Granted.
But he do look like Albert Anastasia.........

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Someone should tell Al to lay off of the carbs.

Let's improve life in the present, and the future
By focusing exclusively on future warming, Live Earth does a disservice to development and disease prevention in the here and now.

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The Live Earth concerts will hopefully be a lot of fun for those who get the chance to see them live or watch them on television. But I think the organisers are wrong when they say that climate change is the most pressing issue facing mankind.

If you ask the 15million people who are going to die from easily curable infectious diseases next year, the idea that climate change is our top priority seems to be massively overblown. What’s even more important is that you ask: ‘Where can we actually do some good?’ The answer is overwhelmingly: we can do very little good if we focus on climate change policies, whereas we can do immense amounts of good if we focus on some of the many other problems in the world.

For example: deadly diseases such as HIV-AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis; malnutrition, especially lack of micronutrients but also lack of calories; and lack of market access. Those are some of the most obvious places where we can put in place very cheap and advantageous policy measures and help huge swathes of humanity. And we’ll be helping them in such a way that their societies become stronger, so that their descendents will get much better off and thereby become much less vulnerable to whatever the future holds - including climate change.

Climate change is a problem, and it definitely is one that we need to tackle over this century. But to say that this is the first and foremost thing that we need to tackle, as Tim Flannery said in a Financial Times interview a week ago, that this is the one thing we need to focus on in the next 10 years - that is simply ridiculous. We would be doing something that will help people very little - and only in a hundred years from now - at a very high cost. Meanwhile, we would be neglecting the fact that we could do massive amounts of good for less money for a lot of the people living right now - and in the process helping their descendents much more.

We know how to solve many of these problems, just as we know how to deal with climate change. If you want to stop HIV-AIDS, it’s about information, about providing condoms. If you want to stop global warming, it’s about cutting carbon emissions. My point is that cutting carbon emissions costs a lot and it provides only a small benefit 100 years from now; handing out condoms and information, however, is very cheap and it works for people suffering from HIV-AIDS right now.

It’s the same with malaria. We need to get mosquito nets, proper treatment for those infected; we need to be spraying homes and public areas to keep mosquito numbers down, and we need to pursue other public eradication policies. If you look at malnutrition, there are, again, some very cheap treatments that can tackle things like the lack of iron, which causes deficits of up to 12 to 14 IQ points and affects more than two billion people on this planet. This could be very easily avoided by just giving people an iron pot in which they would cook their meals and thereby get iron. Why are we, as a civilisation, focused on trying to solve the most difficult problem - climate change - when there are these other problems which are so much more easily tackled?

The costs of current carbon emission reduction programmes are immense. The annual costs of Kyoto, had everyone participated and stuck to their obligations (which is the only way it could have even a modest effect), are estimated to be around $180billion. Just to give you a sense of proportion, we now spend in overseas development aid somewhere around $80billion - so we’re talking about more than twice the amount of current aid levels being spent on Kyoto, which does very little good. To put it another way: if you invest in Kyoto, you will probably avoid about a thousand malaria deaths per year across the rest of this century; however, for one-sixtieth of the cost of Kyoto we could avoid 850,000 malaria deaths. In other words, for every malaria death avoided through Kyoto, I could, with the same amount of money, avoid 20,000 malaria deaths by tackling the problem directly. I would say that, as a ‘generational mission’, as a moral obligation, it lies with us to save 20,000 people rather than saving one.

More at: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3568/

that shirt was made in China.

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"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

Makes sense. Probably a perk left over from one of their campaign contributions...

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

A fair amount, no doubt. I think it was the Red Hot Chili Peppers I heard about, saying they were going to appear in 3 different concerts in 3 different continents, like, all on the same day, dude!! Whoa, rock on!!

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Flippancy lives on.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

After burners, - ON!

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

we should have a rock concert for stem cell research...

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"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

I think there are some things that we can all do to help reduce our carbon footprint. Here are some things that I've adopted; and I urge you all to do the same:

1. I am increasing my use of ethanol derived from grape mass and various cereals and grains.

2. I now open all canned sodas (and cans of beer, which is seldom as I prefer bottles or draft) much slower so as to decrease the rate of CO2 emmisions.

3. I'm eating more and excercising less. This is a double CO2 whammy; less excercise means less exhalation thus less atmospheric CO2 pollution. Heavier people are composed of more carbon thus a greater sequestering of the nasty stuff (there's your reason for St. ALGORE's weight gain).

4. In keeping with point #3 I'm consuming moor farm animals (wild ones too), thus reducing their carbon emissions.

5. I'm lobbying Greens to put their money where their mouth is (ironic, isn't it)and halt their carbon emissions. Those who succesfully complete this process can then be turned into biofuels. We could call it "Soylent Crude" (it works on so many levels...)

6. I'm petitioning my Congressman and Senators to reduce the law of gravity so that less energy will be needed to move the same mass, thus saving energy and thus less evil carbon released.

7. Finally, I'm on track with my own carbon reduction plan. By the year 2150 I will equal my 1900 carbon usage.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

Well if all these people are so concerned about the earth they should start:

Get rid of all the private jets, choppers, and boats.
Get rid of the 20k sf homes, only have one, 1ksf engery efficient, solar panals etc etc.
Get rid of the cars Ferrari's, Mercedes, horrible on mileage. Trade them in for scooters or fuel efficiant cars.
Get rid of all the clothing, tons of polution there.

When Al Gore does that is when hell freezes over.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Fixed it for ya!

Though I expended unnecessary electrons in doing so I suppose....

Concert seems like a joke to me.

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Chris
2007 E550 4Matic - 61,000 Km - Iridium Silver, black leather, Sport package, Premium 2 package
2007 GL450 4Matic - 62,000 Km - Obsidian Black Metallic, black leather, all options
1998 E430 - sold
1989 300E - 333,000 Km - sold
1977 280E - sold
1971 250 - retired

"And a frign hat. They gave me a hat at the annual benefits meeting. I said. how does this benefit me. I dont have anything from the company.. So they gave me a hat." - TheDon

What the author doesn't want to understand is that the money isn't being spent on malaria treatment on purpose. Why? Because those treatments would result in 850,000 more carbon footprints that the earth could do without. Instead, they will be made into Soylent Crude, as peragro suggested.

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It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

Ya know, if they would have shown Cheryl Crow wiping her butt with a single square of fingrerproof, I would have tuned in just to see that.

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Palangi

2004 C240 Wagon 203.261 Baby Benz
2008 ML320 CDI Highway Cruiser
2006 Toyota Prius, Saving the Planet @ 48 mpg
2000 F-150, Destroying the Planet @ 20 mpg



TRUMP .......... WHITEHOUSE
HILLARY .........JAILHOUSE
BERNIE .......... NUTHOUSE
0BAMA .......... OUTHOUSE

On the 7th, spent the day allowing LEGIT "renters" (Remember, you never buy a beer, you only rent it...) of adult beverages consume massive amounts of barley-pops and (probably) emit massive quantities of methane a few hours later...

Then, as a follow-up, on Sunday, I repeated the process...until I had to make a "transmitter run" to Colfax ("Mother Nature" got a bit pissed...took a lightning bolt "shot" to the power-grid and knocked my two stations off the air for approx. 3 hours...) and frittered away about $56.00 in gas...all for the purpose of getting the stations back on the air to make sure the masses in northwestern Wisconsin get a heaping helping of 4 episodes of "Family Guy" - GEEESH!

I'm just doin' my part to keep that "Mofo-Earth" group happy like mushrooms sleeping under a foot of sheepchit...

Hey Al! I got your "carbon foot-print"...RIGHT HERE!

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M. G. Burg
'10 - Dakota SXT - Daily Ride / ≈ 172.5K
.'76 - 450SLC - 107.024.12 / < .89.20 K
..'77 - 280E - 123.033.12 / > 128.20 K
...'67 - El Camino - 283ci / > 207.00 K
....'75 - Yamaha - 650XS / < 21.00 K
.....'87 - G20 Sportvan / > 206.00 K
......'85 - 4WINNS 160 I.O. / 140hp
.......'74 - Honda CT70 / Real 125
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“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~