They're After Our TV's!

Environmentalism impacts our lives in many ways - sometimes unexpected. We many of us recycle - some more than others, with it being understood that different communities can hinder or advance efforts at recycling. It can be particularly difficult in apartment buildings, as I've discovered. Where I am now, recycling reduces my garbage output by a good 33%. It makes a noticeable dent in what I throw out, even being limited to type 1 and 2 plastics.

We're also all familiar with the need to not leave all our lights on, and vampire-energy and so forth, and the evils of big SUV's and other gas-guzzlers.

But now they're after our TVs. I just read on Saturday that "California assails TV power usage" and that a "one-third cut" has been mandated by 2011.

The problem is that the big new flat-panel TVs, though lighter and easier on my back, suck up more power than the old fashioned cathode-ray tubes of yesteryear. TV's account, they say, for 10% of household electrical use if you include "related devices" like digital recorders and game consoles.

Egads, they'll be after our games next, and my gods' given right to record programming for later viewing. The Consumer Electronics Association, as might be expected as an outfit representing manufacturers, disagrees with the 10% figure and says 3% is more reasonable.

Personally, I'm more worried about my back than the power.

Even so, I wasn't consulted and California has decided that there be limits on TVs over 58 inches wide.

So they're shooting for a one-third reduction by 2011 and a one-half reduction by 2013. Those that can't meet the standards won't be allowed in CA. I wonder if they'll stop you at the border when you're moving into the state and make you throw your TV into the desert if it's too big.

And that's not all. Washington, Oregon, and Massachusetts, along with Canada and Australia, are considering similar measures.

My biggest TV is 42 inches. Just upgraded from 27. So I'm set even in California, but it's not about me.

Well, okay, it's about me, but it's about a lot of other things as well - where do we draw the line, for instance, between consumer rights and the needs of the environment? What becomes necessary? And how much can we justify in the way of government interference?

The environment is a precious thing. We only have one. I'm a Heathen - a Pagan if you will - and Pagan religions are nature religions, as all original religions were. We have a good healthy respect for the environment. That's perhaps natural when you understand that we live in a world filled with the divine.

As such, I try to be careful. I try not to drive when I don't have to. I don't leave unnecessary lights on. In short, I follow Solon's advice: Nothing in excess. Or, as it is put in the Icelandic Sagas, "A wise man does all things in moderation" (Thorkel in Gisli Sursson's Saga).

If everybody lived according to these rules, we could go a long way towards voluntarily resolving some of the problems we are now seeing legislated against. As we go on, we may see more extreme measures taken to protect the environment.

And they will likely be necessary. The problem is, most of the burden falls on the individual in this country. Very little in the way of regulations control what industry does to our environment. They have power lobbyists in Washington. They practically own members of Congress.

So industry pollutes and we lose our big TVs.

Now being a moderate guy, I can probably live without a TV bigger than 58 inches. Honestly, I don't have the wall space for more than that unless I finish my basement.

Will that be next? You can't finish basements because the construction process pollutes? Or will it harm some heretofore unknown microbe that dwells in the cracks of the concrete.

Excess, you see, can go many ways, not only in individuals who might be careless environmentally, or in businesses which remain unregulated, but in governments - even environmentalists, who resort to extreme solutions where moderation might suffice.

I'm not trying to discourage California. After all, they've always been at the forefront of environmentalism. Environmental Heatlh Perspectives (EHP) tells us that

According to a 2006 survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a San Francisco–based research organization, 65% of Californians don't think the federal government is doing enough to combat global warming.

That certainly seems above the curve, and I applaud them for that.

I'm just saying I've seen some crazy things over recent years. Crazier even than wanting to take away our TVs (and you don't see an NRA-like group protecting our TVs do you? If they come to take them, are we just going to throw them at them, and wouldn't that be counter-productive?).

I would just like to see common-sense, moderation prevail.

I don't think that's too much to ask, or to expect - from all sides.

Intellectual Dishonesty

What we increasingly see from the Right is a complete lack of intellectual honesty. In place of carefully reasoned, structured, and supported arguments, we see instead a repetitious series of talking points, endlessly repeated and trotted out at every opportunity.

No sources are cited to back up the arguments made, no appeal to scholarship on the subject, or indeed to any source at all. What we get instead are bald-faced lies presented with the same vigor a missionary might witness the gospel. And this IS a gospel for these people.

And like the gospel it is a fabric of belief, not of documented facts.

If presented with a carefully researched and reasoned article, scrupulous in its citations, well-foot-noted and anchored in solid scholarship, the Right will respond with their usual blanket statement that you are stupid, silly, childish, etc, insults to answer Reason, a display of anti-intellectualism to rival anything we saw during the 2008 political campaigns.

The inability to argue rationally and to support these talking points with some scholarship makes that intellectual dishonesty breath-taking in scope. "You're wrong" is not an argument, not any more than is it's opposite, "it is." We have a right, I think, to know why something is, or something is not.

The Right will not give us this. In all honesty, they have nothing to give, but they can't be honest enough to admit it, to confess that their answer derives entirely from a dedication to ideological demands and not from anything found in an evidence-based world.

They have no actual data to back up their claims, but data is an alien concept in a world not founded in reality, where facts are mere inconveniences to be dismissed with talking points. The Right does not respond to facts; it talks PAST them. And disdainfully at that.

If it cannot be proven that 2+2 do not equal “5” then the answer will be an insult. The answer is "5" they will insist, but they will not demonstrate how this can be so. Apparently, they believe that if they repeat themselves often enough that lies will become truth.

The problem for the intellectually dishonest is that 2+2 will never equal "5." The answer will always equal "4", and the blind insistence, without evidence of any kind, that it equals "5," will never convince anyone other than other intellectually dishonest ideologues lost in a fantasy land of “should-have-beens.”

The world will move on by and leave them to their childish fantasies. And good riddance.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It is a lovely day. The sun is shining, the sky is almost without clouds, and it's a balmy 54 degrees. Can't ask for much more than that in mid-November. We haven't seen snow yet, and barely even frost. Growing up in Minnesota, I've been snowed in by this point in the year before, even if it did not typically last.

I was invited to pen a piece for ProgressiveNation and I've spent the morning writing about liberalism and today's conservatism. As usual, my ideas have run away with me and it's ended up a bit on the long side. Hopefully not too long. Anyone who knows me knows I like to cite my sources and provide examples (in context) in order to support my arguments. I did not want to simply write a flat-out opinion piece. I like how it turned out. If it's too long I'll find a use for it elsewhere or see what I can do to put together an abridged version as well.

It always feels good to write. Fighting with the flu has given me some time to do that since I haven't been up and around much and a laptop offers so much flexibility. I'm getting used to Microsoft Office 2007. WORD is a little different than the old version I was using and nothing is where I expect it to be but that hasn't slowed me down terribly, and I'm gradually getting the hang of it and of the new keyboard.

I've been doing a lot of reading as well, including some very interesting Neoplatonism by Edward Butler. I've always said it doesn't get any better than Plato, but this is not strictly true as it leaves out Plotinus and Proclus. I've never seen a better cosmology than that supported by Neoplatonic thought. Polytheism lives very comfortably in its bosom, which is why you will not find the ancient philosophers calling for an end to the traditional cults. On the contrary, the traditional cults were supported.

I've also pretty much organized my new desk. It's slightly larger than the old, still fits snugly in the corner but has a couple of handy (if not too-strong) shelves for little things that no longer clutter the area where my mouse roams. I'm very comfortably ensconced and it's not too much of a burden to unhook and move to another room. Targus makes a very nice folding lap-desk for laptops which when deployed on a desk-top can position the computer at an angle suitable for typing. It was only about $20. I highly recommend it. It has holes in it and keeps the laptop breathing, which is essential - while keeping your lap relatively cool. I haven't had to use my old fan yet.

Now that I'm fully locked onto the 21st century, I'm going to get back to writing in order to offer some resistance to the 13th century the Republican Party is so eager to impose upon us.

Thor protect you all.

Some Rambling Thor's Day Thoughts

A nice, balmy, 30 degrees this morning. Frost on the car. On the leaves, which are still on the grass and un-raked. The H1N1 hit this week and I'm probably going to have to fight frost (hopefully not snow) to get the lawn raked before the city comes to collect the leaves. They were tardy about it last year, which may work to my advantage this year. I'm a bit chilled, sitting in front of my laptop. Usually this is the warmest room in the house, but I can tell when it's colder than normal outside.

I've been working on some art-work for the Helhest Captain's Log, a portrait of Najet Boulemi, Moroccan captain of the ship. I sketched her with my mechanical pencil, scanned her into a jpg and then tried working with her on my Wacom. I did not prove adept at this so I resorted to my mouse (strange that a mouse would be easier to draw with than a stylus). I think she turned out decently. I'm not 100% satisfied but as a first effort I'm quite happy. I may fiddle with the image some more before all is said and done. Here is an "artistic" rendering of her. I've put another up at the Helhest blog (http://helhest.blogspot.com).

It's an interesting way to "do" art. I used to draw a lot as a child. My mother went to art school and painted in oils and acrylics. I tried my hand at oils and at acrylics and the results were not promising. I was more comfortable being able to erase. I think that helps me with drawing pictures on the computer. I can save as often as I want, use the "undo" feature real life so sadly lacks, and have another go at it until I get it right. And of course, adding a layer...oh, need another layer! is nice too. You can fiddle endlessly, blend, blur and anything else you want. The mosaic version of Najet Boulemi was interesting.

I want to try to do a ship image too. I'm already working on a sort of sun-wheel symbol to use as the signet of the imperial house (and on the imperial flag). I will probably create a background for her that utilizes the sun-wheel over one shoulder and the ship's own symbol (a stylized helhest) over the other, maybe with a motto and the hull number. It's a nice creative process and it helps generate ideas for background material in my head as I work. One thing leads to another, as they say....

I've been slowed by the flu and going to bed early so I haven't gotten much actual writing done. I find inspiration dries up when I feel like death warmed over. I'm fortunate I'm old enough that I haven't gotten as sick as my son, but then he got Tamiflu, which seems to be some sort of miracle drug, it acts so quickly. I hope now that he's been exposed (at least once, possibly twice) he develops some immunity and that he won't have to deal with it again, because there is a long school year ahead and he's already missed two weeks, not to mention every Tuesday for his Gaucher treatments.

Finally, there is Thursday night football. I love NFL Network. Watch it more than any other and I don't have to worry about my favorite shows being canceled. I've got my fantasy rosters set (I think). My bye-weeks were mostly weeks 5 and 6 and I've had far fewer gaps to fill since then. I have three teams among my 10 bound for the playoffs barring a late-season collapse, a couple so far behind they can never catch up, and several that are middle-of-the-pack. We'll see how it all turns out. I'm not cut-throat about it. I want to win, certainly, but it's just for fun and I have fun either way. I know what I'll be doing tonight as I recline beneath my Baltimore Ravens blanket with my feet up, laptop in my lap, and a mug of hot apple cider in my hand.

40K

Who needs 401(k) when you got 40K? Seriously. In the grim dark future there is only war, and a 401(k) won't impress those Dark Eldar raiders very much, now will it?

But a good Bolter will.

I've set up shop in my basement to begin painting my Warhammer 40K Army. I've got two projects going, one of which is to remain a mystery until its unveiling. Suffice it to say that not many hobbies are as harmless or enjoyable as this.

Because I have killer cats in the house, I got a covered box from Target for placing the figures in between sessions, and a plastic tray (also from Target) to put my paint pots in. I still need to grab an old mug to use for water (for cleaning the brushes) and something to mix paints in (I used to use those little metal lids from paints you paint plastic models with). They sell empty pots for $1.50 to use to mix your paints in but they're a little deep for my liking. I prefer something shallow (like Sarah Palin) so I'll have to hunt around and find something. I've been making do with whatever I can find until now and I need something of a more permanent nature. Maybe I'll just use caps from 20 oz. soft drinks.

The lighting isn't optimal down there either so I need to get hold of a desk lamp. But I can't continue to use the kitchen table. I miss having cats that don't try to eat my stuff. These two are of inferior gene stock.

Oh, I also picked up a nice set of files - 12 of them - to use on the metal figures. I need to get a little pair of clippers too. The files are nice. My old sets only had 3-4 files in it, and I was going to buy the Games Worskshop set for $12.00 (which also has just four files) when the kind gentleman running the store directed me towards another brand that gives you twelve files for $12.99. A much better deal! And they came in useful already.

I bought a load of Warhammer paints, nine colors that I really needed. I love these paints. Vibrant colors and you don't have to mess with solvents like you did with the old modeling paints (the caps, as I said, were the only useful thing to come out of those). I know that Selkie can verify my words with regards to Games Workshop paints.

Now that the dark time of the year is coming (love watching those leaves fall!) I will be spending far less time out of doors and so will be directing my attentions inward, working on the websites, blogging, the forums, and of course, my 40K army.

School Isn't What it Used to Be

What have we come to? I don't remember getting billed by school when my two older kids were in kindergarten...but I got a bill in the mail today for "educational material fees" in the amount of $93.00. This includes "textbook rental fees." Rental hell. The kids don't bring the damn books home to work on things so I don't see how it's any kind of rental. It also includes 4 pencils, as though parents couldn't send 4 pencils from home. Insane. I thought that's what tax dollars were for.

Thor's Day

It's been a strange couple of days again. Got some snow, but the snow melted right off and yesterday it rained all day like the monsoon season is upon us. It was 39 while it rained, and was 31 two days when Devin and I went outside to play. There was still some snow on the ground in shadowed areas then but the rain took care of that. Now I wake up to find snow coming down. It's 35 so unless it gets colder it won't last, but what a bizarre winter. The old term "spring thaw" has become meaningless in this new era of Global Warming.

The little guy is feeling poorly. We're all fighting something off this time of year. He was a little feverish last night and today is treatment day so all I can do is hope for the best. I gave him medicine before bed and put him down early but he hasn't slept and well, we all who have had or been around kids know how that goes.

I haven't accomplished much the past couple of days. I've spent more time with him, which has been nice. I haven't been much on Digg, Facebook, the Blogosphere or any other virtual realm. And I think I kind of shot my bolt with three long, intense posts in three days. A little decompression was in order.

The picture above was sent me by Indrani. I don't know what it's attribution is. A friend of hers at JNU University in Delhi sent it to her and she passed it along to me. Like her, I think it's perfectly appropriate.

Since today is treatment day I don't suppose I'll get a lot done either. If Devin is too sick for the treatment I'll cancel but then I still won't be online much because the little guy will need some care and comfort. I'm going to see what I can get done in the next half-hour before I have to rouse him.

Tiw's Day

I think I finally have this blog pretty much set up to my satisfaction. I have to keep in mind that this is my personal space. I have a place for politics and another for religion and I even set one up for fantasy football. But here I can talk about any old thing I want, which is kind of freeing. For two long Heathen's Day had to be host to whatever whim I put it to.

I spent most of the morning catching up on my blogging and on responding to news stories on digg, and arguing with a few conservative die-hards along the way. I also did today's post on Restitutor Orbis, a little earlier than I generally do, but there was a lot to report already today and I can always post an update later for breaking news.

I also played Star Wars Battlefront (the first one) with my little boy on XBox. He really enjoys that and it's a little more enjoyable for me to have somebody to play with, even if he doesn't actually shoot too many bad guys. I kind of got the boot today, though. He told me he wanted to take a break, at which point I hear familiar sounds coming from the livingroom and discover that he's STILL playing, but without me. So apparently, the break was from papa. I told him I thought he was taking a break and he got all grumpy on me, like he'd been caught out. He got even grumpier when I told him I wasn't going to play his TMNT game with him. I'm very tired of that particular game and especially the sound effects.

I've been nursing a headache since Saturday and I'm really hoping it will finally go away. Makes it hard to do anything when the side of your head is throbbing. I have more I want to do on Mos Maiorum, like updating the articles to include the new CSS for footnotes, but that's going to be hard until the headache is gone. The same goes for painting that Dark Eldar army I was talking about the other day. I did find those nice illustrations on the Games Workshop site so at least I have some ideas how to paint them. My old Dark Eldar army was red with black. Not sure what I'll use this time. I'm thinking some black and purple like the Baltimore Ravens. Very ominous.

And speaking of football, I have my fantasy football blog set up, or at least partly set up, as I noted above. I'm going to have a site to host statistics but I thought it would be fun to blog a little about it. I've wanted to but have generally restrained myself from posting ff info on Heathen's Day. Obviously, I won't be doing a lot with it until things get going during the off-season (particularly the draft). I put a little NFL widget on it for news updates. I can add more once the season gets going again. Until then I plan to post a little on strategy, etc, but there is no rush.

Back to the grind!

Busy Bee

Been a busy couple of days. Besides trying to dig out from the snow (I still have to widen the driveway) I've been working on MosMaiorum.org. I got the entire site expanded to the new 1000px layout. It's a big improvement. I posted another article (using the new footnote CSS - that makes 2). And I'm using css to highlight important items in a bright but compatible color. There is a lot more to do, obviously, but there are only so many hours in the day, as the old lament goes.

We're going to be heading down to Indianapolis again tomorrow (second time in a week) to take a friend to the airport so she can visit her sister in Florida. Hopefully the weather will be like today. Originally the forecast was snow; this is much better (especially since I have to finish the driveway - did I say that already?). We're going to catch Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, blasted by the critics and for that reason undoubtedly a very good movie. It's generally safe to do the opposite of what they recommend. I'm not looking for high culture; I'm looking to be entertained.

I've kept up on Restitutor Orbis meantime, keeping with my post per day. Tomorrow ill be a little difficult to put something together with the shortened day but I'll get something up there. I have been hoping to fiddle with this site a bit more but it's been on he back-burner given all the other things going on - including keeping up with Digg, which is almost a full-time job in itself! But the networking is great and I've met some good liberal friends (I don't know that they're all using that term but that's what it amounts too, discredited term or not). I've also learned quite a bit and seen a lot more news than I've ever seen.

Keeping up with blogging is, of course, difficult, but I managed to put up a couple of decent posts on Heathen's Day this past week and I dugg an older article, "Of Tree Huggers and Woodland Sprites" because there is so much ecology news there. Good way to draw some attention to MosMaiorum.org as well. I've tried to get Heathen's Day more connected too over the past few days, joining both EntreCard and SezWho - not to mention Facebook, which I've ignored as a resource until now.

So all in all a very good, very busy week, and I found time to play with Devin twice today, for about 3 hours, which was nice, since we won't get the chance tomorrow with the running around. I think I'm learning to manage my time a little better. I should probably try to parcel it out ahead of time but I'm falling into a sort of pattern:

• Get up


• Get OJ/Banana to eat.


• Check email. Attend to forum/blog comments first


• Plow through Digg shouts

I can usually do the above before Devin gets up, though there are always more Digg shouts to read through.

• Eat breakfast


• Continue with Digg


• Work on mosmaiorum.org/other sites as time permits


• Lunch

That's the first part of my day and it seems to be working pretty well. I also try to get back to the forums before bed to check on new comments there, and check digg and my email throughout the day. I generally don't have a lot of time for the web development activities in the evenings.