Huff And Blow

Imponderables! Part 2

Due to popular demand, here's another one of my "Imponderables" from my upcoming book. This came to me as I was chatting with David Geffen at the recent Barack Obama fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton. He had a perplexed look on his face when I asked him if he had a napkin and a pen handy, but he soon understood after I explained to him that I needed to quickly jot my thoughts down before they vanished into the ether:

There's been a lot of talk of space aliens lately, but is calling them "aliens" really the right term? Sure, we don't know where they're coming from, and for all we know - or have been told - they could be from many solar systems, but shouldn't we call them something else? After all, to them they aren't "aliens". I don't know anything about them, but I do know that they don't refer to themselves as aliens. In fact, I'm sure they refer to themselves in the same way that we refer to ourselves: as people, or whatever they are. Since we have that in common, is there really that big of a difference between us and them after all? Shouldn't we instead think of them as part of "we"?

Boycott Diesel Clothing!

Diesel Clothing - based in Italy - has started an advertising campaign making fun of global warming. My response isn't to laugh, it's to start a boycott. How dare they? Global warming is the single biggest threat the world faces today. They make fun of Mt. Rushmore being partially submerged under the waves, but what of their city Venice? As each day passes the water rises more and more; soon the entire city will be under water!

They pretend this is a bit of reverse psychology: making fun makes a "bigger shock", leading people to think about this. Well, I'll tell you what: people need to think about An Inconvenient Truth, learn from it, and watch it over and over until that inconvenient truth sinks in!

Tomorrow I'll be bundling up my Diesel jeans and other items and returning them to the Diesel Store at the Beverly Center. I won't ever be buying any of their products again, and I urge everyone across America to do the same. Good riddance I say: they're so down-market already, they even have an outlet store out in Ventura County somewhere!

In fact, I might even hold a "clothing burning", right at the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire! How's that for a "bigger shock", Diesel?

Imponderables!

What a long, strange several months it's been, and I want to apologize right up front about not posting here for so long. But, as most of you are aware, I was spending a lot of time trying to assist Rob Reiner's campaign to be California's Education Secretary. Day and night I criss-crossed the state, attending appearances and giving speeches on his behalf. I was never involved with the day-to-day management of the campaign however, and I had no involvement with the finances. So, it was a complete surprise about what happened, and I certainly had no idea he'd be forced to withdraw from the race at the last moment. And, once again: I had no involvement whatsoever with the financial aspects of his campaign. While I haven't had the chance to speak with him since that fateful day, I want to stress that he has not been tried yet and his guilt is not completely assured. I wish him the best.

With that out of the way, I want to tell you about a new project I've been working on. While traveling from city to city for the campaign, I would frequently pass the time waiting in airplane company lounges and the like jotting down various thoughts in a series of notebooks. Some of these thoughts are more "long form", but others are much shorter, and I decided to release them in book form.

I call them... "Imponderables"!

For instance:

Why is it that when a football team is on offense, their "offensive line" is actually "on defense" in that they're defending their terrority against the team supposedly on defense? Likewise, aren't the linebackers of the team on defense actually on offense against the offensive line of the opposing team?

Ponder that one! Or, try this:

Like me, have you ever simply made a typing mistake and entered "online spell cheker" into a search engine?

Or this:

In Thailand, hamburgers, hotdogs, and pizza are... exotic food!

By thinking through these "imponderables", I hope to help millions of people understand better the world around them, and approach an understanding of our most fundamental truths.

"An Inconvenient Truth"... or just a dodge?

When I first heard the news that the English government was going to send Al Gore's wonderful documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" to every secondary school in their country, I (literally!) jumped for joy. But, then I dug a little deeper...

Sure, English Environment Secretary David Miliband sounds like wants to do something:

"The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over, as demonstrated by the publication of today's report by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]... Our energies should now be channeled into how we respond in an innovative and positive way in moving to a low-carbon future."

But, reading between the lines of these articles I realized that they were only sending a "global warming information pack" to those schools. They were not requiring every student to watch the film.

A true effort to educate youth on the effects of the coming global superstorm will involve making ~~Vice~~ President Al Gore's movie part of the curriculum. It will require the state mandating extensive testing to make sure that students have watched and understood the entire film. It is only through such means that full enlightenment to the causes of global warming can be assured.

No drilling in my back yard!

Although my main residence is in Brentwood, I also have a weekend getaway on the beach in Malibu. The cool, fresh sea air invigorates my senses, and the view of the sunset clears my mind after a long week of investigating corruption in Washington and uncovering the malfeasances of the Bush administration.

However, if a new plan has its way my view might be blocked, and I and several of my friends intend to do something about it.

On Sunday, a small group of my neighbors gathered to protest the proposed building of an oil platform off my beloved, tranquil beach. This oil rig would pollute the seas from Point Mugu to Venice; it would be an unsightly menace; and, it would encourage even more gasoline consumption when what we should be doing is encouraging the use of electrical cars or personal wind farms.

Halle Berry - an Oscar winner - was there, as were Cindy Crawford, Jane Seymour, Dick Van Dyke and Tea Leoni. Loretta Swit oversaw the catering for the event, and we had a wonderful pancake breakfast with elderberry jam, sourdough pancakes, soy sausages, and - for those not vegans or octo-intolerant, free range eggs. Afterwards, David Faustino on his blue board, and Daryl Hannah on her pink board surfed out to a wonderful prop that Ivana Trump and Nicole Ritchie had constructed meant to represent the evil oil drilling platform that the Republican forces want to construct.

Did I say "Republican forces"? Why, yes I believe I did. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has it within his power to stop this drilling plan, but so far he has not. While lately he's moved to the center in some ways, apparently he's only willing to go so far. (I intend to chat with Maria in an attempt to change his mind, and I'll report back.)

As it said on the prop in a wonderful reference to Arnold's famed character as well as our demands: "Terminate it!"

We shall see which side Arnold is truly on.

North Korea: the new Mexico?

Could North Korea be the new Mexico? Let me explain. Mexico is the foundry of our massive economic explosion and the source of all of our recent economic gains. The hard work of millions of Mexicans keeps our economy afloat, lowers consumer prices, and increase incomes across the board. However, that cure has led to its own disease: many Mexicans are now a bit "selective" about the jobs that they will take. Many have, for instance eschewed working in the fields for taking jobs in construction. Instead of threatening us with nuclear tests, could North Koreans take their place, keeping our economy growing and also reducing the nuke threat from that nation?

A couple years ago, my friend Michael Beatty had a wonderful idea: bring victims of the South Asia tsunami to the U.S. as guest workers. Those workers would then send a large portion of their income home. Not only would those Indonesians take jobs Americans don't want, they would also help rebuild their straggling society. Shortly after Beatty's proposal, CATO Institute analyst Will Wilkinson came up with a remarkably similar plan. Despite the support, unfortunately the plan never came to fruition.

Now is the time and the chance to finally show just how well this plan would work.

What we should do is make a deal with North Korea. Yes, I know getting our minds around the concept will be difficult, but it must be done. We can import hundreds of thousands of North Koreans - on a temporary basis - to do the jobs that Mexicans won't do: picking crops, cleaning highway rest stops, sorting offal at chicken processors, and so on. A people that are almost starving will accept almost any wage they can get, leading to lower prices for the American consumer. (And, of course, that means the American consumer will have more money to spend on other goods... market magic!)

Whatever they're paid, our North Korean guests will send a chunk of it home, helping increase the North Korean economy and introducing the people back home to the wonders of a consumer-based economy. Now, certainly, our guests' leaders will want to make sure that their citizens do not seek asylum here or that they are not shocked by American lifestyles. That's why we will encourage the use of North Koreans as monitors and supervisors for their people. Of course, most jobsites will be at remote locations and with dormitory housing and similar, so we can assure our friends in NK that this won't be an issue.

In summary, the threat from North Korea is real. But, it doesn't have to be a threat just so long as we let the market work its magic, resulting in a win-win for all concerned.

Jim Gillespie is a former assistant professor of comparative politics at Arcata Community College, a former web editor of Rational Magazine, and a former Libertarian Party vice-presidential candidate. His thoughts are presented here only for balance, and do not represent the views of Huff And Blow.

I flew to the Clinton Global Initiative... in coach

Dear Debra Saunders:

Prejudices are bad, and your latest column is worse. Only a few of the attendees of the recent Clinton Global Initiative conference flew there on their private "Lear Jets". Many of us - including me, Ariadne, David Faustino, Ed Asner, and Ashton Kutcher - flew on regular flights, in my case coach! I specifically chose that method not just because despite being a well-known celebrity I feel an affinity for other coach flyers but also in order to reduce my carbon footprint as small as possible, and driving or taking the train would have raised it more than flying on a flight with a hundred or so other people.

But, while I was on the plane, I was actually working to reduce my carbon profile. As I was jetting over the cornfields of Nebraska, my personal wind farm was happily spinning away, generating thousands of watts of electricity, some of which I share with my neighbors in Malibu! Can you, Debra Saunders, say the same?

Apres Global Warming: stop the black hole factory!

The evidence of global warming is like a loud siren in everyone's ears, and even the BushCo regime is starting to hear about it and realize the trouble we're in. But, believe it or not, there is a more imminent danger: black holes.

Loretta Swit has looked into these matters in her off hours, and we've chatted about them recently (with me furiously taking notes!) It seems that "black holes" are giant repositories of anti-matter. When anti-matter meets matter, nothingness results: they cancel out, and everything that was there disappears.

Now, here's the big problem: we're matter. In fact, everything on Earth including the Earth itself is matter. If a black hole came near the Earth - or was even created on Earth by irresponsible scientists - everything - and I mean everything - could be swallowed up immediately and we'd never know what hit us it would happen so quick. No more cell phones, no more Priuses, no more gardens, rain forests, or beautiful sunsets. And, no more humanity. All gone in a microsecond.

Now, scientists are creating - are you ready for it? - a "black hole factory". This is a laboratory where they'd create the Frankensteinian monster of black holes. Yes, they'd be for study, but they'd also potentially be able to wipe out the entire Earth!

Let me be very frank: I do not trust Charles Q. Choi. He's the author of a recent propaganda piece called "Despite Rumors, Black Hole Factory Will Not Destroy Earth". These are like the "Men in Black" who try to make people forget about UFOs, except he's the "Man in a Black Hole Factory". This particle accelarator could make one black hole every single second of every single day.

That's around 75,462 per day, one and a half million per month, and eighteen million per year! With eighteen million of them being created per year, I have to believe that at least one would escape and destroy everything. Some might even bounce back after hitting the upper atmosphere, weak as it's become.

I can walk, chew gum, chat on my cell phone, and help my husband polish a script all at the same time, and so can you if you were me. So, while we're fighting global warming, I also urge all of you to help fight this evil BushCo scheme that would literally end life as we know it.

Video: Fidel Castro is OK!

Wonderful news from Cuba, as a recent news broadcast from one of the western hemisphere's two remaining democracies shows lider Fidel Castro alive and well as Hugo Chavez - the leader of the other democracy - comes to pay him a visit and congratulate him on his return to health and his return to fighting against the fascistic dictatorial oppressor regime to the north.

Buenos suerte, mi comrade Sr. Castro!

UPDATE: I hate to quote from "that parvenue site" as Ariadne calls them, but comrade Blake Fleetwood has important and heart-warming news. Fidel says "I can speak in a loud voice if I want" and not only that, he can play baseball too!

And:

Castro also met yesterday for an hour with Kofi Annan. Until this morning details of the conversation have not been made public.

However, a Cuban publication, Rebellious Youth, said that Castro gave Annan a book excerpt that details the life of Fidel from 100 hours of interviews between the Cuban leader and the French journalist Ignacio Ramonet.

"To Kofi Annan, our infinite recognition," reads the dedication from Castro to the Secretary General of the UN.

Contest: Win an invite to the Rodeo Forum!

This year Bill Maher, Al Franken, David Faustino, and I will be hosting the annual Rodeo Forum, featuring a host of progressive notables from Howard Dean to Randi Rhodes to Jerry Springer to Madeline Albright.

And, if you're a conservative or a Republican, it might include you too!

One of the criticisms of progressives is that we don't spend enough time on outreach, and this year I'll be trying to change that. Up to ten lucky winners will be able to attend the Forum as my guest. And, it'll be not just a wonderful learning experience but an enjoyable vacation as well.

The lucky winners will be flown from your home town to a major hub, and from there you'll board a private jet owned by one of our regular guests. We'll fly you to the Malibu estate of one of our HuffAndBlow contributors (TBA), and you'll enjoy a wonderful breakfest by the sea.

Then, it's off to Brentwood for a day spent watching me write my columns and my upcoming book, and learning about my political tranformation from a conservative into a progressive. And, don't be surprised if a few of my celebrity friends drop by for a chat!

After a refreshing night spent at L'Hermitage Hotel in Beverly Hills, you will get to join the Forum as my special guest.

Throughout it all, I will be careful not to "push" progressivism on you or try to make you transform in the way that I did. Rather, I will gently guide you towards a deeper understanding of our ideology, and show you by example how we progressives view the world and what leads us to the ideology we have.

You might still be a conservative when you leave the Forum, but I hope not! I hope that at the end of your stay you'll have the ability to see how interconnected we are and how we need to rely on each other for support, and how we need to work for the common good.

Entering the contest is easy, but you do need to be a conservative or a Republican. All you have to do is post a comment to this post before September 15, 2006. Provide a little background information on yourself as well as where you rank yourself on the political scale (far-right, right, moderate-right, libertarian, etc.) And, most importantly of all, write a 50 word essay describing why you want to attend the Forum with me. That's all! I'll select up to 10 of you and whisk you off to a wonderful, enjoyable learning experience.

Inuit my ass!

The news that a beer is being brewed using run-off from the melting Arctic ice cap comes as a terrible blow. It's a slap in the face to all of us who've been fighting global warming to think that beer drinking slobs around the world will soon be literally drinking our melting future. The product is made at a plant in Narsaq Greenland, which is 390 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

And, we're informed that the brewery is Inuit. Inuit my ass! The indigenous peoples of Greenland are well aware of the threats of global warming: they're forced to live with it day in and day out. There is no way in the world that any true native person would condone or much less be involved in this scandalous operation. Thankfully, that's confirmed with the knowledge that none other than Steen Outzen owns the brewery.

I urge you to write, call, FAX, or email Denmark (which owns Greenland) and tell them to stop this practice immediately:

Embassy of Denmark
3200 Whitehaven St. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
Tel: +1 (202) 234-4300
Fax: +1 (202) 328-1470
wasamb@um.dk

Scientists, media agree on global warming effects!

Like a gathering storm, the disastrous effects of mankind's playing with nature by encouraging global warming are becoming too powerful for even the corporate media to ignore. A roundup:

The Independent offers "Jellyfish plague blamed on climate change":

[Dr. Gianluca Sara, the assistant professor of ecology and marine biology at the University of Palermo] said: "I have no scientific data but, as an observer, there seems to be a huge increase along the Sicilian coast. I feel that temperature increase and over-fishing are related to this though, at the moment, this is only my feeling."

Reuters offers "Swiss mountain crumbles under hot climate":

A further increase in temperatures of only 3 degrees Celsius could make another 80 percent of glacier ice disappear by the end of the century, their study warned, threatening farmers, villages and tourists.

And, the Sun offers "Giant swordfish netted":

[Referring to a 58 pound swordfish that was caught in the North Sea off Britain, fishing expert] Sam Harris said: "It should not be there. Maybe it has ended up there because of warmer waters due to global warming."

Tread lightly out there, the future of the Earth is at stake.

Somos unidos con Fidel Castro!

There are only two real democracies in the Western Hemisphere, and one of them isn't Venezuela. The other is, of course, Cuba: a tropical paradise with free, high-quality healthcare and a 97% literacy rate. For almost fifty years, Sr. Castro has been leading Cuba, managing crises, weathering storms, guiding it from peak to peak of successes, and, of course, dealing with the insane oppression of its much larger neighbor to the north.

Now, Sr. Castro is in ill health, but the signs are that he will continue to lead the island nation for years to come. We at HuffAndBlow wish him the very best, and we know it won't be long before we see him puffing away and astonishing the world with his successes.

Here is the text of a letter that was read on state television:

Because of the enormous effort involved in visiting the Argentine city to attend the Mercosur meeting, at the closing of the Summit of the Peoples in the historic University of Cordoba and the visit to Alta Gracia, the city where Che (Guevara) lived in his childhood and immediately afterward attending the commemoration of the 53rd anniversary of the attack on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes barracks, the 26th of July of 1953, in the provinces of Granma and Holguin, days and nights of continuous work with hardly any sleep, have caused my health, which has withstood all tests, to fall victim to extreme stress and to be ruined.

This has caused in me an acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding that has obliged me to undergo a complicated surgical operation. All the details of this health accident can be seen in X-rays, endoscopies and filmed material. The operation will force me to take several weeks of rest, away from my responsibilities and duties.

As our country is threatened in circumstances like this by the government of the United States, I have made the following decision:

1) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba to the second secretary, comrade Raul Castro Ruz.

2) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as Commander in Chief of the heroic Revolutionary Armed Forces to the same comrade, Army Gen. Raul Castro Ruz.

3) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as president of the Council of State and of the government of the Republic of Cuba to the first vice-president, comrade Raul Castro Ruz.

4) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as the main driving force behind the National and International Program of Public Health to Politburo member and Public Health Minister, comrade Jose Ramon Balaguer Cabrera.

5) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as the main driving force behind the National and International Education Program to comrades Jose Ramon Machado Ventura and Esteban Lazo Hernandez, members of the Politburo.

6) I delegate in a provisional manner my functions as the main driving force behind the National Program of the Energy Revolution in Cuba and cooperation with other countries in this field to comrade Carlos Lage Davila, member of the Politburo and secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers.

The relevant funds for these programs - health, education and energy - should continue to be assigned and prioritized, as I have been doing personally, by comrades Carlos Lage Davila, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers; Francisco Soberon Valdes, Minister President of the Central Bank of Cuba; and Felipe Perez Roque, Foreign Relations Minister, who have accompanied me in these duties and should constitute a committee for this purpose.

Our glorious Communist Party, supported by mass organizations and the entire public, has the mission of carrying out the duties outlined in this proclamation...

Be well, mi amigo.

Reflect sunlight back to space to reduce global warming

What does the title remind you of? Why, of course, my January essay offering the "the solution to global warming."

Now, following my lead, world famous climate scientist Professor Paul Crutzen - a Nobel Prize winner - has proposed a plan that is very similar to my own. He wants to float sulpher particles in the upper atmosphere, which would then reflect sunlight back to the Sun. His article will appear in August's issue of Climate Change, and I'll try to arrange an excerpt here at Huff And Blow.

If that's not good enough news for you, consider this: all those particles will make sunrises and sunsets simply spectacular.

Energy saving tips

The pro-global warming forces are on the ropes, with temperatures reaching well over 100 degrees in many cities across the nation over the past week. It's quite difficult to dispute global warming when you can see - and feel - it all around you.

Now more than ever, it's important to conserve our precious remaining power, and I found a video that offers some very important tips culled from FYPower.org and other sites.

For those of you who would prefer to print out these important tips, I had my PA produce a transcript:

Try to take cold showers. Cold water uses less power than hot water. Hot water needs to be heated. Even if you have a gas heater, it's all energy. Of course, you might want to wash your "shorts area" with hot water. You'll be cleaner that way. Use regular temperature if you have a health issue with really cold water. But, not too hot. Maybe get a temperature guage to make sure the water is just right. They've probably got something like that

Try to wear cotton, it keeps you cool. Loose fitting clothing is best. If you're going to be outside, cover up. It's counter-intuitive, but look at people who live in the desert like Berbers. Consider getting a kaftan (man) or a moomoo (woman). But, remember that in the winter cotton kills. If you get cotton wet, it has very little insulating properties so make sure and not wear cotton in cold weather only when it's really hot. When you get cotton wet in really hot weather it keeps you cool.

Bring your pets inside, but keep them in separate room to keep them from heating up the room you're in. Pets don't need light, so you can probably turn off the lights in the room where they are. There are no lights in the forest and jungles, so they're used to it.

Don't drive so fast. Nowadays you can't drive 55, but you shouldn't drive above 65 either. Try to drive somewhere around 60, maybe 62. That's just right. Try not to make sharp turns or sudden lane changes. Also, always wear your seatbelt

Turn off unnecessary lights unless you really need them. You can get a gooseneck lamp with a fluorescent bulb fairly cheap, for instance at Ikea. But, you'll use energy if you go there just to get a lamp, so only do it when you're in the area already. Consider car-pooling with your neighbors so everyone can get a lamp at the same time.

Make sure and save your work frequently if you're on the computer. Even a brownout might cause your computer to crash. Chatting, IMing, and similar uses a lot of energy for you and for the server. Use a lower-power method such as email. If the server is outside the U.S. that's not that big of an issue. The server might be in a cooler country like somewhere in northern Europe or something.

If you have a nearby river or stream, consider washing your clothes there. Unless people downstream drink the water, which some people do in some areas. Don't use lots of soap, just a small amount of biodegradable soap. Then, dry the clothes on a clothesline. Tip: if the clothes are cool and wet, dry them inside. The heat from the room will dry the clothes while the cool from the clothes will help cool the room. It's a win-win.

Close your drapes to keep the sun from coming in and heating up your room. If your neighbors are used to seeing your drapes open, they might wonder what's going on and whether you're sick or doing something else. This is a wonderful opportunity to help them flex their power too. Consider talking to your neighbors about your campaign. You could walk from door to door, but don't walk too fast because of the heat. You could also phone them, but keep the calls short because that uses energy too. Consider a sign of some kind. We recommend, "Drapes closed to conserve energy. You can do this too. See FYPower.org or other similar sites."