Religulous

I went to see Religulous tonight, the new film by Bill Maher. We have this great old theatre here in town which has but a single screen. It's the only commercial venue in town where this sort of film is par for the course.

Do not let the reviews you may have read fool you about this flick. It is very much anti-religion. I say that as a matter of fact and without judgement for or against the movie - or religion, for that matter.

The basic gist of the movie is that anyone who approaches religious belief with certitude is a fool. Religion is foolish and dangerous. Dangerous because the apocalyptic fantasies that are at the core of so many religions are now possible due to man's recent grasp of apocalyptic technologies.

Technologies such as nuclear weapons which, along with pollution, are listed as some of the ways man's technologies could facilitate the apocalyptic fantasies contained within various scriptures. I would add biological and chemical weapons to that list of apocalypse-enablers.

Bill Maher says at one point, "The only thing worse than prophecy is a self-fulfilling prophecy."

To close the film, he sums it all up with, "Grow up or die." Meaning religious faith is immature and its foolish tenants can lead to our destruction given man's grasp of modern technology.

I am agnostic, myself. I don't claim to be wise enough to know what the answer is. I agree with the assertion that religious institutions are prone to corruption and have been so for centuries and millenia. Centuries and millenia of corruption have most likely lead to a perversion of the teachings of Christ, Muhammed, Moses, whoever.

Recession Finally Admitted by the Fed

Finally there are rumblings from Washington that seem to admit to a recession. I think the American people have been tuned into the reality of an economic downturn for quite some time.

As of now, the Dow is down another 502 points. The other day it was up by around 900, but I knew that was mere volatility. This downturn won't stop until the actual fundamentals of the world economy are repaired.

The U.S. especially needs to put its economic house in order. We need to start making things again. That is what is fundamentally at the core of our floundering economy - we don't make anything any more. We make money off of money. We flip houses. We use credit.

There are many things that have gone awry, don't get me wrong. However, increasing manufacturing jobs in America would have the effect of decreasing unemployment, putting more money in the pocket of Americans. Two thirds of our economy is based upon consumer spending.

I think retail stores are going to take a major hit this Christmas. Americans are losing their jobs, their homes, and their confidence. Watch the stock market in late December and early January. Look for a big drop when the retail numbers prove to be abysmal.

I think the turnaround here will take a good long time. I think Americans have been shocked into waking up from a credit card coma. Spending will slow. Savings will increase. Less cheap crap will be bought in stores. Bad news for China, really.

If Americans are smart and we have good leadership we can come through this better and stronger. If the focus is on technology and research into alternative energy we have a chance. If America leads the way with a whole new fleet of battery driven and alternatively fueled cars we can again be the auto manufacturer of the world. If we invest in infrastructure like schools, roads, a new solar and wind electrical grid, and college we can again become competitive.

If our leaders have the political will to raise taxes we might be okay. If we are honest with ourselves then we see that raising taxes is unavoidable if we are to address our national debt and other needs simultaneously. If Americans can change their ways and refrain from spending what they don't have then each of us may yet find economic salvation.

If we hold our leaders accountable on the issues that matter to all of us we can save ourselves from ourselves. Issues like education, roads, jobs, a stagnating economy, and the environment are all interrelated and can all be solved on a single line of attack.

The simplest answer is usually the best answer. I usually denounce Occum's Razor as a means for oversimplification of complicated issues and ideas. In this case, however it is right on.

Problems like crumbling roads, vaporizing jobs and a worsening environment can all be solved by investing in green technology and providing government subsidies for green infrastructure projects. This would lay the foundation for jobs and a revitalized economy. It would allow us to export this technology and put America back on the economic map as a producer and exporter rather than an importer and borrower.

More Americans with good jobs boosts consumer confidence and provides the fuel for two thirds of our economy (consumer spending). More good jobs means a larger tax base. Government subsidies for technology research means many many small businesses getting startup money from either the government or venture capitalists.

And to cement the continued growth of this new economy you invest in education. A smart workforce is an efficient and innovative workforce. You also ensure this new boom is sustainable with massive infrastructure investment in both existing and new techologies (as they come online). Improve roads and build a new sustainable electrical grid. This will create jobs in and of itself as well - this will feed back into the positive cycle by putting more money in the pockets of Americans and growing the middle class.

That is a lot of "ifs." Believe me, I am aware of that fact. Every pay period I am putting a little bit towards survival gear and supplies. I am trying to hope for the best, but I am planning for the worst without a doubt.

EDIT: At close of trading today the Dow was down 733 pts.

Patriots, None and All

Don't talk to me about patriotism. None of you. This coming from a man who is not the patriot he could be.

First of all, the word is tainted in the modern context. Patriotism is not a bumper sticker or a ribbon. It is not the hollow words "support the troops." It is not blind allegiance to the flag.

You may believe that you support the troops, but what have you really done but say the words? Did you buy a t-shirt or did you put a magnetic ribbon on your SUV?

That same gas-guzzling behemoth that ships your petro-dollars to Saudi Wahhabi princes who then use that money to fund terrorists? Good job, Patriot.

Do you pay attention to politics? Do you vote? Do you volunteer your time or money? What civic virtues do you believe in? Do you actually know which candidates hold those same values? Do you even know what a "civic virtue" is?

Or do you vote a single issue and listen to slanderous mischaracterizations and vote on who you "feel" would be the best candidate?

Are you so ignorant that you wouldn't even know how to answer many of the questions above?

Enough questions. Too many Americans are satisfied to be ignorant. From rednecks and gang-banging thugs to soccer moms to businessmen in suits; ignorant one and all. Fat, dumb, and happy.

Modern pop culture is an incredible force for stupidity and ignorance. The Paparazzi and the obsession of the moment makes us stupid via distraction. Brad and Angelina adopted another baby? Who fucking cares!? MTV has been turning our teens into idiots for over two decades now.

Millions expend their energy tracking the lives of the famous when they should spend that energy in a way which might actually benefit themselves or their community. Watch C-Span if you must be a voyeur of the famous. You might just learn something.

Patriotism is love of the American Dream, not the flag or a President. Patriotism is a burning fire whose fuel is blood and sweat. With that blood and sweat we purchase freedom and opportunity. It is in serving country and community that we sweat and bleed. Service is the coin of patriotism.

And so we're clear on this - unquestioning patriotism actually goes by another name altogether. It's called fascism and it's completely un-American.

If I have to hear one more able-bodied man under the age of 50 tell me about how he supports the troops and we should invade Iran I will just loose it. Go volunteer if that's the way you feel. They'll take you these days, believe me. Shut the fuck up and put your own ass on the line if you think we should start a war that would spread across the Middle East, because you can't have my kids.

I swear to God, if this war is going on by the time my son turns 18 I will murder anyone who tries to take him off to fight in that tragedy. I mean that - I will stab you in the eye if you try to take my babies to go fight in a petro-war started by a retarded addict from Crawford.

But these same chickenhawks won't volunteer themselves because they are cowards. They are scared all the time because they're ignorant and they believe the local newsman when he says that there's "something in your house waiting to kill your children!!!" So of course they believe the President and other high officials when they intimate that Iraq will detonate a nuclear bomb in America.

These same officials who got six deferments themselves during Vietnam now want to commit our soldiers to wars everywhere. Fucking hypocrites. Fucking cowards. That's what enrages me about these couch-potato commandos: they assume since I don't like Bush and I think Iraq was a mistake that I must be some hippy-dippy left wing pacifist.

And in case you were wondering - yes, I have served a stint in the military myself. I was lucky enough to serve in a time of relative peace and under a President who didn't casually squander the lives of the military. I have spent time behind a trigger in the name of America. Have you?

I am no pacifist, ladies and gentlemen. I own 4 guns and I have served my country. I hate the Grateful Dead and love punk, metal, and rock. There's not a damned thing pacifist or hippy about me. Those who truly know me think I'm a bit on the militant side, as a matter of fact.

I volunteer my time and money to the causes I believe in. I serve on my neighborhood's HOA Board, I volunteer for candidates I believe in, and I put my proverbial money where my mouth is.

I recycle, am energy-conscious, I walk or bike to work, and I instill these actions as values in my children. Because what's more patriotic than taking care of the environment we all share? What is more an intrinsic part of our national heritage than the actual physical nation we leave our children?

And I think I should be doing more.

The Might and the Majesty

My wife and two of my kids went to D.C. this weekend. We took Amtrack up and walked everywhere we wanted to go. During our stay we went to the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs!), the Washington Monument, and the Carousel on the Mall. Doesn't sound like much to do for an entire weekend?

Ha! You try doing all that with a 14 month old and a 4 year old on foot!

I haven't been to D.C. in a while, but what never ceases to amaze me is the majesty of the place. The train station, Union Station, is gigantic. It's as big as many major airports. The main lobby is beatiful tile floor with large statues all around. The exterior of the building is also quite impressive, with massive stone columns and granite everywhere.

Much of D.C. is built this way. All sorts of federal office buildings all over the city were built with a fortune of granite. And these buildings are nothing special - they're just office buildings. The curbs in DC are granite, for Pete's sake! Then toss the Capitol building in the mix along with all of the monuments and memorials and you have a city built to impress.

Of course this is all by design. For its day I'm sure Rome was much, much more impressive than D.C. There are plenty of other majestic sites in other cities all over the world today. Back in the heyday of Rome this was not the case. Rome was the largest city in the world and had public buildings and spaces unrivaled. The Circus Maximus and the Colliseum would be impressive structures even if they were built today.

It's no coincidence that there are columns a-plenty in D.C. and stone all over everything. Nothing screams permanence like expensive, heavy stone. The Egyptians knew it, the Greeks knew it, the Romans knew it. D.C. is intentionally built to evoke images of glory and empire and permanence.

But those images are all illusions, for nothing is permanent. The structures still stand in many cases, but the civilizations and vibrant life that once filled them are long gone. Egypt was swept away as an independent power by the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans, and the Romans by a series of barbarian tribes. The Byzantine East survived for a millenium longer, but even they fell to Ottoman Turks eventually.

At least these ancient civilizations fell to invaders. We will probably fall to our own stupidity and corruption without the benefit of foreign aggression. History buffs, please spare me the lecture. I know that each of these civilizations were weakened by internal strife and corruption which set the stage for their conquest from without. I was merely pointing out that we won't even need that push from an external force in order for us to fall over.

Rome and Egypt and Greece never had to deal with a shifting climate and a population addicted to a cheap energy source which made life obscenely easy. They never had to deal with fundamentally dwindling resources with no frontiers left to colonize and exploit. There's no release valve for the pressures we are under today.

Where can you send excess population to go live now? The North Pole? When we run out of food or water where can we go to get more? Ummm... Mars? When the oil runs out and petroleum-based fertilizers aren't available to super-charge our soil any more, how do we feed our 7 billion person population?

Am I crazy? I hope so.

Atlanta doesn't think so. They're in a tough way down there. Maybe a foreshadowing of things to come? Take a look at Lake Allatoona, one of the major water sources down there.

What I'm saying is that no army can stop a drought. No bomber can make crops grow. Our military can't save us like it saved the Egyptians and the Romans and the Greeks for so long. Figthing this enemy takes a lot more smarts and cooperation than anything the ancients faced.

I'm just wondering if we're up to it.

All Good Things...

I'm generally not a fan of bumper stickers. I kind of hate them, as a matter of fact. They're meant to be condensed "wisdom" applied to the backside of an automobile (just above and to the right of our polluting tailpipes).

I did see one the other day that actually struck me. Very few ideas worth considering are boiled down to a single, short statement.

Some classic nuggets of such short and sweet wisdom would be:

• Life is too short for [insert stupid b.s. here]...
• It's a small world.
• Treat others as you want to be treated.
• All things must come to an end.

... and maybe a few others, but that's basically it. This bumper sticker adds another nugget to this elite list:

• These are the good old days...

Think about that for a second. Sometime in the not-too-distant future they'll look back at us like Roman nobility, with a culture all gluttonous and over-sexed. They'll analyze our hip-hop videos with half-naked women, our Girls Gone Wild, our porn, our idiotic leadership, our divided culture, our illnesses (diabetes, gout, heart disease, obesity, autism, cancer of everything), our militant nation-states, our moronic political process, and the blind way we stumbled through life and they'll wonder:

"How the hell did they make it as long as they did?"

I was reflecting on these notions last night as we had Father's Day dinner at my house. I had prepared these awesome Cuban style pork tacos and for desert my wife made a great strawberry peach shortcake with homemade whipped cream and homemade shortcake. I looked over at my four year old daughter, who had some silly sunglasses on, a feather boa, and some Disney princess dress. I watched as my eldest finished up his chores and immediately picked up his Nintendo DS to play some Pokemon game.

I thought to myself, as I sipped my expensive local microbrew, "Not too long ago, only royalty and the very wealthy lived like this."

And then it occurred to me that not even nobility would have had the benefit of air conditioning like I do. Not even nobility could travel miles in mere minutes on a whim in a personal motor coach like I can. No matter how rich you were you couldn't communicate with a friend or family member on the other side of the planet instantaneously. I can.

Then I realized that people have never lived this well. Never. I mean there are many, many problems with modern industrial society but comfort is not one of them. I have of course had this thought before, but the idea that - these are the good old days - really sunk in. It may never be this easy again. We may never again lay in the lap of such luxury.

I don't know if that's a bad thing. There are so many times when I just can't stand the idea of working for lesser men, of toiling towards goals that are so abstract. I spend all day away from those I love to go work in some terrible building under flourescent lights for a paycheck that is usually spoken for the instant it arrives.

Why? I'm really not sure why. Because that's what people do? I guess that's as good a reason as I can muster. Maybe because I'm addicted to this soft life that I simultaneously hate in many ways. I like my blog and my internet and my MMORPG and my easy access to food and clean water.

I like functions like security and fire fighting being left to the professionals. I like my HOA which comes by and cuts the grass and fixes my roof and siding.

And I hate it. I hate it all. I hate this stupid waste of time I'm engaged in right now. The internet is 80% stupidity, 10% porn, 9% storefronts, and 1% useful information. Really you could throw the porn in with the storefront category. They're just selling sex.

My gaming is a waste of time. It's an idle way to piss away the precious few moments I have to be on this Earth.

I hate the stupid, meddling emails I get from the HOA. I'm actually on the board. I thought I'd be the voice of reason for these jackasses.

Nope. These petty tyrants can't be beaten by words - that's where they rule. Make them actually do something themselves and that's where they fail. But with the complicated machinations of law and society and management companies to back them up it's guaranteed they'll never lift a finger.

Meh.

Preparing for the Squeeze

It's all going to hell and probably faster than even I would like to consider. I'm the kind of guy with his eyes open, too. I just don't see anything encouraging.

The fundamentals are all screwed. We're mismanaging the land, our water, global warming, our national defense, our infrastructure, our education, and our economic base.

Every place I've ever worked has featured multiple (not just one, but multiple) managers with college degrees that were barely literate. These guys made much more money than I did and they wrote unintelligible emails. Emails that my ten year old daughter would have been embarrassed to send.

I'm not talking about a misspelling here and there. Hell, we all do that (although with spell checking I can't imagine why). I mean that these guys wrote emails that featured strings of alphanumeric characters which bore no resemblance to complete thoughts, let alone sentences. These are managers! Managers! They are supposedly our leaders and examples.

I don't need to get into the environmental stuff. At this point if you aren't on board with this notion you're an imbecile or you're on Chevron's payroll.

Everyone remembers the bridge that collapsed out of the blue in Minnesota and the tunnel collapse in Boston. Now there are cranes collapsing in New York. I read this Popular Mechanics article that made my toes curl. Popular Mechanics tries to look at this crisis in the best light possible, citing technology as our possible savior. I have to say that it takes will and people and dollars to apply technology. Where is the will and where are the dollars that will bring the people who will apply the technology?

I don't see them.

A staggering statistic from that article:

"One-quarter of the 599,893 bridges in the United States have structural problems or outdated designs."

That's 149,973 bridges in need of replacement or repairs. I could tick off three in my hometown alone that make me nervous. And that's just the ones I've noticed casually passing them by.

On national defense - every source from within the military will tell you our military is at its lowest state of readiness since before WW II (back when we basically had no military). Regardless of where you stand on why we got into Iraq or if we should have or if the public was lied to in the lead up there is one fact that stands undeniable:

Our military and our nation are being bled dry in Iraq. We are losing the lives of our valiant men and women in uniform and for what? For freedom and democracy in Iraq? Don't make me laugh. An altruistic invasion to spread democracy at bayonet-point? Really?

People keep comparing Iraq to Vietnam and I tell them they're wrong. While there are some similarities to America's involvement in Vietnam, our struggle in Iraq is much more like the Soviet Union's struggle in Afghanistan which started in 1979.

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan for murky reasons and ended up running 40 divisions through that meat grinder. This is what defeated the Soviets, not Reagan or Bush the Elder. The Soviets were economically and thus militarily ruined in Afghanistan due to a low grade insurgency like the one we're experiencing in Iraq and the one the French experienced in Algeria in the late 50's and early 60's.

We're bleeding out in Iraq. Our budget has massive defecits and here's the kicker, kids:

We aren't even counting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into the regular budget. They've been entirely funded by emergency supplemental spending which isn't factored into the budget and therefore wouldn't show up in any deficit numbers.

In short, as bad as you think the nation's budgetary crisis is - it is in fact much, much worse.

That is why, no matter what you think about our nation's War on Terror, we must withdrawl from Iraq. We simply cannot afford to continue. Despite what you think about our nation's treasury it is not a limitless treasure trove. If it were only empty there might be some hope.

Sadly our treasury is full to the rafters. It is not full with money or gold or reserves of any kind. No, our treasury is full of debt. Our treasury is, as of this moment, so bankrupt that only the continued denial of this obvious reality on the part of our creditors allows us to keep up our illusions of power and wealth. We are less than poor. We are absolutely destitute.

With no manufacturing base left we stand little hope of reversing this trend. During the Great Depression we were still a mighty manufacturing nation - our factories just stood silent, all full of potential jobs. Now these factories in many cases have literally been packaged up and shipped overseas. They simply aren't present any more.

We can't all work in high end service jobs like information technology. Somebody, somewhere has to actually make something in order for our economy to function. This isn't happening.

The thing that really scares me is this - it may be coming faster than I can prepare for it. I may not be able to complete my preparations for these hard times to come before they arrive.

State of the Union

My fellow Americans,

The state of the Union is not strong. As President of the United States of America I feel it is my duty to tell it to you straight. This country has been horribly mismanaged by a two-party system paralyzed by gridlock for far too long.

Corporate interests have pillaged our national heritage for the sake of the next quarter's profit statement. Manufacturing in America is something from an era gone by. Gone are the good middle class jobs that would afford a decent living to people with no college education. These jobs have gone overseas and the corporations who sent them overseas got tax incentives to do it.

The college education that is a necessity these days will cost you far more than it ever cost your parents, starting most graduates off in a state of debt from the moment they take their diploma. The average American family is hard pressed to send their children to college. This sets the stage for a less and less competitive and qualified American workforce in the future. This will put America at a severe disadvantage in the global marketplace.

These are not the only hardships the middle class faces. While all of the other industrialized Western nations have moved on to nationalized healthcare affording coverage to all of their citizens, America's healthcare system has become more expensive and slipped to a ranking of 37th, just behind Costa Rica. The threat of bankruptcy due to illness looms large over the heads of every American family.

After decades of underfunding, America, whose public education system used to be the envy of the world, now has a decrepit system where lower income students are at a severe disadvantage and every student is expected to learn with fewer and fewer resources.

All of these things go to undercut and weaken the middle class, which is the backbone of a strong America. The middle class has always fueled the American economy and with the middle class deteriorating can it be any surprise that America itself seems to be in decline?

The Recession of 2001 was a recession from which we never truly recovered. The "recovery" we experienced was largely fueled by rising housing prices which afforded consumers seemingly free money in the form of home equity loans. This meteoric rise in housing prices coupled with stagnant wages was an unsustainable trend and lead to the inevitable housing market correction we are seeing today.

The lack of regulation in the mortgage industry lead to predictable abuses piled on top of a wildly overvalued housing market, coupled with abusive repackaging and reselling of these loans on the international markets. Millions of foreclosures on American families coupled with millions more American families trapped in their current homes* will only deepen a long-running economic downturn that has never truly and sustainably been reversed.

Oil prices skyrocketing causes food prices to rise, the cost of a commute to rise, and a general rise of prices across the board for all things you buy. Stagnant wages. Falling consumer confidence. The highest debt-to-income ratio in the American household since the Great Depression.

A lack of action from the federal government on global warming has put us further behind on an issue that we should have began work on in the late 70's as envisioned by Jimmy Carter. I myself take issue with many things he did during his time as President, but on this issue he displayed uncanny prescience.

The war in Iraq is a barrier to progress on any of the above issues. While we are bleeding in Iraq we can not undertake any solutions here at home. The human cost in Iraq is a tragic metric which proves the folly of ever going in. The financial cost drains our coffers while the infrastructure in America collapses around us, while Americans lose their jobs, their homes, and their health - while Americans lose their security.

In short, nothing is going right. Liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat we should all hang our heads in shame. We have greviously failed the American people and the American dream. Thankfully all is not lost. Not yet. We can reverse these trends.

We can pull out of Iraq with honor. Our soldiers have accomplished their mission. It is the political leaders who have failed in their mission, not the brave men and women in uniform. I propose that within the next two years that we draw down all combat forces in Iraq, leaving a diplomatic and humanitarian mission in their place. It is our moral obligation, after killing so many innocent Iraqi civilians and destroying their nation's infrastructure to be in the forefront of the humaitarian mission they so desperately need.

For our men and women in uniform returning home, we owe nothing less than the best medical and psychological care that is available. We owe them a chance at a real future in the form of a full ride to any college to which they can gain admittance. We owe them our thanks and our understanding and our sympathy as they adjust to life after war.

We must capture Osama bin Laden and destroy the resurgent Taliban and alQaeda. We must finish what we started in Afghanistan. To that end I will propose commiting 50% more soldiers to the stabilization mission in Afghanistan, granting Afghanistan preferred trading partner status, and creating a collection of special forces teams whose entire purpose is tracking down Osama bin Laden.

Getting us out of Iraq is not only morally correct, but a financial necessity. We do not want to follow the Soviet Union down the path of a bankrupting war in the Middle East. To correct any of the problems here at home will require we stop spending money we don't have in Iraq.

The American people are far ahead of their leaders on almost all of these issues. The need to break our dependence on oil is one of these issues. We need to spark a Green Revolution in this country. By ending subsidies for oil companies and transitioning this money into federal grants for green technology research and low interest startup loans for green technology companies, we can stimulate the economy in a true way creating a new generation of jobs - "green collar" jobs that will pay a good wage.

These jobs will provide the basis for a revived middle class and address our environmental problem at the same time. Restructing of the tax code to end the Bush tax cuts for those who make more than $200, 000 a year will put the federal budget back on track and allow for renewed investment in America's infrastructure and education system.

We must raise the CAFE standards for all auto manufacturers who sell cars in America. To further the cause of the environment, I will propose a bill that will grant tax incentives for American auto makers who exceed the minimum CAFE standards on the cars they make.

In this same bill I will also propose a massive reinvestment in public transportation, the centerpiece of which will be a new national highspeed rail system. Couple this with funding help for municipalities who pursue local light rail solutions and we will reinvent travel and the transportation of goods in America.

At the same time we do all of these things, we must address the national shame which is the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina. We must rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We must reach out and help our fellow Americans. We must resettle those who wish to return to their homes and reinvest in these Gulf communities, many of which were struck by desperate poverty even before Katrina.

In part this can be done by rebuilding all of the schools in neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. The federal government should partner with local and state officials to build model schools in these regions. State of the art facilities that will be the benchmark for returning America's education system back to the envied position it once held.

Terrorism and failed states are the new enemies America faces in the 21st century. To face these new threats will require a new national security stance whose roots we can trace to the past. Like Truman at the dawn of the Cold War, we must face these enemies with a strong alliance of like-minded states. We must rebuild the alliances that have suffered so much lately as well as forge new alliances.

With this coalition we must share not only intelligence gathered concerning threats, but we must share the burden of dealing with these threats. Standing together with old allies and new, America will be better positioned to lead the world to a new era of global peace and prosperity.

To earn the right to lead this new alliance, America must reestablish its moral authority. Let me be clear to the American public, to our allies, and the world at large:

America renounces torture in every way. America recommits itself to the Geneva Conventions and will reestablish itself as the world's leader in human rights advocacy. We renounce all policies of the previous Administration concerning "enhanced interrogation" techniques and torture. Waterboarding is torture. Any rendition programs that may exist are summarily terminated as of this very moment.

All detainees at Guantanimo will hereby be given a trial or freed. The legal grey zone that is Guantanimo and its detention center is a stain on America's honor. Let me be clear, this stain was not inflicted by the men and women in uniform who honorably followed the orders of their superiors.

This stain is laid clearly at the feet of the previous Administration. I urge Congress to finally hold the hearings that may bring accountability to those truly to blame for these crimes, not the low ranking enlisted soldiers who have borne the brunt of the punishment to this point.

===================

And so on... I could type for hours. No matter who gets in the White House I will follow them to the bitter end if they give this speech for their first State of the Union speech and then follow through on making it happen.

* Trapped by being upside down in their mortgage, which is owing more on your mortgage principal than the amount for which you could sell your home

Intro

A little background on me to start with, eh? As of this post I am 35 years old and I live in Charlottesville, Virginia. I am a male IT professional (programmer, DBA, project manager, application support engineer, you name it!) who works a full time job here in town. I am a married father of four with kids ranging from 1 to 13 years of age. My wife also holds down a full time IT job. You could say we're a middle class geek family living the American Dream.

Despite my relative good fortune, I have always sensed that something was wrong with modern industrial society. Even before I would have known what a term like modern industrial society meant I could see that there was a sickness that seemed to be everywhere. I have always felt that something just isn't right.

So many things about the lifestyle we live in the western world are both unsustainable and unjust. The destruction we have wreaked upon the planet has, to date, been a mere dress rehearsal. With nations such as China and India coming online the slide will only gain in momentum. The addition of these two nations to the list of modern industrial powers will nearly triple the portion of the planet's population that lives under the umbrella of industrial capitalist consumerism.

I mention all of this not because I'm some communist or eco-terrorist. I state these simple facts because it is painfully obvious that this trend cannot continue unabated. We have already passed Peak Oil, the point where planetary oil production has reached its maximum level. With increased demand coming from India and China the rate of depletion of the remaining 50% of world oil reserves will far outstrip the rate at which the first 50% was consumed.

"What about green technologies?" you say.

I fear it may be too little too late. Over the course of the coming entries we will discuss this point and many more in greater detail.

I am a realistic optimist. That is to say I hope for the best but plan for the worst. Do I want this cushy lifestyle to go by the wayside? Do I want there to be chaos and civil unrest? Do I want there to be global turmoil and starvation? Of course not.

Do I think that it may happen? Do I think that maybe we woke up to the warning signs too late and that some people will live in denial until the lights go out? Yep.

I do all of the responsible things that I can think of, such as:

1. Recycle everything that my locality will accept (cans, paper, cardboard, plastic, & glass)


2. Compost


3. Use only CF bulbs in my home


4. Walk to work


5. Drive compact sedans when I do drive


6. Insulate my hot water heater


7. Use low-flow shower heads


8. Wash laundry only in cold water


9. Eat a mainly vegetarian diet


10. Replace appliances with energy efficient models


11. Shop local and organic as absolutely much as possible


12. Minimize money spent in the big box stores

There's more - that's all that immediately pops into mind. And believe me, I know there's more I could do (please respond with any suggestions!). The point is, despite the fact that I am not nearly as active in conservation as I could be I am pretty sure I do a whole hell of a lot more than most people.

Most Americans drive alone in their giant SUV to work, eat lunch at some restaurant that probably got its food shipped in from a long supply chain touching all corners of the globe, go home to a positively frigid home with the AC cranked, buy disposable everything from Wal-Mart (made in China with near-slave labor, no doubt), and then vote against every initiative that may help reverse climate change because it has a slight chance to impact their lifestyle.

The fact is that people are lazy by nature. Why change anything if the wolves aren't baying at your door? The problems is that the wolves are baying at your door. You just can't hear them because your TV is on too loudly.

Well I can hear them, people. I'm not a gun nut or militia freak. I'm just like you. I get up and go to work every day to make a better life for me and my family. I love my family just like you do. I have friends and hobbies. Despite my relative normalcy I am preparing for a general collapse of the system.

In future entries I'll talk a lot more about the details of my preparations, the things I see happening in the world that concern me, and as I learn them I will pass along survival tricks and tips to you. Please check out the Required Reading section on the right-hand side of the page if you want to get a decent list of material germaine to the subjects we'll discuss.