Our Gorgeous President-Elect

I would like to congratulate the United States for finally making a sane fucking decision in creating a landslide victory for Barack Obama. Showing the highest voter turnout since the early 1960s, this country finally said "genug" to the lovely George W. Bush Administration. It is really too bad that it had to come to this to get a black man in the White House.

On a bus on election day, I rode past a restaurant that had three blackboards next to each other; in sequential order, they read: "Obama! Obama! Obama!" This is in Auckland, New Zealand, where I live. On television, I saw celebrations all over the world. The most amazing one was in Kenya. I'm not used to seeing any of Africa's reaction to anything the US does, which is really too bad, considering that of all the continents in the world, they may be the most strongly affected by the US's decisions.

The whole world's reaction to this election's results bring a tear to my eye. And, upon seeing this picture of Obama and his family, I cried once again. A truly beautiful family, with a truly sincere, kind, intelligent father, who also happens to be the most poweful politician in the world. Who'da thunk it!

Anyway, thank you Obama, for bringing hope back to this dying world. I really hope you live up to our extremely high expectations ;)

Love to all!

Sandy


P.S. I would like to make it clear to those idiot buttfu....silly people who think Obama is a "socialist." No, unfortunately he is not. As a socialist, I would like to see a far more radical person in the White House. But making social change takes time, and socialism is about equality. Seeing a black person in the White House who happens to be a compassionate individual certainly brings my hopes up.

The Infinite Ramblings of a Self-Righteous Do-Gooder

I believe an introduction is in order.

Apologies: Blogspot is a mess, and when I alter the html to do what I want it to do, it doesn't respond. Hence the missing links.

After posting infinite ramblings on politics and environmentalism, I thought perhaps it's time I reveal a little about myself personally, and in doing so, ramble on infinitely more.

I am an agnostic, eclectic pagan who hopes to do as much as possible to help the people and creatures of this Earth in one lifetime.

I believe that there are several ways of going about this, but they must be related to social, economic, and environmental justice. This justice would be brought about by equitable power and resource distribution, as well as emotional and psychological well-being.

First, I will give an overview of some practical ways in which we can go about this change:

Permaculture: For a more environmentally sustainable world. The best idea I've found so far that can create self-sustaining systems, communities, and economies within both industrialized and "Lesser-Developed" countries.

Microcredit or microlending: A tactic to create independent, small, self-sufficient economies in "lesser-developed" countries. Made famous by the Nobel Peace Prize winning Grameen Bank. Criticisms are valid, however, and must be considered. Microcredit is a solution we can use while working within the capitalist, and even Neo-Liberal world. It is a means to get to a better end.

The Just Transition Movement: An innovative way to keep workers from suffering from environmental regulations. Put a Just Transition policy in place, and people can no longer argue that environmental regulation "hurts workers," "destroys jobs," or "hurts the economy." Also read about the organization called the Just Transition Alliance.

Politically, I label myself as an anarcho-socialist, which I feel is more accurate than saying "very liberal." The term "liberal" has been used for so long to mean "tolerant" and "open-minded," and I don't believe that necessarily applies to me. As the title of this post denotes, I am not a very tolerant person. I am generally either accepting or strongly morally opposed and self-righteous. I am aware that this may not be the most effective or healthy state of mind, and I try to change where I can, but I also acknowledge where I am today.

Some people argue that anarchism and socialism cannot go hand-in-hand, and I both agree and disagree. As it stands now, if we were to suddenly try to change into an anarchistic society overnight, then there would be chaos. We would see an even more extreme version of what we see now: huge gaps between the rich and poor, powerful and powerless, with nothing to regulate that power or wealth. Then again, that's not very anarchistic at all, is it? Anarchism is about getting rid of power hierarchies and authority. Even if we got rid of what most people call "government," we would still have imbalances of power that lead to authoritarian, governing bodies.

So instead, what we need is a quick reform, which involves equitable redistribution of power and wealth, and a lot of therapy. Once everyone is on equal footing again (I say "again," because this used to be the case about ten thousand years ago), we will have no need for governing bodies. In this sense, socialism and anarchism do go hand in hand. If there is a lack of equality in wealth and resources, then there is a lack of equality in power, and therefore a lack of anarchism.

Just so you know, I have several blogs, so I don't post everything here. Most of my stuff is on my main website: this includes a combination of personal, spiritual, political, and creative writing.

Other blogs include:

VampireOwlCat: my spiritual blog

Sitakali: my creative writing and excerpts from my novels

Voice of Change: a blog about the current changes in our world in response to crises

Bullshit Review: a blog about all the BS that gets spouted everywhere, with well-researched myth-busting.

I use the screenname Sitakali on virtually every website I belong to.

A Very Long Response

This is a very long response to a "skeptic's" critique of the graphs shown on Wikipedia's "Global Warming" page. The comment was this:

I'm curious why the 2,000 year temp chart on this link looks nothing like the the chart on your link. I'm curious why if you think the computer climate models are correct, they all cannot predict climate from the this past century. A layperson would say that the computer models have been proven wrong.

This is my response:

Laypeople are also capable of thinking logically, if they so choose. A wise layperson would only say that the computer models had been proven wrong if there were numerous accounts of models showing they were wrong. Once science has developed a strong hypothesis or theory, it is standard for those who “debunk” that theory to be asked to show large amounts of evidence, all with strong peer-reviewed support. As for that specific example you showed me, there is no strong peer-reviewed support, and it is only one piece of “evidence.”

Perhaps the reason Wikipedia did not include that graph, is because it was put together by Dr. Craig Loehle, who uses few and questionable citations in his article; and was originally published in a scientific journal called “Energy and the Environment.” Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, one of the many global warming “skeptics” editing the journal, has been quoted as saying, “I am following my political agenda—a bit.” Energy and the Environment has been criticized for its weak peer-review process; Referring to one study: “If it would have been properly reviewed, it would have been rejected on the basis of methodological flaws,” and one article was said to contain "collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects."

The World Climate Report, the newsletter that republished the article you showed me, is produced by Greening Earth Society. Greening Earth Society was created by the Western Fuels Association, whose tagline is “Coal is where your power begins.” Not hard to imagine the ulterior motives here. In addition, Patrick J. Michaels, climate scientist and editor of the World Climate Report, has received funding from Exxon Mobile and other oil interests, and at least $115,000 from coal and energy interests. Research a climate change “skeptic” and you’ll frequently find energy interests behind them.

Your link also refers to a fixation on the “hocky stick representation of temperature history.” This myth has also been debunked.