Maintaining two web logs is really starting to be a hassle.  I meant to do this a long time ago.

My web log is: rphaedrus.livejournal.com

This one will stick around so I can keep my subscriptions.

I am sad and dismayed. The Surly Big Dummy won’t be available until
late spring/summer of next year and I really intended to have my long
bike to assist my car-free attempts at life over the winter. Getting
Kitty Litter or other large heavy items on a regular bike sucks.

So, back to the original plan of adding an Xtracycle FreeRadical hitchless trailer kit to a Surly Long Haul Trucker
frame. If the long bike works well as my primary commuter, I’ll soon
have a Surly 1×1 for sale. If not, the 1×1 will probably be for sale
once I get my hands on the Big Dummy as I think I’ll prefer the LHT to
the 1×1. The FreeRadical kit will either go to the girl or get sold at
that point.

And because yes, I like to go relatively quickly and
would like to do so even with a big bike and a heavy load, the eventual
plan is to set the bike up with a CleverChimp StokeMonkey.
Not for this winter, though. My pockets aren’t that deep and I think it
might be good to train myself to the weight before getting the power
assist – that way I don’t over-rely on the power.

Btw, I should mention, if you’re looking for a bike, you may wish to consider Hiawatha Cyclery.
Jim has been great at helping me figure out what I need (and dealing
with my mind changing). Additionally, I have it on good faith that he
is more of an “attention to detail” minded wrench than some other bike
mechanics out there. Nothing I hate more than spending a bunch of money
on something just to have it not put together right – or worse, damaged.

I have recently decided that I am not just spiritual, I am religious.
My religion is Environmentalism. As a disciple of this religion, it is
a duty to question my assumptions and dig deeply into the fundamental
assertions of this religion.

A
major theme of my religion, spoken by me and others by me is this:
Humanity needs to redeem itself lest it face the apocalypse. If we do
not reduce our energy consumption, we will face the apocalypse. If we
do not reduce our population to sustainable levels before we run out of
our non-renewable resources, we will face the apocalypse. Our
redemption lies upon the path of reducing our energy consumption soon
enough that we have time to reduce our population without having to
face the apocalypse.

My religion requires me to evangelize, to
bear witness. See, our redemptions don’t lie in our own beliefs and our
own actions. It will be all of us or none of us. To find redemption, we
must redeem all of humanity.

If you wonder if I am overstating our problems with energy usage and population, you need to read this article. If you think I’m probably more or less right but you don’t really intuitively sense it, you need to read this article. If you get it and know that there is truth to what I’ve been talking about but have trouble explaining it, you need to read this article.

It
is long. It isn’t a hard read – the transcript is fairly “humorous”. It
will require a bit of ability to imagine the visual aids he is using,
and it will take you a while to read. Grab a cup of your favorite
beverage and give it time to sink in.

“facts do not cease to exist because they’re ignored”
Aldous Huxley

Fact:
The amount of oil we are currently pulling out of the ground amounts to
1.7 liters per person per day – 0.45 gallons. If you are using more
than 0.45 gallons a day – in every aspect of your life, you are using
it faster than we’re pulling it out of the ground.

Fact: It is
impossible for us to continue pulling the current amount of oil out of
the ground indefinitely. It does not get “regenerated” – once its gone,
its gone.

Fact: The average American diet requires over a gallon of oil a day to produce.
(also, if you’ve more time, read The Oil We Eat)

Fact:
We consume far more energy than just what goes into our diet.
Commuting, computing, heating, lighting, power, clothing, etc.

Fact:
After you get used to the total amount of energy you use, tack on the
energy your society uses in your name – how many gallons of oil does a
aircraft carrier burn anyway?

“I do not feel obliged to
believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and
intellect has intended us to forgo their use”
- Galileo

Fortunately,
my religion allows me to think and question as much as I can, but no
matter what angle I look at it from, the answer comes back the same -
we’re in deep deep trouble, and if redemption is “Good” and the
resource/population apocolypse is “Evil” we are clearly serving evil.
Both as a culture, and, in most cases, individually.

My religion
offers me faith as well. I have faith that a sustainable lifestyle
exists that is fairly satisfying. A lifestyle that probably allows more
liesure time than I currently have. A lifestyle that is healthy and
long and has lots of good food. A lifestyle that allows me a moderate
amount of travel – plenty if I’ve the time for it. Allows me to have
music, wine, books and dance. A lifestyle that, given a reduced
population, leaves enough resources available that all we humans of
different cultures and beliefs can live in peace as long as we all
limit our consumption to this sustainable amount.

But, for that
“paradise” to exist, we have to cut back, we have to use what reserves
we have remaining in a manner that lets us avoid the war and despair
and famine that is the only possible result of our current population
levels (let alone growth).

Like many faiths, my faith is
fractured into many sects. The sect I belong to thinks that science and
technology are not inherently evil. They give us the capability to have
more and do more with amount of resources we have available – whatever
that amount happens to be. The inventions of the past century will
allow us to continue to be healthier and “richer” than our ancestors,
even if we reduce our consuption to sustainable levels – as long as we
also reduce our population.

We have a choice between “paradise” and “hell”. We make and reaffirm that choice many times a day with every decision we make.

Kasanof
concluded with one of the most profound observations I’ve seen in
years, he says, in the same way, democracy can not survive over
population. Human dignity can not survive over population. Convenience
and decency cannot survive over population. As you put more and more
people into the world, the value of life not only decline it
disappears. It doesn’t matter if some one dies, the more people, there
are the less one individual matters.
- Dr. Albert Bartlett

Waste
not, want not. We’re wasting an amazing amount, and we are currently
heading towards a very nasty collision with the “want” side of the
aphorism.

Well, the name could be better, but this will most likely be the center of my new bike.

Now I just have to get my hands on one.

Hennepin County Sheriff
Rich Stanek versus Juan Lopez

This one is so very very easy for me. Juan Lopez is the better candidate hands down.

Everything
I’ve heard about Lopez has been good. He’s got 10 years of experience
in the Hennepin county sheriff’s department and has no black marks on
his record that I’m aware of. He is bilingual and has a good track
record working with minorities. Every candidate for Sheriff that was
beat in the primary has subsequently endorsed Lopez.

I’ve heard a whole lot of bad about Stanek.

In
1992 Stanek was involved in a car accident with black motorist Anthony
Freeman. Stanek broke Freeman’s car window, dragged him out of his car
and beat him in the middle of the street while yelling racial slurs.
Bizarrely, Stanek claimed he was pulling Freeman from the car because
he thought the car was burning and then veering directly into
Republican Bizarro World claimed he wasn’t even conscious that Freeman
was a black man until after the incident. The city settled out of court.

In
1995 Ronald Kennerly filed a lawsuit against Stanek, three other
offices and the city for police brutality. Kennerly was beaten,
threatened and placed under arrest without probable cause. A female
neighbor who attempted to intervene was beaten with a flashlight and
placed under arrest. The city settled out of court.

In 1996
Jerold Wahlin was beaten by Stanek with a flashlight and Stanek pounded
Wahlin’s head repeatedly against the floor once he’d subdued Wahlin.
Stanek was moonlighting as a security guard. The city also settled this
case out of court.

And, to add to that:

Here’s
my personal experience with Stanek. I was part of Log Cabin Republicans
(secretary), and we were lobbying for the RASSL bill – which would
repeal 10 stinkers of stupid laws – among those stinkers were the
sodomy law (at that time, still constitutional, now still on the
books). Renee Jenson from RASSL had gotten a republican sponsor, David
Bishop (now retired). Stanek was head of the committee where the bill
was heard, Stanek refused to hear the bill unless, we agreed to pull
the sodomy repeal piece from the bill.

Here’s the wording of the law:

Minnesota
outlaws consensual sexual behavior between adults with 609.293 Sodomy.
Sodomy is defined as “carnally know any person by the anus or by or
with the mouth”. The penalty for voluntarily engaging in or submitting
to an act of sodomy is imprisonment for not more than one year or a
fine of not more than $3,000 or both.

Consenting married couples are subject to prosecution for sodomy. [State v. Schmit, 1965, 273 Minn. 78, 139 N.W.2d 800]

So, again, for Hennepin County Sheriff, the decision is easy : Juan Lopez for Sheriff.

When I see someone drive an car to a protest regarding American actions
in the middle east, I have to wonder where exactly we’re going to get
the gas to fuel that thing from if we start behaving in a responsible
and civilized manner? Perhaps bunnies and puppies and kittens will romp
in endless sunny fields and piddle gasoline for our consumption, but I
doubt it. Every time you fill up, it is a vote to go to war. And no,
your greener-than-thou car isn’t any better than that Escalade. And
yes, I am a hypocrite.

Speaking of “green” cars and all their ilk, a tidbit from Cleverchimp via Dandalism:

“Every
single hour that >$20K greener-than-thou car operates, it expends
about the amount of energy necessary to ride a bicycle from Los Angeles
to New York. (37.5kWh = 2,500mi @ 15Wh/mi, 50% metabolic efficiency).”

Speaking of bicycles heres a quote that says more than it may seem to at first glance:

“Participatory
democracy demands low-energy technology, and free people must travel
the road to productive social relations at the speed of a bicycle.” –
Ivan Illich
http://reactor-core.org/energy-and-equity.html#chapter3

So
yeah. I really should get rid of my motorcycle. I just don’t wanna. I
was going to go to Tasche Station to pick up some power converters!

But I am going to get a long bike.

President Hugo Chavez’s Speech to the United Nations – well worth reading for a different point of view regarding geopolitical reality.

Also, check this link from Dandalism to a speech on the religion of enviornmentalism given by Michael Crichton in 2003.
If you are ever likely to discuss environmental issues with me, please
take the time to read and understand this speech. Don’t read more into
it than there is, just understand what he is saying – environmentalism
as it is practiced by many people in modern culture is a religion. Not
only is it a religion, it is a near mapping of the traditional
Judeo-Christian story of an Eden, the loss of grace, and the coming
doomsday. Along with the story comes the inability to shake the beliefs
by pointing at inconvenient facts or the failing of prophecies.

He
says a lot – don’t necessarily take it as a statement of reality, but
certainly take the opportunity to question your own point of view and
beliefs. Understand why you think the things you think.

He
asserts several things which are contrary to common understandings of
enviornmental realities. Please be aware that whether or not he’s right
about these things doesn’t validate or invalidate his broader argument.

That said, I’m very curious if he is right on any of these or
where he gets them from. If you have any information on the support for
his following statements, please post them (comments in italics are mine):

I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned. (Anyone know where this one comes from?)
I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it. (I’ve got to think that concentration is a major factor)
I can tell you that the evidence for global warming is far weaker than its proponents would ever admit. (This is a pretty vague statement.)
I can tell you the percentage the US land area that is taken by urbanization, including cities and roads, is 5%. (As
far as I know, this one is true, however, the land taken to support
urbanization – such as farms and power production is somewhat higher).
I can tell you that the Sahara desert is shrinking, and the total ice of Antarctica is increasing. (Anyone know about these?)
I
can tell you that a blue-ribbon panel in Science magazine concluded
that there is no known technology that will enable us to halt the rise
of carbon dioxide in the 21st century. Not wind, not solar, not even
nuclear. (d’uh. not with our population)
The panel concluded
a totally new technology-like nuclear fusion-was necessary, otherwise
nothing could be done and in the meantime all efforts would be a waste
of time. (without a corresponding reduction in population and power usage)

So,
I’m not sure about any of these claims, but I do agree with his
statement that man was pretty much never in a state of “grace” – with
each other or with nature. There were just few enough of us that our
destructiveness could be absorbed/balanced. You can say the same about
almost any organism to some extent, and you can argue that the right
amount destructive elements are necessary for a balanced system.

I
do agree that nature is not kind, forgiving, or loving. You don’t
bargain with nature. You adapt to what it demands or you die.

I
do agree that environmentalism as a religion can weaken
enviornmentalism as a method to ensure our continued survival on this
planet by removing people’s need to think.

In many ways, I am a
follower of the religion of enviornmentalism. I think that the
enviornment we live in is the most immediate of our gods. If we adapt
to its demands, we survive. If we do not, we will not. It will punish
us for our transgressions, and reward us with plenty when we do what we
should. Many of the things I do, I do not because they’ll make any
significant difference, but because they bring me to what I believe is
a closer understanding of those demands.

All religions have the
big rules and the little rules. Reduce-reuse-recycle. Eat natural. Fair
Trade. Garden. No unnecessary chemicals. These are all little rules.
Good ideas. Suggestions. If I toss a bottle in the trash, I will not be
struck down (unless the wrong eco-vigilante sees me).

But there
is one big rule. On the order of “Thou shall not murder” to me. It is
not something I can truly debate or argue. It is fundamentally
arbitrary, but it is what the religion dictates. I may philosophically
question it, but when I break it (and I do), it is tantamount to
apostasy – it is a cardinal sin. This rule is this:

Thou shalt not leave this world a poorer place than you found it.

When
we enter this world it has riches. These riches are pools of resources,
biodiversity, natural beauty. Open spaces. Skys, forests, fields and
water which teem with life. What’s more, they replenish themselves. You
can take a tree and, given time, another will grow. You can harvest
fruits and nuts. You can take an animal to eat – another will be born.
An incredible gift to us when we are born. The responsibility given by
this religion is not to take more than can be replaced. To ensure that
future generations will receive as good as a gift as we did.

The
rule of seven generations. The idea that the choices we make should be
made should be made with the thought of how it will impact the world
our great-grandchildren’s great granchildren’s children will inherit.

If
we leave them something that they can’t survive in, we have broken the
cardinal rule. If we leave them something that doesn’t have the same
opportunities for living a healthy enjoyable life, we have stolen from
them – perhaps even murdered them.

However, to truly respect
this rule, I must be careful not to be blinded by my religion. It seems
to be a natural pitfall and one that catches many of us unaware. I see
many followers of classic religions who miss the fundamental teachings
of their religions to follow the “little rules”. I should try and be
conscious enough to do my best to avoid the same mistake.

And,
of course, if I choose to accept the state of apostasy and ignore the
rule all together, it won’t make a lick of difference. Except, of
course, it will.

ARRGH!

(Reuters story)

The House Judiciary Committee has (albiet very narrowly) voted to
endorse the President’s plans for the “tough interrogations” (read
torture) of foreign terrorism suspects.

Go read the Bill of Rights.

These are the principles our nation is founded on. If there be any, these are the finest gifts we have to give the world.

These
rights, to have meaning, must be extended to the worst among us. To the
most vile, reprehensible animals in a human body and perhaps even
beyond. Without that, they mean nothing. When you permit torture of
one, you permit torture of all. When you deny due process to one, you
deny due process to all.

Our nation and the principles it is founded upon are in grave, grave danger of being destroyed in the ways that matter most.

What are we going to do about it? What am I going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?

We are currently engaged in the struggle that will define our lives.