Posts

The Redneck gives a civics lesson (part I)

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From 20 plus years spent as an uncivil servant, the Redneck would like to share what he learned about government and how it really works. The clowns  politicians who you vote for have little to nothing to do with the faceless bureaucrats  dedicated public servants who actually do government. One interaction between elected politicians and the public service that matters is the budget.  Every year politicians decide how much will be spent and what it will be spent for.  This determines how much the bur.. err dedicated public servants can do,  it doesn't change what they do, only whether they do it or not. Government money mostly comes from taxes in one form or another.  Nobody likes to pay taxes, the only reason we do, and that politicians are still marching around with their heads attached to their necks, their bodies uncoated with tar and feathers is because we the people get real or perceived benefits from government spending. The budget tells everyone who cares what

Why electric cars are stupid

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So you wanna know why electric cars are stupid?  Because all cars are stupid.  Electric cars will never be 'green'.  Being green is about not wasting resources and reducing impacts.  So how efficient is using a ton and half or more metal, plastic, exotic compounds made from rare elements, rain forest rubber etc. to move a few hundred pounds of flesh from here to there? Every time  a few tons get shoved around,   a few tons of energy are burned to make it go and a few more yet to make it stop.  Newton explained this in the 17th Century.  Was nobody paying attention?  It matters little where the energy comes from, sunshine, dead dinos, nuclear fusion, energy costs, the more you use the more it costs. Alternate energy vehicles will not stop urban sprawl or traffic jams.  One hundred years ago, the Model T, the first car built for everyman, meant freedom to go places.   But it turned out that the price of  mobile freedom was a new form of slavery.  We have paved a good part

left wing redneck tries punditry

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In a post last April the redneck ranted about   explained why political opinion polls may no longer be accurate.  Based strictly on my opinion, totally unbiased by research, data or methodology (known to be susceptible to errors and misinterpretation)  I am predicting the the polls are going to be spectacularly wrong in predicting the outcome of the November 2012 US presidential election.... like way more than a percent or three. For a combination of reasons, pollsters are no longer getting a representative sample of the population, mainly the growing number of people who no longer have a 'landline' phone, combined with privacy laws, call display and annoying telemarketers destroying telephoning for accurate information gathering. Lessee how prophetic this is, it is Sunday morning, November 4th, the Wall Street Journal is calling it a dead heat . Before the telephone pollsters used to go door to door.  That might be a problem today for so many reasons, at least one of wh

Say you wanna have a revolution?

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Surfing the web the other day, the Redneck Stumbled upon  an anarchist marxist   blog site that was actually readable, as in literate, enjoyable, and lacking the uh, earnest turgidity, that usually characterises these sites.   The Redneck has always had a soft spot for anarchists, marxists, and their relations.   The Redneck was a young man in the late 60's and early 70's when many of his peers were marching, protesting, and occupying the President's office of every institute of higher learning.  It was a fun time to be young.  Did the Redneck participate?  Sort of, but hampered by crippling commitment phobia, the Redneck never joined the Hippies, Yippies, Students for a Democratic Society, Communist Party, Black Panthers, Feminists (not being black or feminine was also a factor) or any of the other radical outfits of the day.  One of the Redneck's friends was a communist, he also coveted bourgeois sports cars, but this was not a problem for him ideologically, as th

The three kinds of stupid

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Statistically one out of every two people is stupid (ie in the dumber 50th percentile), and even those that occupy the smarter half of the population will  find that still others are smarter* and so on.  So stupidity is ordinal, and relative, like velocity it depends on the viewpoint of the observer.   Regardless of point of view, stupid people can be broadly classified as one of three types, Type One, Type Two and Type Three. Type One Stupid people are your regular stupid people.  They know and we know they are stupid.   Found everywhere, usually in the way, doing stupid things such as buying 20 bucks worth of lottery tickets and scratch and wins daily, cruising along at five under in the fast lane while yakking on their cell phone,  those big box store employees that can't tell you where anything is, the ones who  get their 15 minutes of fame 30 seconds at a time guest starring on COPS...  In other words they are you and me.  Type Ones, like most of us, are not evil, but t

How to stop anthropogenic climate change

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There is growing consensus that human activity is causing climate change.  I remain skeptical, but having said that, it cannot be denied that human activity does impact the environment and the more humans the greater the impact.  Regardless of where people stand regarding the environment,  surely at some point everyone must agree that turning the world into a Walmart store or a parking lot for a Walmart store has to stop somewhere. So what do we do about it?  We could stop making babies. This is already happening as people realize that a kid costs as much as a Ferrari, and  a growing percentage of the population would rather have a Ferrari than a kid.  That is all well and good, but the population boffins are predicting that the effects of the coming unbaby boom will not be seen until 2050.  I am leaning to adopting a more proactive approach, therefore, as a public service, I am making a list of all the people we don't need anymore. Such as; People who do long and compli

How to make your Hummer cool.

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Coolness is undefinable, it's one of those, 'If you have to ask, I can't explain it.' things. Hint, A brand new new Lamorghini Gallardo  is totally uncool, but a pristine four door Chevette  is ultra cool.  One thing that most of us can agree on is that the now (mercifully) defunct General Motors built Hummers (not the original AMG versions) are seriously coolness impaired.  But there is coolness redemption for Hummers.   Check this out.   This has to be the coolest thing anyone could ever do with a Hummer.   Even cooler than this.