Random Writings
………………………………………………………………………………………
Its a Miracle! Carbon Offsets Remove CO2 and Guilt!
Hey Hummer owners, do you want to be disgustingly rich and “part of the solution” at the same time? Ever wondered if there was a way you could use your money to make yourself “part of the solution” without giving up materialism? GOOD NEWS! Now you can offset your embarrasingly huge carbon footprint by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits from Al Gore! Thats right, Al Gore, recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a very wealthy progressive, has made guilt free wealth affordable for people who are shamefully wealthy. Its easy!
STEP ONE: Go on-line, using the computer in one of your Hummers or one of the computers in your massive house, and track down a company that offers “Renewable Energy Credits”, or carbon offsets, preferably one with Al Gore on the consulting pay-roll.
STEP TWO: Purchase the appropriate amount of Renewable Energy Credits according to a mathematical formula that calculates how much you shit on the earth and all of its inhabitants. The Renewable Energy Credit company will take your money and pay some working class loser to go out and plant a tree, or build a wind mill, and WAH-LAH! Now you can continue to feed your voracious ego and drive your Hummer guilt free, in smug contentment. If you buy enough credits you’re hummer could actually leave a wake of carbon free air clean enough to pump into a new born babies incubator!
Of course the owners of Renewable Energy Credit companies will “skim off” just enough of the money to buy their OWN massive house and Hummer. If all of this sounds too arduous you could probably hire somebody else to buy your carbon offsets for you. Its AMAZING! What an ingenous way to remove CO2 and guilt from our atmosphere! Where did our avid greenies come up with such a great idea? From religion, or I should say from some OTHER religion.
Basically, it is the old “sale of indulgences” routine. I know, some of you are thinking: Hey, Silent G, what in the heck is “the sale of indulgences?” Well, in anticipation of your question I made up* a short history of the sale of indulgences.
Some scholars theorize that the sale of indulgences evolved out of the ancient practice of live sacrifice. For this elaborate cleansing ritual, sinners would bring the best of their flocks and crops to the local priest to be offered as a “live sacrifice” to God for the forgiveness of their sins. On the day of worship the priests would wait eagerly at the doors of their temple, mouths watering in anticipation of their weekly meal. (1)
This system, known by the priests as “the pot luck system” left room for the occasional streak of bad meals. In 749 BC, after a particularly bad stretch of flax seed meal and cat, a high priest of Rah Rah, named Karmen Ghia De A’lacarte introduced the first “price list” for sins. (2) By assigning specific items to each sin, Karmen was able to insure that every meal was a winner.
In 245BC money was invented. (1) Priests quickly converted their “sacrifice” price lists to cold hard cash and the “sale of indulgences” was born. (4)
The Catholic Church practiced the “sale of indulgences” for a couple of centuries. For parishioners it was convenient. If a man got carried away with his libido, a couple of spare ha’pennys was all he needed to be right with God.
For priests the sale of indulgences was lucrative. In a matter of months a market economy of sin developed, with priests competing for parishioners with lower prices. One record tells of a priest who tripled his attendance in one month by selling sodomy for a schilling. (1)
Soon, centrally located churches began to cash in on their prime locations, selling indulgences at inflated “convenience store” prices. Some accounts describe impoverished guilt laden sinners walking for miles to pay for sins that were too expensive at the church located next door. In the cities, the old or infirm could hardly afford to sin at all. (3)
In a suspected price fixing scandal of 1437, self abuse prices simultaneously skyrocketed all over Italy. Families with teenage boys were especially hard hit. Many people lost their homes. Remarkably, the “Masturbation Inflationary Incident of 1437″, as it became known, gave new meaning to Adam Smiths Invisible Hand theory a full 286 years before his birth in 1723. (4)
In 1492 Simon Clivebald, a blind galley cook, wanted to get laid before setting sale with Christopher Columbus. The sexually frustrated sailor “put down” 5 pence for the act of fornication, normally a 40 pence sin. Simon agreed to pay the remaining 35 pence over time or suffer the penalty of death by mud. The priest took the first “down payment” in history and instructed the blind cook to “lay-away”. The sale of indulgences spawned many of the complicated pricing schemes that are still used today in the car and mattress industries. Bait and switch or the old ”What do I have to do to get you into an adultery today?” approach were all developed during the sale of indulgences. (3)
The Catholic Church has long since abandoned the practice but, thankfully, people can still purchase a clean conscious in the form of Carbon Offsets or by ordering a DVD or CD from a comic who drives a Honda Civic at www.getbengt.com. (I’m saving up for a big house and Hummer).
P.S. Some of you might be tempted to give your extra cash to some fund that would provide poor people with trivial stuff like food, clothes, shelter, drinking water, medicine or maybe birth control. BE WARNED! This kind of frivolous donation does NOT OFFSET CARBON FOOTPRINT GUILT!!!
Many guilt ridden rich Americans are VERY excited about Carbon Offsets. One exclaimed, “Now I dont’ have to feel guilty when I use money and resources to make myself feel special and superior! In fact now I can use my money to make myself feel even more morally superior than ever! I’m rich AND I’m saving the planet! I was afraid I was going to have to cut down on my outrageous consumption in order to sleep at night but thanks to Carbon Offsets I can now wrap my mind around my hypocrisy!” Big YES with three excalamation points!!! Isn’t American Innovation great!? Now even the richest among us can live a lifestyle of outrageous consumption GUILT FREE! Bitchin’! Thank you Renewable Energy Credit companies for enabling the ego-driven selfish behavior of our richest “environmentally aware” citizens!
*pulled out of my butt.
Footnotes: (1) My butt (2) Top of my head (3) Out of thin air (4) Stuff my mom told me
…………………………………………………
A Shoal of Dr. Scholls
A couple jogging on the beach in B.C. Canada found a human foot a couple of days ago. More precisely it was a female left foot wearing a New Balance cross trainer and a sock. The couple could have kept the foot but they did the right thing and turned it into the lost and found which kind of restores my faith in people.
Authorities at the lost and found rushed the foot to a podiatrist but doctors were unable to revive it.
This foot was the seventh foot to wash ashore in the last three months. So far none of the feet have survived. Doctors say that, counter-intuitively, the loss of their lungs and the buoyancy of their souls or soles probably saved them from drowning. Ultimately coroners determined the cause of death to be a loss of blood and exposure.
…………………………………………………
Pandering to Lunatics
Somewhere around 2006 congress caught wind of a grave and looming problem- no, not sub-prime loans- PHTHALATES! Phthlates- a chemical being used to soften the plastic in babies chew toys. In 2006 some “studies” revealed that phthalates might cause liver problems in rodents. Activists quickly concluded that the same would hold true of children if they, like the rodents, ingested half their body weight in phthalates daily.
Then two years later- in 2008-Congress ‘sprang’ to action moving to protect children and rat livers by passing legislation that banned the use of phthalates.
Then SURPRISE! A recent government study, (a study conducted over a period of 25 years- by scientists)- found that Phthalates in toys pose ABSOLUTELY no risks to children. Anxious to avoid any precedent of wise and/or prudent action, our congress decided to ignore the study and go on with their ban. Diane Feinstein reasoned, and I quote- “the levels of phthalates are at 13 times the level of phthalates allowed under California law.” I would say that based on the science, California’s phthalate laws are a tad bit excessive-13 times too excessive actually.
Why is congress so stupid?
Because another recent government study has found that scientists and rational citizens do not go to the polls as passionately as neurotics.
Our political system rewards the politician who panders to vocal minorities. In the name of safety, equality, fairness and patriotism we have released the lunatics from the asylum and put them in charge of our politics. You can listen to this particular example of irrational crap here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102567295. Is it any wonder we are broke?
To be fair to our current political system, listening to vocal lunatics is nothing new in politics. Irrational political pressure applied to the right points will make societies do crazy things- the Aztecs sacrificed and ate thousands, our ancestors burned witches in Salem, Seattle built a new stadium, and our congress blabbered on about phthalates while our mortgage and banking industries ran seriously afoul. Pontius Pilates was not the first politician to wash his hands after he caved in to the madness of the mob, and I am sure he won’t be the last.
