This evening the well known rock star and lightning rod of the peace movement Cindy Sheehan was in Charlotte. She was stopping in town while walking from Atlanta, GA to Washington, DC to demand the impeachment of the president.
While I believe there are more than enough reasons to impeach (way more than there ever were for the impeachment of Clinton), I wasn't really planning on joining the protest until I read in the Charlotte observer this morning that there was also a counter protest planned.
Since I'm always up for a good shouting match and argument I decided to take my hybrid to Bryant Park and join the festivities.
When I first arrived I thought I had run into a gathering of the Hell's Angels (you know, the biker type that drives around South Carolina without a helmet wearing a t-shirt that says on the back "if you can read this the bitch fell off") but it turns out these were the counter protesters.
Since I was carrying my big sign that read "Worst president EVER" , they quickly figured out I wasn't with them.
After making my way through a wall of TV News vans I arrived at My gang.
From a hippie type playing the flute to a woman dressed like a giant peach that said "impeach" on it, these were my peeps. Pretty soon after I had arrived some speeches started, but i was more interested in the counter protesters. They were just 10 feet away from us, so I could take in all the lovely remarks they were shouting. From "traitor" to "communist" and "girlie men" to "your son would be ashamed of you", all the classic comments blew over Me. Ironically the guy that yelled out "girlie men" had bigger breasts than My wife (and she's a C cup), so I'll let you decide who the real girlie man is.
I decided to be the grown up here and just ignore these high class people.
But when they started shouting "USA, USA" I started shouting USA with them. This seemed to confuse the narrow minded so then they just started yelling "booooooooring". I swear all these folks were older than 40 and this wasn't some kind of frat party.
What worried me more was them shouting "allah akbar" and "are you going to have a burka fashion show?". The reason it bothers me is that it exposes what this is really about to them, a war between religions.
You can see some of the pictures I took of this gang in their best Sunday outfit here and here.
The counter protesters then started gloating because they thought Cindy wouldn't show up.
What they didn't know was that Sheehan was just 300 ft away, giving interviews to the press while the counter protesters were busy shouting at us.
Apparently Sheehan feared for her safety and decided not to come closer and give a speech at her own rally. Instead we were all invited at Tally's, an organic grocery store in Charlotte, to meet with Cindy personally there.
My day had been pretty exhausting so I decided to just go home. I might have gone to that grocery store if Bono himself had shown up though.
My "guestimate" is that about 150 protesters were at the rally and about 50 counter protesters.
You can see some pictures of the crowd here, here and here.
I'm looking forward to my next meeting with my biker crew. Until then my "worst president ever" sign is back in my closet.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
I'm a girlie communist! (allegedly)
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The myth of putting corn in your tank.
This past February the world community of scientists published a report on global warming under the umbrella of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That report concluded that global warming is “unequivocal” and human activity is the main driver, “very likely” causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950.
While the rest of the world moves on and is rapidly trying to find solutions for this global environmental crisis, a few republicans pretend nothing is going on. One of them, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), even thinks global warming is caused by farting.
So with most people being worried about global warming, except for a few republicans who also still believe that Earth is flat, folks are looking for solutions to be a little more earth and climate friendly. A lot of them seem to think that one solution for environmentally friendly fuel is corn. They couldn't be more wrong.
Let's look at a few common misconceptions about corn-based ethanol:
1. There's plenty of corn around
If every vehicle in the United States were powered by ethanol, only one of eight would be drivable. Already, 20 percent of the nation's corn goes to ethanol production. Replacing just one-eighth of U.S. gasoline consumption would require the country's entire corn crop. Even if we planted every single acre of farmland in the US full of corn for ethanol, we still wouldn't have enough to provide all the fuel we use in the USA.
2. Corn fuel reduces greenhouse emissions
Corn-based ethanol's contribution to fighting global warming is marginal at best. Corn-based Ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline, but its production relies heavily on diesel tractors and fertilizers made from petroleum, to the tune of some 140 gallons of oil per acre. Once you have produced the corn it is also very energy intensive to distill the ethanol out of it. A recent survey by the University of California at Berkeley found that corn-based ethanol cuts greenhouse-gas emissions by, at best, 13 percent over gasoline.
3. Corn fuel boosts your engine's performance
Ethanol does boost octane, and thereby engine performance, but supplies less energy per gallon than gasoline. While it is somewhat less expensive than gas, its lower energy content means you get fewer miles per gallon. Until the price of E85 drops to about 72 percent of gas, consumers won't see any savings.
Ethanol fuel can be part of a solution, but not when it's corn based. Ethanol distilled out of sugarcane and switch grass for example is preferable because it takes much less energy to distill and you don't need to use a mountain of pesticides to grow it. Ethanol distilled from switch grass and plant waste is know as "cellulosic ethanol". Unfortunately a lot of research remains to be done before cellulosic ethanol will be ready for prime time.
If you really want to help the environment and curb global warming (and you should), it is much better to first of all try using your car less and look into buying a hybrid car or at least a car that gets high mileage. Until we have completely clean cars of course.
The local spin on this story:
On May 9th 2006, Robin Hayes held a press conference at a gas station outside of his district in Charlotte, NC and filled his SUV with E85 (= corn-based ethanol) while at the same time announcing he would introduce a bill to offer tax incentives for businesses that develop facilities to sell E85. Hayes was obviously oblivious to the fact that corn based-ethanol is not the solution to our environmental problems nor is it a sustainable solution for energy independence. As with most of the bills Robin introduces (and anything else he does) it went nowhere and the bill never became law.
