Our Descent Into Madness

Okay, wow. Here we go. So the Guard has this program, the Flat Daddies (and Mommies) program, which involves taking photos of troop members and pasting them onto life-size foam boards. These “flat parents” are then sent to the families of the deployed in an attempt to alleviate the pain of seperation. The rest of the article to which I have linked quickly confirmed my suspicion that this project can only lead to sick minds. Some excerpts:
“The Holbrooks’ Flat Daddy has been to birthday parties, ballgames, school, the hairdresser, the babysitter’s with Logan, and to the funeral of Mary Holbrook’s mother.”

“Justin dressed him in a Red Sox jersey and hat while watching a baseball game. On Halloween, he had a sumo wrestler outfit.”

” ‘Any time I get invited somewhere, I take it with me,’ she said. And the gynecologist? ‘He just thought it was really neat,’ she said.”

“Even after Richard Fish returned home last October, Kevin continued talking to Flat Daddy while his father was at work.”

Now, this is not meant to be an attack on the above-mentioned families or their parenting mehods. Wait, no, it is a little bit, but only because they are the example that I have (it’s not personal). I mean really, in the long run, wouldn’t it be more helpful to, I don’t know, put your kids (and yourself) in therapy or something? To help them deal with their seperation anxiety/loss instead of letting them think that it’s okay to substitute a piece of foam board for a parent? Maybe I could see how it might be helpful and reassuring to have a Flat Daddy or Mommy in your room if you’re a kid. Because that’s really just a big version of a photo, and obviously those are okay as comfort objects. But the Flat Parents should stay in the house and should not be treated as the parents (or spouses) themselves. That’ll just make everything much more difficult, confusing, and painful in the long run. Right?

Yep, U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two year, 20 million dollar public relations contract to moderate the media in the Middle East and in the U.S. to ensure that the public sees only positive coverage of what’s happening in Iraq. As if there weren’t already thousands of reasons to be skeptical of the “news.”

I am so excited about this that I can’t even paraphrase. So lets just quote:

What if buildings could function like living systems, altering their shapes in response to changing weather conditions or the way people use them?

Sterk said there are other advantages. Imagine a high-rise tower that braces itself against sudden strong winds by distributing stresses. Or a home that shakes the snow from its roof.

I recommend reading the whole thing, and checking out some pictures.

Just kidding.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health recently discovered that the amount of nicotine in cigarettes has increased by nearly 10% since 1998. The increase has been even higher (in some cases more than 30%) in brands preferred by youth and minorities.

(Via Boing Boing)

The Philippines is dealing with it’s recent oil spill (the worst in the country’s history) by sopping up the stuff with feathers and (get ready) human hair. Much of the hair has been donated by inmates. More than 15,000 prisoners have donated hair from their heads and chests since the clean-up began on Tuesday.

Buy a TerraPass and offset the carbon emitted by your car, air travel, or business. The money you are charged is directly correlated to how much carbon you use in each venture and is used to fund renewable energy projects such as windfarms.

Maybe I’ll order one later tonight…

Rapid industrial growth and failure on the part of China’s leaders to enforce environmental standards (it would hurt big business) has led one third of China’s landmass to suffer from acid rain. Acid rain is caused by sulphur dioxide, and last year 25.5 million tons of this chemical were emitted by Chinese factories.

According to Mark Noonan over at Blogs For Bush, science is dead. Yep, last night, while we were all sleeping, it up and died on us. It’s gone. Not only did it die, it was murdered. Murdered by scientists telling lies about things like overpopulation. Now the only way to understand the world or learn about it is through religion (Christianity).

But Mark, let me ask you this. Without science, where did the computer on which you’re blogging come from? What will you do now that it’s dead?

Yeah, I thought so. Mark Noonan, I challenge you to a duel.

Freak out!

Lots of tropical fish have been sighted off the coast of Rhode Island this summer, and scientists are saying it’s because there has been a disruption in the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream moves north from Florida along the East Coast before turning east toward Europe. Scientists say the turn is usually south of Delaware, but this year it’s a more north than usual.

It’s normal to see warm-water fish in the warmer seasons, but there have been many more this year. Double, in fact, according to aquarists at Save the Bay’s Exploration Center in Newport.

Chaz Teplin is a materials scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. He has created (in his mind and on his website) a policy that would encourage the economy to push consumers and businesses toward more efficient energy use in a way that would actually help the poor and weaken all the big bad corporations (which is the opposite of what most policies do).

Basically, he suggests that security fees and carbon fees be added to everything purchased by consumers and businesses. This means that carbon fees could be avoided by purchasing things made by solar, wind, or other natural energies. Security fees could be avoided by buying things made locally (or at least in the U.S.) and not from oil and gas that we must take from unstable parts of the world.

Then these fees would be returned to the taxpayers. Each taxpayer to file an income tax return would receive a “fee return” equal to all the fees acquired each year divided by the number of taxpayers. Corporations would not recieve these fee returns. This way, people who use less energy than the average taxpayer (and the poor usually do) would make money off the deal and people who use more would lose it.