Despite what the average American thinks

the United States pursued a general policy of Isolationism up until their entry into the 2nd World War. It's only one example.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Isolationism

It takes a direct threat to themselves to make the U.S. jump up to save the world...

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So prevalent now

E.coli cucumber scare: Germany seeks source of outbreak

"Germans have been warned not to eat cucumbers until tests identify the source of a deadly E.coli outbreak which local officials say has killed 13 people."

At one time the greatest fear regarding E.Coli was that underdone hamburger at the family BBQ. Now it is showing up in foods that we never considered a risk before, and it is killing people. Such a change...

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Get this book!

The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change

This is such an important book that I think everyone should read it. I linked directly to the Amazon.ca site for it in hardcover, but it is available in paperback now as well. This isn't any kind of through-link that pays me a fee if you use it. I get nothing. I just think it's so important that more people read this book and become converts, so to speak, to change. I bought my copy at Coles, as a remainder, for about 7 or 8 dollars, so it doesn't have to be expensive. Perhaps see if your library has it. Just read it!

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I won't blog tomorrow

but don't forget that tomorrow, Good Friday, is also

Earth Day.

Good Friday outweighs the Earth Day in my life, but it isn't a bad thing to remember Earth Day everyday, and live like it means something...

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Really,

this will only make sense (or make complete sense) to those who follow Catholic websites and blogs on a regular basis, but it's interesting. I've posted peripherally to the issue in the recent past.

I'm having an Amy Welborn Moment

Mark, a convert to the Catholic faith, takes a very even and intelligent stance on all things Catholic. Here he's responding to an 'internet hysteria' situation regarding an item that arose a while ago. He explains 'an Amy Welborn Moment' quite well and it will be intelligible to those familiar or unfamiliar with the intelligent and faithful Amy Welborn.

I'm going to have to come up with a 'he's my hero' graphic' for links I do to Mr. Shea's blog. I really like his thinking...

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This will upset more than a few people

The nuclear disaster is “a lesson for Japan and for the whole world,” notes Bishop

But for quite a while now no one, particularly a majority of Catholics, has cared what the Bishops say. It's a sad fact of the current times...

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The news is not good

Japan nuclear plant suffers 2nd explosion

"Fuel rods exposed at separate reactor add to fears of potential 3rd explosion"

The nuclear industry in the West, however, will continue saying that 'this could never happen here, the technology's different'. Just like they said about the technology in Japan. In fact, in comparing the situation in Japan to Chernobyl, I heard an expert on the radio just yesterday saying that it could never happen in Japan 'because the technology's different'. They just keep parroting the same line while people die and the world is contaminated.

Is it the beginning of the end? (Not to be too apocalyptic or anything...)

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"If the poor be like to die...

An unsung hero...

Feed the Hungry

We've got lots of other ways to kill ourselves off as a race. Besides, as one of my favourite '60-'70s hippie bands proclaimed in one of their songs, "There's plenty of good ways for a man to be wicked!"

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Everything translates

into money in our Capitalist world...

At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business

This is why I'm so pessimistic about our future. Unless someone can convince the Capitalists that without a world there won't be any more profits we're doomed. Someone has to make a serious business case for saving the world, and there has to be some sort of short-term profit in it (other than the altruistic 'saving the world from destruction'), or the corporations that are polluting our world, and even polluting to produce 'Earth Day' merchandise, will just continue to do it...

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So, he argues

that it's not the numbers, but what the numbers are doing.

The overpopulation myth

"The idea that growing human numbers will destroy the planet is nonsense. But over-consumption will"

It could be true. It doesn't matter, really. There's no political will to change whatever the issue, so we're screwed...

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At least

she's not saying 'don't worry be happy'...

Anti-human Copenhagen

"There is no nihilism like the nihilism of a 9-year-old."

She does have valid opinions in the article. The difference between her and the nihilists is that she looks at things optimistically, while the nihilists look at things as pessimists. And who is right?

If the things that need doing get done to deal with climate change, then the optimist could well be saying 'nyahh, nyahh' to the pessimists. However, if the world has to wait for the various levels of government bureaucracies to make change to their laws while protecting the various interest groups that vote for them, I fear that the nihilists may well be right. And that the little children should know that.

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I'm always happy

when I see people more worried about the GDP than the destruction of the world...

Technology Can Fight Global Warming

While I agree that technology can, and should, be fighting global warming, the idea of putting those responsible for technology (business and business research) in charge of fighting global warming (also caused by business and business research) is the old fox/hen house scenario. Call me skeptical...

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Happy?

The world's happiest nations

You'll note the absence of Canada in the top 10. I suspect that's because a lot of people find it difficult to be happy when the temperatures dip to -25 and colder for months at a time. Except for the peole in the prairies. They're a happy, hardy bunch...

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Naw...

Official: Jesus Has No Favorite Nation

They'll never get my neighbours to the South to believe that...

For myself

I never thought God went anywhere...

God is back: How Ned Flanders won the evangelical crusade

"The media may portray evangelicals, such as Ned Flanders, as losers, but US-style Christianity has gone global"

It was just that ultra-conservative, highly political brand of U.S. evangelicalism that fell off the radar for a while...

A really good article

from Jimmy Akin:

Harry Truman Was A War Criminal

It's not what you think. Read the comment discussion, too (ignore ones that slam Democrats and others not conservative enough for them, though. These people are everywhere, trying to keep the word 'liberal' in the lexicon of epithets.)

Though even the most hardened hawk would be hard-pressed to prove that the bombing of Nagasaki after the bombing of Hiroshima was necessary in any legal or moral way...

My all-time

favourite 'toon. I should have posted it on Earth Day...



I don't think we're going to change. It really is too late, not for the earth, because it will likely recover given enough time, but for humankind...

It's today!


Earth Day

What are you doing for Earth Day?

I've always been interested in this

Esperanto: Artificial language for the masses

"Like many people, I endured four years of high-school French only to find that I lacked the ability to order a croissant in a Paris bakery without making a fool of myself."

Heh. Me, too, but I could conjugate verbs like nobody's business!

Good heavens!


Protestant Pastors Evenly Split on Global Warming Beliefs

They're still splitters!

(Sorry. Couldn't help it... )