fotD 28

On Top of Things, originally uploaded by Allard One.

my ‘running capitalist dog’ post

Cleaning off my desktop this morning I skimmed an article about Roger Baldwin, civil libertarian and the founder of the ACLU, saw a caption about communism (he wasn't), and was sent on a mental tangent. It dawned on me for the first time how similar the struggle between capitalism and communism is to that between rationality and religion. In both cases we’re presented with systems that have been tested, again and again, and while capitalism and rationality do have their occasional shortcomings, they work really well as long as they are practiced consistently and fairly. Communism and religion? Their ideas may feel good, they strive to quickly answer questions people want answered, but neither can produce any tangible proof of their validity. The practice of communism especially was based on predicted results of untested hypotheses and relied on a complete lack of history to sound believable. Nevertheless, people bought into it based on nothing more than a hunch. What’s funny about this is the fact that so many people who are die-hard, laissez-faire, no-new-taxes business types are also religious. Crazy.

Then, during lunch, I came across a post titled ‘Buffett Speaks’ by Frank Boosman. More red meat for my patriotic mood.

Sign. Me. Up.

Doug, Pete, and Chad, too, I'd bet.



Thanks to fixed gear for the global awareness.

it's coming...

Tesla's Model S (for sedan). Half the price of the roadster and slated for 2011. Sounds like a long way off, but it's not.

A sneak peak from Treehugger:

MRSA

Great. A new acronym we're going to wish we'd never heard. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterial infection that is resistant to most antibiotics. I'll spare you the grisly skin details, but suffice to say it kills more people in the U.S. now than AIDS. 'What's the culprit?' you may be wondering, 'global warming, insects?' Pigs.

Pigs grown in CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), the industrial scale source of almost all of our meat, even a lot of the stuff labeled 'organic,' are packed in tighter than Londoners in the 1300s. And, like every European city in the Middle Ages that mixed high density with animals and shoddy cleaning, CAFOs breed disease almost as efficiently as they breed create tail-less pigs. Enter MRSA.

I'd never heard of this particular infection until today when I read two different pieces about it (I'm supposed to be on vacation). Just one more reason to start cutting down on your meat intake unless it's from more natural, sustainable places than antibiotic- and petroleum-fed factories. And this really is the only thing that's going to bring about change: your decision to eat sustainably. This is not a top-down solution, especially because the President's choice for Secretary of Agriculture is an industry guy. We have to start giving a damn about where our food is coming from and demanding better.