Here in the northeast, we are bracing for what could be a record breaking snow forecast. At some point over the next few hours, feet of snow will fall, with my house being ground zero. Schools are closed for tomorrow and highways will be so unpassable that the governors of MA and CT have already told people they will shut down sometime between 9 PM and Midnight. Public transportation will also stop so wherever you are tonight, that's where you will be for the next few days.
If you do not get a new post for the next few days, it's most likely because I am sitting in the dark amusing myself with board games, books and, most likely, sex with my hot Japanese girlfriend. Life is good sometimes. But as I watch and wait for the storm to arrive, something occurs to me.
First off, here in New England, we have snow all the time. So why do people rush to the store to get things they should already have? I will be heading out shortly to get gas, a few things at the store and McDonald's. The news on the other hand show people buying loads of groceries and salt and other things that they should have already bought. I have had the same salt in my garage since 2007. How much do most people use? Are they sprinkling their food with it? If so, yuck.
The one good thing from this is the fact that Deflate-gate is finally off the air, which has to be one of the most pointless stories ever. Instead, we get to hear wall to wall storm coverage, which will most likely happen non-stop over the next 24 hours where reporters who drew the short straw get to sit outside and comment on how bitter and cold it is. On rare occasions, some poor reporters gets sprayed with a plow, or in the case of NBC news, peeing in the snow.
All of this has allowed the climate change deniers to crow in full about how some news article written fifteen years ago claimed an end to snow forever, so it must be a sign that all news is bull about the subject. If I hear about that Independent UK article from 2000, or the one in Newsweek in the 70's, that said global cooling was happening, one more time, I am going to kill someone. No single weather event is about global warming any more than a single winter storm, in winter of all times, signals an end to climate change.
Evidence strongly suggests that we are changing the environment and one of the reasons is that there are too many damned people on the planet. Several population deniers are also out in full force using Malthus' failed claims of overpopulation problems to bolster the idea that there is no threat. The problem is, he may ultimately be right, as technology may reach the limits of how it can feed people, especially with an unrealistic hatred for GMO foods which may not be as bad as some are claiming. Monsanto is a beast of company with questionable patents and are indeed destroying family farms but GMO's may not be as harmful as some are saying. We have been doing this type of genetic modification for centuries with no ill effects and just because we are using technology does not make it evil.
But much like climate change and vaccinations, one idiot writes a questionable scientific paper and everyone who can read and have little understanding of the subject believes it. My professor in college, Dr. Kenneth Fader, talked about this phenomenon in one of his classes. He remembered reading a book by Eric Von Daiken and how for the first half of the book he was fascinated with the idea of aliens visiting Earth. But then he got to section about Mayan glyphs, a subject he knew a great deal about and realized, everything he wrote about the subject was wrong. He went on to realize that the earlier stuff he read with great fanfare was also wrong, but as he didn't know as much about the subject, he assumed it was correct. Thus the lesson: if you read something you know little about, do not assume it is correct just because you do not understand it. And if you come across something that is definitely wrong, question everything else.
This is something few do anymore. They read something that fits into the world view and accept it as fact even if it is bull. And if anyone challenges it with facts, they dig in to their erroneous view. This is why we have so many well educated morons in this world not vaccinating their kids because they do not trust Big Pharma, doctors or even common sense anymore. Lack of trust is why societies die and we are headed right down that rabbit hole as no one seemed to remember the Republicans destroying this country, even blaming Obama for stuff he had no part in, like the death of unions or the economic collapse, both of which the GOP is going full steam ahead with.
The point of this is that too many out there believe in stuff that is not true, and provably so, but are unwilling to face facts even when it shoved in their face. Until we get a better educated group, and that includes those with Masters and PHDs, nothing is going to change. What will change is this society when it falls apart due to overpopulation, a changing environment and a collapsing economy. Read more, listen less. It will save your life.
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