long as you have the charisma, looks and gumption, you can do anything in America.

You can attend four different colleges in six years (one of which you basically failed out of), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement.

You can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than some high-schools, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as some cities, makes you ready to potentially be President, and people don’t piss themselves with laughter.


You can say you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” even though the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s and nobody calls you a fucking moron.

You can make fun of community organizers and the work they do, but accept without question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college and a distant view of Russia.

You can convince white women who don’t even agree with you on a single issue to vote for you and your running mate because you too have ovaries.


You can fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns or your personal agenda and not be held accountable for abusing your power.


You can take nearly twenty-four hours to get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is unquestionable, and whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her ready to be VP.

You can give a 36-minute speech making fun of your opponents, while failing to present a substantive policy position on any issue AT ALL, and still manage to be considered a breath of fresh air for your party and a viable second in command of the biggest world power on earth.

You can attend churches whose pastors say that people who vote Democrat or criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good 'ol church-going Christian and not a religious extremist wacko.

Yes Sarah, even though you really SHOULD NOT be able to do any of those things, apparently YOU CAN.

(this post adapted from an article written by Tim Wise entitled "This is your nation on White Privilege." Thanks to Christi for sending.)

What Would Republican Jesus Do?

I think it's fascinating how Neo-Cons have been able to woo the Christian people. Yet most of the things they do, believe in and stand for, save being anti-abortion, would be antithetical to the supposed teachings of the Christian savior. Trashing their God's green earth, warring with other nations without justification, cutting social programs, trash talking immigrants, greed is good, lying is good politics, and on and on. Hey Republicans, how about a little peace love and understanding? How about the ten commandments?

Can you even name the ten commandments? (thanks to sean for sending this my way).

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From the creator of The Bullshit Observer...a new blog

Together with some friends, I have a new blog creation called The Conceptualist. The topic will be completely fresh ideas and it will feature the same whimsical analysis that you've come to expect from The Bullshit Observer. The idea of The Conceptualist is not just to notice new things, but to celebrate brave thinkers and to marvel at their creations.

How is this different, you ask?

Well, I think it's probably the only blog I've seen that lives entirely in the world of ideas. It's not just about highlighting bizarre new inventions like Geekology. It's not about displaying new products like bazillions of blogs out there. It's about taking the new ideas and turning them over in our minds and seeing how they got that way and what they could become. It's as much about the why as it is about the what. In short, it's about conceptualism - the act of seeing past what is there to what could be and talking about it.

Incidentally, the header image is my friend's daughter, Sophie swimming underwater.

This means, of course, that The Bullshit Observer will need to take a back seat for the time being. That means that my posts will be more sporatic. To any regular reader out there, I am sorry to interrupt your BSO experience.

Who Would the Caribbean Monk Seal Have Voted For?

This Presidential cycle presents us with a very difficult decision. I can't decide between McCain's shakey-voiced double talk and Obama's glaring inexperience.

Maybe we should ask the animals who they'd vote for. I mean, after all, the President's environmental policy is inextricably tied to both the individual fate of the furry critters and the fate of their entire species. They have as much as stake in this thing as we do. Probably more so, in fact.

I suspect that most of the trillions of beings, sentient or otherwise, that DO NOT have a vote, but DO live within the confines of the United States of America (or just off the coast) are enthusiastically pro-Obama. Just ask the Caribbean Monk Seal for example. Oh wait, hold the phone, we can't ask the Caribbean monk seal for example because the Caribbean monk seal is dead. All of them. Extinct. Done for. Finito. Just heard about that today.

"Humans hunting the docile creatures for research, food, and blubber left the (Carribean monk seal) population unsustainable, say biologists who warn that Hawaiian and Mediterranean monk seals could be the next to go." writes JAYMES SONG of the Associated Press.

The Caribbean monk seal's demise is not unique. In fact, we are now experiencing an extinction rate of 10,000 species a year. That's about 3,000 times higher than it was but a few thousand years ago.

So it's kind of hard to find an animal around here to ask about the race. Maybe we should track down one of those West African black rhinoceros or something.On second thought, I think they're all dead too. Arabian Gazelle is also kaput, fyi. The list goes on and on. and on.

Speaking for the dead and dying monk seals of the world, I think they would be pretty skeptical of someone like McCain. When it comes to environmental protections, McCain doesn't even show up.  He was absent from 15 major votes on the environment over the past term. You gotta show up for the oceans to protect the oceans.

"We hope we've learned from the extinction of Caribbean monk seals, and can provide stronger protection for their Hawaiian and Mediterranean relatives," said Kyle Baker, a biologist for NOAA's Fisheries Service southeast region.

Well, Kyle, I don't think you and the seal relatives can pin your hopes on 'ol Johnny McCain. He voted against the Kyoto treaty's big package of protections and against things that would reign in the oil company's never-ending plunder. The Carribean Monk Seal and its relatives would have been pro-Kyoto, pro-environmental protection, don't you think? It's sort of like being pro-home. "Yeah, I'm for a place where I can live. I fully support that idea."

Furthermore, I think the monk seal's ears would have perked up at the news that John "Maverick" McCain, earned a score of ZERO from The League of Conservative Voters on environmental issues. They actually don't- er - didn't have ears to begin with. But if they did have ears, they would have perked.

In case you're wondering, Obama got a 67. The average in Congress is a 53. And that rating is BY CONSERVATIVES.

According to a recent poll, seven out of ten biologists think we are currently in the throes of a sixth mass extinction. Possibly triggered by human activity.  Some say it could wipe out as many as 90 percent of all species living today.

So speaking for all of the remaining animals living within the confines of these here United States (or just off the coast), please vote for them. Which is to say, vote for something other than old dottering white-manism. In fact, I think I can speak for the entire planet outside of the red states when I say, "I'll take door number two there Bob. Wherever it leads."

Have An Ecofabulous Earth Day

Are you fabulous? Are you concerned about our home planet?  Well, have I got an earth day gift for you. (Don't worry if you didn't get me anything. No really. Really. It's fine, like, whatever)

It's Ecofabulous.

Ecofabulous is a site dedicated to pairing sexy consumers like you with sustainable products. Don't let your earth-conscience fight with your design sensibility. Oh nooooo. Spare yourself the cognitive dissonance. At Ecofabulous the two go hand-in-hand. All the hip things that they cover are cradle-to-cradle products - which means that they come from the earth and will go back to the earth as a nutrient. Given that 99% of what we buy winds up being thrown out in six months (according to the story of stuff), that would be really really soon.

Check out their lust list here (conflict free diamonds are a girl's new best friend)

And their guide to gorgeous here (beauty care products that keep the earth looking good too)

Oh, and try not to buy your gas from Exxon please.

Seven Years Of Bush. What Have You Learned?

It's tempting to try and put these seven years behind us. This debacle of a Presidency. To simply pretend it didn't happen or to focus instead on the new presidency and put our hopes into that administration. To hope, as Obama says, that things can be put right again. But to think this way, I think misses an important opportunity.

There are many things to be learned by looking back at the past seven years.

So I ask you, dear reader, what have you learned?

The Bullshit Observer