Stressed out

I think I am way to stressed lately. I have been under the gun at work and faire is approaching with me having nothing ready. But that is not what I think is sending me over the top. It is that fricking Christian Forums. I really need to take a break from it. There are Christians that do not want rational discussion and what to just dictate dogma from the pulpit of electrons they have made for themselves, regardless of what others, including their own Christian brethren, think.

Now nothing is decided on a web forum, so I know I am giving these guys way to much credence, but damn it, some of the things they say really make my blood boil. (Excuse me for not going into detail on what makes my blood boil, else I will derail this blog.)

So it is time for me to remove this pebble of stress from my mind. Maybe I will return when I have a better outlook on the whole thing.

25% less gas

We did not heed the warning. And we were warned over a generation ago, by President Jimmy Carder during the first gas shortage. We need to conserve, the oil can't last forever. And we as a nation can't pull enough out of the ground to keep up with demand, we rely to much on foreign oil.

We where warned back then, but we didn't listen. Sure, gas efficient cars came to market, people bought smaller cars and started carpooling and taking the bus. But then the gas shortage ended and we went right back to burning oil like there was no tomorrow. And now we are looking at the highest gas prices ever. And from the look of things the price of gas will go up (some predicting 6 dollars at the end of the year) or if we are lucky stay the same, but they will hardly go down to the cost at the beginning of the year.

So what to do? Well if you want the price of gas to go down it is simple, use less of it. If the nation as a whole used 25% less gas, the price will drop. I don't know how much but it will drop. Just 25% less gas.

Now I know 25% less gas is a lot for some people, though some can lower their personal gas usage by 25% or more by just taking the bus, train, or carpooling to work. For others it will mean giving up driving to the mall every day, or not taking the kids to soccer. Hard choices, but the extra cash in the bank from not buying gas will be worth it.

So those that can drop your gas usage by 25% go for it, if you can do it on a regular basis you will better off if the gas prices go up anyway. For those of you that can't, you may be forced to cut back later when the prices climb.

25% less gas. Save now, or pay later.

Short on gas

Last night I saw a program on CNN about the nation running out of gas. Normally I would consider this a over exaggerated warning, but this time it hit home. This is mainly due to friends saying they may not do something because of the cost of gas. That hit me hard, since many of these people have traveled long distances for these activities before. That hit me hard, and is making me worry more.

How much of our economy is based on tourism? How many small towns are dependent on it? And how long before it starts effecting those with long commutes that drive to work for more then an hour and can't afford to do that anymore?

I think we may be looking at a bigger collapse of the economy if gas prices keep rising and people do not conserve.

That dastardly sheriff

So it is less then a month and a week to a renaissance fair I volunteer for. I play the shire's sheriff, corrupt and willing to take a bribe to get out of a ticket. The problem is I don't look dastardly enough. Time to let the face hair grow and see what dastardly goatee and mustache I can come up with.

Packing light on the commute

I tend to commute to work on the bus. Partly due to gas and parking prices, mostly because work pays for a bus pass. Because of this I have to be mindful of what I take. Being raised a Boy Scout makes me want to take everything, being a weaking forces me to keep it down to something reasonable. Which makes me glad I am living in the electronic/information age.

I use to carry a CD player and a case of CDs, now I carry 50 times that amount of songs in my mp3 player. I use to carry a book to read, now I carry a small library in my Kindle. I use to carry a big personal orginizer, now I carry a small computer (though I could do the same with just a PDA.) All of this weighs less then what they replaced and gives me more capacity to do things.

Just point me to the nearest wall socket please, all the batteries are out.

Break

I need to take a break from reading Christian Forums. I started going there because I was looking for creationists to debate with since the creationists I was debating on the Skeptical Friends Network where very bad at it and where badly outnumbered. What I found on Christian Forums was a good balance of evolution and creation proponents. There was actual rational discussion of the two positions. And mostly polite.

Lately I have been finding myself snipping at people rather then discussing things in a rational way. Somewhat due to me posting in other areas other then evolution and creation, but mostly because the posts I have read are from the radical right as well as radical Christians. Their posts are filled with such nonsense and hatred that I end up getting pissed and answering in kind. Which is not the best way to answer them, since I do say things that I regret later when I am heated since some of the comments I make not only piss off the person I am posting to, but the Christian friends I have on the forum as well.

Maybe I should just spend some time away and cut back on the coffee. But I think some time away will help, and remembering to take my time to respond. And remembering to walk away if I have nothing good to say.

The Internet Lens Effect

There are times when I feel like the world is out of sink with me, like what I see and know is so important that everyone else should make it their number one priority. It can range from the evo-creo debate to fake cures to some bit of atheism that I think is profound at the moment. It is so important to me until I talk face to face with a friend and they just look at me like I have lost my mind. Then I realize I they have no idea what I am talking about, why I am talking about it, and why am I bothering them about it.

It can be quite embarrassing.

This was happening enough times that I started to trace it back, and found it had to do with my Internet usage. Mostly my forum discussions on certain topics. I get drawn in to these long discussions where it feels like your battling with titans, and to gain any edge you research and read and learn everything you can find on the topic. It becomes the focus of your life for a while until reality splashes you in the face.

I call it the Internet Lens Effect. Where you get so involved in a topic discussion that is encompasses your world view so much that you see very little else. Where you inflate the importance of the topic to the point that it is just about all you think about.

The cure for this for me is to back down and limit my use of the forums I visit. Find more time for other activities and remember there are real people out there that don't know about the topic, or they do and they just don't care.

Nothing gets decided in a forum, remember to leave the discussion in there.

Don't comment on the weather

One thing you use to be able to count on as a topic of peaceful discussion was the weather. Here in the Pacific Northwest we are looking at our coldest June in a long time. I find this refreshing since I don't do so well in the heat. Others can't wait for the sun to come out. Normally that would be the end of a civil conversation, but then someone would make the comment “so much for global warming”. At this statement you will get a chorus of yeses and nos. People that use to be indifferent on the weather become very passionate. And arguments break out.

The thing is that when you bring in global warming your no longer talking about the weather. Your talking pollution, energy policy, and the bottom line. Your talking politics. Global warming, for better or for worse has become a loaded word, Full of vastly different meanings that are not the same for everyone. Which is probably the reason why the term climate change was invented, because one thing we can agree on is that the climate is changing. But even with that term there are people that don't agree with it.

This mornings paper is a good example why. The Seattle papers are reporting we are colder then Tomsk, Russia in Siberia and Oslo, Norway, both in the 70s last weekend, while we are in the cool 50s. This of course makes people ask around here what global warming, but just looking at the temps in Norway and Siberia should answer that question. Places that are normally cool are rather warm right now. Not that any of these data points really show anything for or against global warming, it is to small of a sample to really tell what is going on. The trend in the global temperature average over years is much more telling and it is going up.

But, despite all of the data supporting global warming, people do have reasons to deny it. Mainly because anything you need to do to help the situation is going to impact their lives in a way that they perceive as negative. Ignore the facts, I still want the freedom of movement. Which is where it becomes political, because they will not change their option on it just with a discussion (if they are civil) or argument (if they are not). Not a goo way to start a conversation.

Which is why I don't comment on the weather in public anymore.

Skeptical Treat

Last week I had a treat. I got to listen to PZ Myers speak not once, but twice. As a fan of his blog this was something I was looking forward to. Both of he speeches where great and informative on science and communicating science. But his passion and message for science was marred by his militant atheism. Which is a shame since the people that most needed to listen to his information where the ones that where most turned off to his message.

Dr. Myers is a staunch atheist, it is core part of his personality and he makes no apologizes for this personal belief. But his personal belief should be received differently then his science and what he has to say about it. The ones that most needed to hear what science is and how it describes the world and the life on and within it where the ones most turned off by his atheism. This is unfortunate, since the science can exist without atheism, unlike their own personal beliefs.

In the future I would hope that PZ Myers would relax on his atheist outlook when giving these lectures so that the message of science would spread further, its seeds implanted in more minds to sprout and grow. Maybe in the future he will, until then I will still gladly take what insight into science that PZ Myers provides.

Lowering the price of gas

The price of gas is climbing high these days, and while I haven't felt the pinch yet in my pocket yet, I am doing my part to ease it for everyone else. I am riding the bus, and you should too (or the train, subway, etc.). Lets face it, driving into work is the biggest consumption of gas for most people, especially if you do multiple stops on the way home. For most people though this is the easiest thing to change since there are many buses going into many cities. I am not saying that this will be easy easy or painless, but more easy then you think with a shift in thinking.

And if enough of us do this, the gas prices should go down because there will be a surplus. Just realize that to keep it down you will have to keep riding the bus...

A shout into the void

Well these days with the amount of traffic on the internet is will be more like a whisper, but this is my shout. My cry into the vast void of the internet about whatever I feel like talking about.

The reason for this is that I have found myself fragmented and compartmentalized. I can't talk to my gaming buddies about the same things I can talk to my rein faire friends about, or my family about. This is nothing new, everyone has parts of their life that don't combine well. But since becoming a skeptic, and more recently an atheist, I have found that I can't to any of these groups about things that are becoming more important to me. Hence this blog.

Here I plan on talking about the latest skeptic news that interest me, what fundamentalist rantings have set me off, and other things that strike my fancy to divulge behind my mask of anonymity. Don't know where we will end up, but it should be interesting.