Southwest Virginia Blogs

Norman has a good post up reviewing the article by Peter Ferrara posted in Bacons Rebellions e-zine.

Both are good reads. Norman offers some hope and a challenge to Virginia's conservative bloggers.

•  But as I told Peter when he made this argument at the last Tuesday Morning Group meeting, he is ignoring the one medium where conservatives have an existing infrastructure: the Internet and blogs.

Then issues this challenge

•  If we are even moderately successful, more and more conservatives will start reading blogs, and perhaps even creating their own. While blogs are not yet an adequate replacement for broadcast and print media, they are an essential messaging platform. Stop wringing your hands because the local paper won't print your letter to the editor. Stop arguing with the television set. Get a blog and get busy.

I agree. The Conservative blogs have a bright future. Norman points out that many conservatives are not reading blogs. I feel we need the MSM ( local newspapers ) to plug them. The WAPO did and that was great! Myself, every time I go to the college or library, I create a short cut on the desktop to Chads site and others. Who knows if it helps, but at least I am trying.

The military does have a sense of humor. The Air Force has developed a laser-powered device that temporarily impairs a person's vision, apparently like staring into the sun. They named the device the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response, or PHaSR. The device will be used for crowd control and will give military police a nonlethal alternative to guns.

“If only one line in a poem has energy, then cut the rest out and leave only that one line. That one line is the poem.” William Carlos Williams to Allen Ginsberg

Poetry is like wine. We start out drinking Ripple, then move on to Mateus, and then graduate to something much better, I hope. Even though I’ve acquired a taste for a variety of poetry and understand more of it than I used to, I still go for the short poems when faced with a whole book of them. I do this with the same logic that causes me to choose a short line when I’m in a store waiting to check-out. But there’s another logic to my short poem inclination. Poetry, by its nature, is condensed, a shorthand of language that, if it’s any good, has a potency best taken in small doses. Maybe I have a touch of Attention Deficit Disorder, because the overuse of language shuts me down. But I think it has more to do with the fact that long winded-ness bores me, especially if it’s over-intellectualized. ~ From The Cash Only Line, “Muses Like Moonlight” by Colleen

In Gratitude of Short Poems

All in one piece
and easy to swallow

They hardly need editing
and aren’t temperamental ...

Who is your favorite poet?

This short Register article highlights the urgency of dealing with the cable redundancy issue. Communities that do not have a plan to ensure at least two separate broaband cable paths (also referred to as backhaul or Internet feeds) in and out of a community are at risk of losing local businesses to places that do provide cable redundancy. High tech companies are leaving Iceland because the tiny country has only one primary fiber cable serving the entire island, and the cable has been damaged several times, leaving local companies high and dry, so to speak.

Also in the article is a note that residents of Greenland, with a population lower than many U.S. counties and rural regions, will be getting "super fast" ADSL2+, which runs at 24 megabits. According to my arithmetic, this is much faster than the "super fast" 7 megabit DSL that Verizon is touting here in the States.

Okay, here's my updated economic development slogan; feel free to use it in your region.

Our region--broadband almost as good as Greenland!

This article on Verizon's "super fast" DSL and fiber services is "super" misleading. It makes it sound like Verizon is rolling out some state of the art new service that is much better than anything else available.

Unfortunately, the reporter who wrote this article apparently failed to do even a nominal search for what kind of "super fast" service is available in other countries, where "super fast" 7 megabit service (what Verizon is offering) is would be considered "super slow."

In Japan, 100 megabit fiber service is considered the lowest acceptable consumer service. While DSL is in wide use there, it is considered inferior--and "super fast" DSL in Japan often hits speeds of 22 megabits. Twenty-two megabits--way faster than Verizon's "super fast" DSL, and the Japanese think it is way too slow.

How did we get into this mess? The U.S. invented the Internet, space travel, the Swiffer, and thousands of other high tech systems, but somehow, with broadband, we have sunk to the point that 15 other countries have better, faster service, and that's okay with our legislators and vendors.

The only way out, in my opinion, is action at the local/regional level. We are not going to change lazy and/or disinterested state and Federal legislators who are happy to let things drift along, or worse, put roadblocks in the way of communities trying to compete in the global economy.

In our continuing series on the issues facing Judge Alito, today we will look at religious freedom in the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

Under the first amendment the government cannot set a state religion, like say Britain during the time of the American Revolution, this also means that the government cannot prohibit a religion. The first amendment also prohibits the government from prohibiting religious exercises. Of course there is a lot of debate about how far the first amendment actually goes, or should go. The Supreme Court has prohibited students from exercising their religion well in school in an organized group. The have also said that prayer before sporting events and graduations, even student led, is unconstitutional. But they have split when it comes to the issue of the display of the Ten Commandments. This past term the Supreme Court said that the state of Kentucky cannot display the Ten Commandments but Texas can.

It is clear that Supreme Court has taken the so called notion of “separation of church and state” to the extreme. Do you see “separation of church and state” in the Constitution? If you can find it I will send you a Confirm Alito Now Bumper Sticker. Yes, we have Confirm Alito Now products. “Congres shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” As fair as I am concerned if the government wishes to endorse a religion that be constitutional. Would I support it? No. Government should not go that fair. Should a judge be able to place the Ten Commandments in his court house? Yes. Can a school open the school day with a prayer? Yes, so long as if the school does not force students to participate in the prayer.

Judge Alito will in all likely hood uphold the Constitution literally. How he will rule “separation of church and state” issues will be only found out with time.

• 1. Exploitation
• 2. Technical Fix
• 3. Wait and See
• 4. Responsibility to Future Generations
• 5. Unity of the Earth
• 6. Precautionary Principle
• 7. Back to Nature
• 8. Drastic Actions should be taken now

These are eight possible persepctives (borrowed from this source) from which one might view the issue of global warming / climate change and mankind's role in adapting to or correcting the problem. The Bush Administration once again this week in Canada is voting to put the needs of corporations and stockholders first and measures health by the state of our economy and not the state of our biological systems. We'll let techology fix the problems that technology has caused. Besides, this approach of business-as-usual / clean up the mess afterward creates lucrative opportunities for the megacorps and will keep the shareholders happy, at least while the current regime remains in power. And that is as far as our vision extends. On the scale below, I'd say the Republican preferences fall in categories 1, 2 and 3.

My position is described better by some combination of 4, 5 and 6. There is certainly a role for technology in these responses to the problem, but a technology of human scale and focused on prevention rather than remediation after the harm is done, of working with nature, not overcoming it with a Bigger Hammer. Ecological understanding underpins economical; conservation is considered over consumption; doing with less is considered a greater virtue that stimulating the economy by spending more; and the good of planet and community come before maintaining the status quo for CEOs and campaign contributors.

How would you describe your point of view using the eight 'choices' here? (See "read more" for the complete descriptions.) Is there a ninth or tenth choice that should be included?

Exploitation – Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, humankind has extracted and utilized coal, gas, oil, and metal ores. In addition forests have been cut down on a large scale to make room for agriculture and human habitation. People with this attitude believe that these resources are here for humans to use and when the resources run dry, we will develop new technologies or find new resources to take their place. Decisions are driven by economics – the cheapest resources are the ones we will use first – and the environment will take care of itself (as it always has). This also includes the attitude that any climate change will happen slowly enough as to not affect me or my generation. Why should we pay for something that has no immediate benefit?

Technical Fix – In the past humans have been so effective at developing new technologies to meet problems as they arise, we assume that this will always be the case. The technical fix implies that any damage can be corrected after it has been created rather than avoided in the first place. Proponents of the technical fix must consider the cost of changing now versus the cost of fixing a potentially huge problem later.

Wait and See – This attitude says that because we do not know for certain that global warming is occurring or what the future might bring, we should do nothing at all now. It is all right to continue to monitor and study the situation, but until we can determine more definite answers to the uncertainties, it would be foolish to act now. Furthermore, climate has been so stable, why not believe it will remain that way.

Responsibility to Future Generations – For many it is a basic instinct that we wish to see our children and grandchildren well set up in the world. We would like them to inherit from us an Earth that has been well looked after and not leave them difficult problems caused by our irresponsible actions. Although uncertainties exist in our understanding of global warming, there is enough evidence to warrant taking actions now to ensure that we do not ruin the Earth for future generations.

Unity of the Earth – Similar to above, except the main focus is that we have a responsibility for the larger world of all living things. Think of the views held by many native American tribes that all of nature is connected in a delicate balance. This attitude holds that humans are responsible for taking care of the Earth and all life, and action on global warming should be taken now since we are upsetting natural balances. For some, the responsibility to care for life was given by God.

Precautionary Principle – Lack of full scientific certainty does not mean that we should not take action. There is enough evidence and scientific basis about global warming for us to act now. Just as we take out insurance policies (that cost money) to cover the possibility of accidents or losses, there is enough of a threat that we should start spending money to make changes now. The cost of changing our ways must be weighed against the possible future costs of not changing our ways.

Back to Nature – This is the attitude that we all adopt a more primitive lifestyle and give up a large part of industry and intensive farming, essentially moving back to pre-industrial times. The back to nature approach will allow the Earth to heal in the short-term and allow humans to live in harmony with nature in the long-term. Two important considerations for this approach: can a population that is six times greater than it was 200 years ago be adequately fed by small-scale farming? In freezing technological development, is human creativity suppressed?

Drastic Actions should be taken now – This goes beyond the precautionary principle to say that we should deal with the global warming problem as if it will be certain doom for life on Earth if we continue to increase greenhouse gas concentrations. Since future changes are uncertain, we should prepare for the worst and not leave anything to chance. Industries and people should be forced to change regardless of what the costs are.