The Idiocy of US and mirroring the wisdom of George Will

[grantcart]

No not the United States but the collective us.

Homo Sapiens.

I go to fill up my car and in California you insert the nozzle for the liquified dinasour intake while standing under the shade of an expensive overhang because the sun is beating down on you and it requires some relief to be able to stand in the hot blazing sun while you suck out the energy that the sun deposited 10 million years ago and that the earth cleverly hid so that you wouldn't waste so much time trying to get to it.

And my California nozzle requires some jiggling and adjustment because in California we are advanced and the nozzle has to be perfectly situated so that not one drop of gas could hit the pavement and the fumes cannot escape. In some other states you don't have to worry about it you just put it in and let it flow.

While this ancient energy flows modern technology allows me to watch the TV screen as I stand next to the hermetically sealed transfer I watch thousands of gallons go into the Gulf. But not one fucking drop can escape from the nozzle to my car because sensors are monitoring it and if the connection is broken the whole liquified dinasour process is brought to an immediate stop and I must jiggle the connection. We don't even need certified gas station attendents even grantcart (or grantfart for the cowardly DU lurkers who read our posts and then gossip like junior high students under the tree have now come to call him - frankly if I had thought of it I would have used it, my dad loved fart references.)

Returning to my car a light comes up on the dash board because in returning the cap to my tank holding my liquified dinasour reserve it is not 100% tight and I have to leave the comfort of the car and the air conditioning and under the beating sun go back and tighten the cap so even the slight aroma of dinasours once solid once liquified and now in a gaseous state and not one fucking molecule is allowed to leave my car. Back in the car Public Radio is running a hearing where the CEO of BP is explaining how he is really really sorry and they are now estimating that 50 fucking cajillion barrels is flowing into the ocean.

Now consider the case of George Will.

Living abroad for twenty years the daily update on what was happening in the US was provided by the International Herald Tribune. I read all 8 pages including Will's column. Now will is aggrevating but he is in a different class than Limbaugh, Hannity, Liddy and the other idiots who I cannot watch for more than 30 seconds. He is literate, educated, humorous, knows baseball. He is almost always wrong but he is readable.

In 1983 the US was considering the Communist inspired legislation that would require all manufacturers to install effective airbags.

Will wrote an early column how this was both a Communist front and an affront to our founding fathers. He probably also made a clever, but misplaced, analogy to cowboys not needing seat belts on their horses and the adoption of the balk rule in baseball in 1904.

A few months later Mr. Will wrote an impassioned column for passing the seat belt law. It was compassionate, articulate, well researched, based on science, absolutely crucified the opposing arguments, was filled with the typical snobbish obscure historical references like "Danforth . . . is prepared to play the part of Charles Martel, who at Tours in 732 AD sent the Moors packing". Through the magic of the Google god we can read it here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=433:

Here is his conclusion:

For 54 years motor vehicles have been the nation's leading cause of accidental deaths and injuries. Last year an average of 126 Americans a day died on highways. A conservative estimate is that if airbags had been required during the last decade, the lives saved would number many more than the lives lost in Vietnam. The savings to the private economy nad the public treasury would have been scores of billions of dollars.

Honorable persons can disagree about what the ought to be. But sureely it is time for Congress to say what the law shall be.

Now in those good old days Conservatives had an ambition to be seen as not being conspicously stupid (while today conservatives are happy to be considered to be "idiots for Jesus") and Will's column carried weight and in relatively quick fashion the bill was actually passed. We now have airbags.

It turns out that Mr. Will wrote his columns from his home office which had a corner view to the intersection next to his house. It also turns out that a few days before he wrote the second column somebody ran the stop sign at that intersection while Mr. Will was at his typewriter and hit a car that then went careening into a telephone poll stopping the car abruptly and sending the young mother through the windshield which severed her neck all within the view of the erstwhile columnist.

You see it turns out that Mr. Will is very intelligent on issues that happen with a few yards in front of him. He simply has difficulty absorbing abstract ideas that are communicated with symbolic language on paper.

I often thought that most of the country's problems could be solved if we simply could orchestrate them to occur within a few feet of prominent conservatives homes.




All of this brings me back to our air tight pumping process at the gas station.

If it is right there in front of us then we get very clever about it. Forcing companies to have an equivalent level of care about something that we cannot see and is thousands of feet under the water is impossible. It is impossible because we have to spend so much energy just convincing guys like Will that even the obvious is obvious. Oh by the way George Will recently said that the U of IL said that Global Ice Sea Levels are the same as 1979. The University responded with this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Will#2008_Offshore_drilling_by_China

"We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979.

Will resonded that he was right about what the University said and the University was wrong.

I would pay to transport Will to personally view the Global Sea Ice so that he could write a persuasive piece on global warming but frankly these days the conservatives don't give a shit about George Will. Conservatives no longer follow baseball they love the carnage of football and they suspect Will's personal relationship with 'Our Lord and Savior'.



And now if you have had the patience to get this far I will get to my point.

Thailand, my second home, is in the midst of a staggering drought. In some ways it is worse than the spill in the Gulf.

http://www.thaipro.com/thailand_00/370-drought-thailand.htm

Thailand, Bangkok: The Thai Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives says the drought in Thailand this year might become the most severe that Thailand has witnessed in the last 10 years. The drought is affecting 9.6 million Thai farmers in a country where more than 60 percent of the population depends on agriculture

Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives Newin Chidchob said: "The drought is hitting Thailand's farming sector very badly and has now spread to 66 of Thailand's 76 provinces, forcing local authorities to stop supplying water for irrigation. The current water supplies are not sufficient to have a second dry-season crop cultivation this year, on which farmers depends.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Drought-threatens-Thailands-apf-1715790192.html?x=0&.v=1

BANGKOK (AP) -- The world's largest rice exporter, Thailand, is facing major losses to its next crop of rice and a water crisis because of the worst drought in nearly two decades.

Chanchai Rakthananon, president of the Thai Rice Mills Association, said Tuesday that rice output for the next crop cycle, ending in August, could fall to as little as 2 million tons from a previously forecast 5 million tons.

"It didn't rain when it needed to rain," said Angsumal Sunalai, director general of the Thai Meteorological Department. He blamed global climate change for the problem.

Rivers have vanished



Paddies have no water




Resevoirs are empting out:






The effects of catastrophic climate change are not on the way. They are here.


The question whether we - the human race - are idiots is a settled question. It was proved 10 years ago when in the face of clear scientific evidence we chose to go slow.

Now the question is how close do we come to mirroring the wisdom of George Will. In other words will we finally take action on a comprehensive-Manhattan-style-entire-country-mobilization on transforming from a petroleum based economy only when the effects of climate change are visible from our front yard.

The spill in the Gulf can now be the ignition to a world changing campaign to recover our planet. It may be the best thing that could have happened.

Who has the intelligence to take up the call? Who is articulate enough to bring us together?

At every point in human history when it has teetered on the edge of insanity a leader has stepped forward to turn us away from the abyss. Presidents cannot choose the moment where their Presidency is put at the center of history and there is a cosmic throw of the dice.

Now is the time to big. Add a zero. Times two. Add another zero. Don't mess around.

For George Will let me explain it in terms you might understand so I don't have to pay for a ticket for you to go to the Arctic; Not the time to bunt, no hit and run, don't bother with a sacrifice fly. Its time for the President to step up to the plate, call his shot like the Babe and knock it out of the park.

[zipplewrath]

1. Will is very impressed with himself

He is the embodyment of "a little knowledge can be dangerous". He is consistently corrected on ABC Sunday, mostly by Krugman. He frequently is a guilty of either "Willful" negligence or distortion. Any decent fact checker would reject most of his columns. But since he has mastered the art of sounding nice while saying very nasty things, he continues to stay employed.

[grantcart]

6. and also "obscure references can be pompous"

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. Not bad for an old fart!

Enjoyed reading it!
Cheers!

[DrToast]

3. Epic post

What's that saying about conservatives being right....eventually?

[rufus dog]

9. As I read it "Epic" popped into my head too!

GC or GF - NICE MFing JOB!

[grantcart]

10. thanks

[Ikonoklast]

4. You read George Will?

He has a lot in common with dinosaurs, and hardly anyone on the right pays any attention to him anymore.

[grantcart]

5. How do you know he has a lot in common with dinosaurs if you haven't read him.

In the article I clearly point out that no one takes Will seriously anymore.

The "Wisdom of George Will" is a reference to the absence of same, like zero is a real number.

I will say that Will is one of the few conservatives on TV that I can actually listen to for a few minutes.

[tekisui]

7. Will is one of the few tolerable conservatives.

[grantcart]

8. kick