The Earth Pope

Little Shop of Horrors

Forget GMOs.  Those organisms are small potatoes in the world of freaky things scientists with too much time, money and brains are playing around with.  The new thing that's emerging from the Little Shop of Horrors in universities across the planet is synthetic DNA.  The technology and know how have been around for a few years but recently these scientists have inserted synthetic DNA into cells and replaced the biological DNA, taking over the cell's natural operations. 

What we are talking about here is the creation of lifeforms driven completely by artificial DNA.  DNA that is made by hand, by scientists who dream of eliminating inefficient biological processes and replacing them with the sound and time tested discipline of engineering. And their guru is MIT's Tom Knight.  Mr. Knight views life as a machine and cells as a chassis for the artificial lifeforms he wants to assemble.  His dream is to create standardized parts for building these lifeforms that may produce useful things for humanity.  In fact, he and his colleges have begun developing hundreds of Lego-like components which they have given the catchy name of BioBricks to. 

That's right! Engineers envisioning a world of interchangeable bricks that are alive and building all sorts of weird lifeforms to run amok on the planet, self replicating at will with other BioBricks and forming goddess knows what!  But we shouldn't worry about any of that, right?  Scientists and engineers have done such a good job with chemicals, plastics and gene splicing.  Try imagining a Love Canal in your neighborhood that is not only extremely toxic but is also alive and reproducing!

Now companies have got into the act because as all good economists know, someone has got to gain the monopoly on the "core operating system" and become the Microsoft of the synthetic lifeform market. One such company is Synthetic Genomics which wants to use custom-designed DNA to get living cells to produce fuels, medicine and other useful products. Craig Venter, Synthetic Genomics CEO sees the fuel market alone to be worth $1 trillion.

I know, I know.  You faithful technology worshipers are saying "Wait Earth Pope, you're getting all worked up for no reason.  These companies only want to produce good things and be helpful to humanity."  To which I chortle out loud at the stupidity and naiveté of the innocent consumers of the planet shelling out their hard earned dollars for the latest techno-wonder.

As in most cases only a handful of advocacy groups are out there trying to get this madness on the agenda of other suspicious lifeforms--politicians. These predatory organisms are unfortunately the best line of defense we have to debate and regulate the development and release of software DNA into living cells.  As one group recently stated in a report, "The danger is not just bio-terror but bio-error."

But let's not let those statistically unproven hypothetical scenarios put the brakes on this life changing technological breakthrough.  I mean think about it for a moment.  There is so much biological diversity on this planet, taking up space and consuming precious oxygen, food and water, and very little of that diversity are actually resources for human consumption.  Now, with synthetic DNA all life has the chance to be what God intended to be--resources for human consumption.  With a little reprogramming birds, fish and mammals with no economic value at all can become useful economic units with their own column on the financial spreadsheet of life.

Isn't that worth taking to the bank?

   

Bibleman

I mean how wrong can I be?  Back in an October blog I made a comment that Christians would probably soon be marketing a new super hero to replace Jesus and little did I know at the time that Bibleman was already on the scene.  And he wasn't just fighting evil and all sorts of badness in the world, he was vertically integrated in the young consumer market.  He has action figure friends, costumes, a sword "of the spirit", and of course a Biblegirl.  Doesn't that just freak you out of your pew?

It's one thing to consume for the god of your choice but it is quite another to capitalize on the fears of others to make a fast buck under the guise of serving Christianity.  Take a look for yourself at this appalling video game trailer of Bibleman going after the worst villain of all--Whacky Protester.   

No, I'm not kidding!  The religious "love thy neighbor" crowd is teaching young children to use force (and the bible of course) to make sure that God's word makes the world a better place, even if it has to kill everything to do it.  Fortunately, it has to be one of the ugliest video game products to ever hit the market so I am not concerned about huge amounts of people buying this. 

What is frightening though is the titles of the videos.  Whack Protester is in "A Fight for Faith" and Biblegirl was introduced to the audience in "Breaking the Bonds of Disobedience."  I haven't watched any of these videos so I can't say just how scary they are.  But if the trailer is an indication of what Bibleman and his flexible faith healers are up to then we should all say immediate prayers to our god or goddess of choice.

O2 Breathe Freely

I don't know about you but I got to thinking about this continued inaction in the United States around the issue of global climate change and what it will take to wake up the Gaiavorous culture of Americans.  This seems to be of paramount importance seeing the reams and reams of reports and studies documenting the near total collapse of the primary ecosystems of the Earth.   

Unfortunately, Americans are so conditioned to living in fear that the ultimate scare doesn't even register in their advertisement addled minds.  They are content with the fact that someone else (not them of course) is offsetting their carbon emissions by planting trees somewhere else.  As long as Americans don't experience the effects of freak rainfall events, powerful storms or severe droughts they don't take any personal action to make change happen. 

Thinking about this I wondered, using my minimal climate training from college, if there was a proportionate gaseous process taking place where oxygen went down as carbon dioxide emissions increased.  I don't recall all of the elements of Boyles Law but it reasons that if the volume of CO2 increased in the atmosphere then the available oxygen might decrease, all other factors being equal.   

This would certainly put a new spin on the conversation about the importance of global climate change.  Once folks began to realize that available oxygen was decreasing while there was a simultanious increase in humans competing for the dwindling life sustaining gases, there would be a massive outcry to stop the depletion of oxygen and reduce the CO2 so that there would be more oxygen available.

As it turns out it does appear that oxygen is decreasing in both the atmosphere and in the oceans. In addition to tracking temperature increases as important indicators for global climate change we also need to be tracking decreases in available oxygen concentrations because oxygen is key to human life.  We can go without food and water for extended periods of time and still survive.  Go without oxygen for a few minutes and that is the end of this road show for you.

It turns out that another reason to pay attention to the decreasing oxygen levels is that we have historic evidence that a large decrease in oxygen has happened in the past and impacted all forms of life on Earth.  It is termed the Great Dying and happened about 250 million years ago during the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history.  What do they say about history repeating itself?

Unfortunately, this new awareness will undoubtedly lead to more regulation.  Marathon runners and professional athletics with have to purchase "oxygen consumption credits".  Elderly people will be stopped by airport security (wait, they already are!) to determine if they are smuggling additional oxygen canisters.  Oxygen bars would come under federal jurisdiction and tighter controls, eventually becoming "business non grada" because of the "black market oxygen" smuggling and itinerant inhalers lingering around neighborhoods. 

Maybe Mel Brooks was far more prescient in Space Balls then anyone imagined at the time.  Look for the first cases of PerriAire in a store near you this coming winter!    

Making a Christian Killing

Sometimes the news provides deeper insights into the state of the world, not necessarily by the quality of journalism but by the simple juxtaposition of articles in the paper.  The first story I recently saw dealt with the fact that the Roman Catholic Church in Santa Barbara is ordering nuns out of convents so they can liquidate the buildings to help pay off $660 million owed to the victims of pedophile priests. This is not a pretty picture for the Church.  Kicking out nuns who help the poor while the priests, part of the very brotherhood accused and convicted of molesting children, get to keep their own homes.  But this is an old story of women paying the price for the sins of the man.

The second story concerns the growing movement among ministers and pastors who are using the violent video game "Halo" to lure young, primarily male congregates to their churches.  This video game is violent enough to receive an "M" rating, requiring that the purchaser be at least 17 years old but that doesn't stop the ministers from having boys as young as 12 try to kill each other inside the House of the Lord. 

Do you see a common theme here?  Young males are being molested by the Church, whether physically or mentally violated and it is all being facilitated by men pretending to preach "the good word".  Allowing children to derive pleasure from killing, in any form, is against one of the bedrock commandments of these Christian con men but isn't that how they have always packaged the marketing message of their religion?  Death sells and redemption from sins, especially those associated with "thou shalt not kill" is just too tempting to use to get new blood in the door because the numbers of Christians is on the decline.

Another part of this agenda is evidenced by David Drexlar , Youth Director at the Country Bible Church  in Ashby, Minnesota who says, "We have to find something that these kids are interested in doing that doesn't involve drugs, or alcohol or premarital sex."  Those are the things that really scare the bejesus  out of the clergy and it is really no surprise.  There haven't been any (that I could find) killings of ministers, priests or pastors inside a church but there have been several episodes where these leading Christian figureheads have fallen from grace because of the evils of sex, alcohol, drugs and that evil of all evils, the lust for money.

How can we forget names like Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker who were all removed from their positions of religious power for illicit sex and, in some cases, drug use or accounting fraud.  It seems that the repression of sexual urges can burst out and tarnish the names of even good Christian men causing them to betray their partners, their flock and their entire TV ministry.  Damn the sins of the flesh!

But I have the answer for all of these Christian denominations.  It will raise boatloads of money, attract the attention of young boys and help with the healing process for the thousands of children traumatized at the hands of men of the cloth.  And it might just make the nuns feel a bit better about the world at the same time.  Here's the idea--create a violent video game where abused children hunt pedophile priests in the corridors of giant cathedrals from around the world.  Think about it.  For a small fee teams of players representing different churches could hunt child groping priests as they seek shelter in churches in different countries.  It would be educational and deeply satisfying.  The church with the most "kills" wins.

One of the best parts would be that there is no sin in this business model.  The dead priests would be forgiven by their God for the sins they have made on Earth so there is no down side there.  The shooters don't even have to worry about sinning since, as Kendrick Kenerly, founder of Christian Gamers Online points out, "I'm not walking up to someone with a pistol and shooting them.  I"m shooting pixels on a screen." 

All that is needed is a super hero replacement for their own Christian super hero--Jesus.  I have no doubt that out there somewhere some capitalist Christian has created an entire enterprise around a bible thumping super hero.  It's just a matter of time.

Glimmer of Sanity

Finally, a glimmer of sanity in the world of continuous insanity.  I don't know if you caught this one but a Spanish judge recently revoked the parental rights of a father, one Luis Miguel Gomez, for taking his 10--year old son to run with the bulls in Pamplona. This isn't like taking your kid to the water park or the amusement park where they have thrill rides and you don't watch them closely enough.  This year alone 11 people where injured in this strange ritual to find your own testosterone.

What got me in addition to the brazen stupidity of Luis is his total disregard for the rules.  According to city regulations no one under 18 years of age can run with the bulls.  As with most people Luis obviously thought that those rules were intended for other people and that he and his 10-year old son were somehow exempt from such childish limitations on deadly Spanish fun and frivolity.

I believe this judge has established precedent for taking away parental rights for parents that abdicate their role in raising their children to protect them from things that can hurt or kill them.  We see it all of the time and it is becoming

Recently I went to see an R-rated movie where a young couple had brought their two very small children.  One couldn't have been 4-years old and the other one was still small enough to require holding.  The movie obviously scared the children enough to make them cry and when I complained to the theater manager he said there was nothing he could do about it.  Well now there is!

Take a look around your everyday experience and let me know if you see anything that places children in harms way.  We all know about the hundreds of toxic compounds that our young people are continuously exposed to and while that is inexcusable it is much harder for a parent to control and protect their children from. 

Thumbing Our Noses

With the closing of the World Weekly News I was wondering if the recent newspaper story on the Dugger family wasn't just a hoax by a displaced WWN staff writer.  I couldn't believe that the quarter page story was true but there in front of me was a picture of a woman on a hospital bed holding her newest child, surrounded by her other 16 children.  That's right, it is not a typo.  The Dugger family of Arkansas now has 17 children and it doesn't seem that they are planning to stop there, at least not according to Jim Bob, the leader of the clan.

The title of the cutesy article was "Counting Noses" but I immediately thought it should be titled "Thumbing Our Noses" because that is just what Jim Bob and Michelle are doing to the rest of the world by having so many kids.  I don't know about you but there is something obscene and rapacious about that level of reproduction.  It is not a "gift from God" as this family believes but more of a blight on the world at large.  Anyone not wedded to Fox News knows that there are vast populations around the world living in abject poverty without enough food or clean water for themselves, let alone their families.

But here in America's Heartland affluent (by global standards) hard core Christians reproduce like a demonic duplicators cranking out mega-consumer after mega-consumer who will waste more food and water each year than are consumed by small villages in Asia.  This one family, now so large that they may need their own zip code, seems to think that this is all predestined by their God, a supreme being who just loves to laugh because he knows humans aren't smarter than microbes.

The volatile mixture of far right wing ideology with delusional divinity gives us these mega-families who believe that they have the right to make as many consumers as they want as long as they pay for their production.  As long as they aren't on welfare or food stamps or other government handouts then it is perfectly fine to procreate until you have your own congregation to interpret the good book to.

If this family, who proclaim their love for the Lord and their faith in Jesus Christ, love children so damn much why don't they open up their hearts and wallet to the orphans of the world?  If not the world, then how about the orphans here in the United States?  There are thousands of children that could use the vast amounts of love this family declares it has.  What is stopping Jim Bob and his amazingly fertile wife Michelle from tying off their tubes (his or hers) and untying the purse strings so that a few orphans can have a fair chance at making a life for themselves?

But we all know it isn't about love or religion or the good work of the Lord.  It is about that fiendish fifteen minutes of fame that is more addicting than heroin and that leads to that holiest of all grails--corporate sponsorship.  This foundation for future fortune was laid down with the Dugger Family Website.  It allowed them to position themselves for the possibility of wealth accumulation and God knows they must need some money to support all those children.  The question I have is how on Earth can this family have time to host a freaking website! 

Don't get me wrong.  These Dugger's are smart and they are demonstrating that the right-wing Christian coalition is better at business then the liberal-minded, minimal children nature worshiping heathens trying to profit by going green and saving the Earth. They have made it to the America mainstream by having their own show on the Discovery channel, a web page on Discovery Health and a game called "Name That Dugger". 

If that doesn't say Brand America I don't know what does!

Perceiving Alternatives

It's interesting how a little change in perspective can alter the way a perceived problem is addressed.  Take the issue of illegal drug smuggling.  Two countries are prioritizing different "drugs" that are being targeted for eradication and according to their standards and success indicators they are cracking down like a horde of caffeinated chiropractors.   These successes have resulted in larger volumes of illegal contraband being confiscated than ever before.

The question facing the regulatory agencies is what to do with all this contraband now that they have it?  For Sweden this amounted to over 185,000 gallons of alcohol that was seized by the Custom Service last year.  While they used to pour it down the drain this much alcohol required a new solution to the disposal problem.  Fortunately for the Swedes they were able to think outside the box and soon realized that the alcohol could be used as an alternative fuel for the public transportation system.  I guess they sort of intuited that material collected by a public agency should be first used for the public good. 

Here in the United States our priority drug to eradicate is marijuana.  The National Drug Intelligence Center estimates that the "eradication team" of cooperating agencies ripped out over 2, 200 metric tons of marijuana in 2006.  The reader is advised that the above link takes you to a page of an unknown government agency providing information on illegal activities here in the United States. What kind of agency is this, really?  And what happens to you if you click on the site?

What do we do with most of the seized marijuana?  Why here in the United States of America we burn it.  That's right, we set it on fire, not only to waste a valuable medicinal plant but also to throw away a fuel source while adding to the problem of climate change through the release of greenhouse gases.  We don't have the sense to utilize the material for anything positive.  Instead, we try to make it go away as quickly as possible because, you know, people could like fire up and veg on the couch while voting for American Idol.

Now I want to be the first to campaign for the use of all confiscated marijuana in this country as a fuel source for public transportation or at the very least sent to a plant that burns agricultural waste for electricity generation.  I mean how naive can we be?  We spend all of this money to collect the marijuana and the best we can do is burn it?  Please!!!!

Besides, I'm so tired of smelling the veggie oil Mercedes wagons stinking up the highways as they burn McDonald's fryer grease.  I would much rather be pleasantly surprised to pull up behind an unassuming city bus and catch a whiff of White Dwarf or Purple Haze coming from the tail pipe.   It would certainly make my commuting so much better knowing my community was using green fuel in public transportation.  And who knows, it might even be the boost that we need to get more people to get on board. 

 

When will they ever learn?

Well, it looks like the oil heads are at it once again.  They are turning global catastrophe into the shortest of short term gains by rushing to claim all of the oil and natural gas rights under the melting Arctic ice cap.  That's right, they are intent on getting the last drops of oil and natural gas available on the planet and pumping it into the atmosphere, customers be damned!

This race to the top is really about the bottom being pulled out from under every life form on the planet because as any person not under the hypnotic spell of the Paris Hilton media slight-of-eye will understand the answer to global climate change is not the burning of more fossil fuels.  Regardless of where they are found or how much of them are left to be exploited, we can not fill up our tanks and drive away from the problem.  What fuelish logic do these scientists apply to convince the governments of Russia and the United States to invest citizen dollars to prove that these resources belong to the corporations residing in one country or another?

But it may be the Goddess of natural lubricants who gets the last laugh on this one.  The leaders of the American oil junkies in the US Congress have been arguing since 1994 about how much power the Law of the Sea Treaty gives to the United Nations.  For 13 years they have been unable to ratify this treaty that over 150 other nations have agreed to and now they may have put American oil addicts at risk of losing their daily petroleum fix in the very near future .  Just the thought of going through fossil withdrawal has started to take its toll on even the most stalwart servants of the environmental movement.

I'm talking about Stuart Brand, James Lovelock and Hugh Montefiore and others who are advocating nuclear power as the safe alternative to reducing CO2 emissions. Soon they and their followers, scared out of their wits by the thought of a world without petroleum, will be advocating along with the oil slick representatives in Washington for liquefied coal plants and increased investments in clean coal technology.  If we get scared enough maybe we can even get the autotrophic auto heads in Detroit to come up with a versatile sports van for soccer moms that runs on medical waste!  That way when little Jacob or Emily breaks their ankle mom can fill up while the tots get their X-rays.

With geoscientists plunging ahead convincing corporations and governments to pour money into extracting more oil and natural gas, and old guard environmentalists calling for massive increases in water use for nuclear energy while more mounds of virulent waste gets generated, we have our planetary work cut out for us all.  Our best minds and passionate scientists are throwing in the towel and taking the deadly way out.  That is why we can not and we will not stop advocating for investments in energy efficiency and renewable power.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get us out of this mess but it sure appears that they and their kindred spirits are doing everything they can to keep us in the biggest one of all!

Marketing the New and Improved Religion

This just in!  The marketing news we have all been waiting for.  The Vatican is set to dump limbo!  Of course the Pope didn't just decide this on his own.  The Vatican's International Theological Commission spent several years on this thorny issue and God only knows how they were able to come to this conclusion or what evidence they used to substantiate their position.  What is certain, according the Vatican, is that unbaptiszed babies who die do not go to limbo anymore.  They go straight to Heaven.

Of course the issue of limbo is a concern for the Vatican because infant mortality rates are very high in the Catholicism growth regions of the world. Not only is the Church up against some competing faiths in these areas but worse yet, new converts are having to come to grips with a belief system that worships a harsh and vindictive Supreme Being, one who would banish unbaptized babies who die to the no place of limbo.  What kind of God is that?

The cultivation of these new Christian consumers, many of them in Africa, requires that seemingly radical measures like eliminating limbo be implemented quickly lest they begin to question the institution of expedient explotation delivered by the missionaries of capitalism.  For as the good book says "they all cometh seeking money and gold, yet findth thy oil."

The Niger Delta in Nigeria is one example of what the Vatican is distressed about. Oil corporations, those bulldozers of capitalism, are plundering the people and the environment to such an extent that women have commendered oil terminals and gunmen attack vessels supporting the oil rigs. The flock of cardinals and bishops have to know that people so desperate that they risk their unbaptized lives to stop the pillage of their ancestral lands will also be questioning the attributes of the merciful Heavenly Father that the Vatican is selling.  If the God marketed by the Vatican can be cruel enough to send dead unbaptized babies into the eternal void, what else will he do?  Will he also chuck into hell the souls of those brave enough to stand-up to the corporations and stop the harsh and cruel business practices that defile the earth and contaminate the commons?

The marketing coup from limbo elimination may actually prove to be short-lived and could be the beginnings of the Vatican's undoing.  Without the "limbo buffer" there are no more gray areas, just the black and white of heaven and hell.  This is good news for many of the world's poor since their lives are already hell on earth.   With the limbo ruling they are now guarenteed full passage to heaven without any baptismal rituals or endless church donations needing to be suffered by them.

Praise the Lord!   

 

It's Just Greenwash

It's everywhere!  Eco-green is the new shade of marketing this season and almost every magazine, newspaper and TV talk show is jumping on the environmental bandwagon to demonstrate that they are serious about the issue of severe climate change and impending global upheaval that is predicted to result from the lack of any country doing much of anything serious about it.

Nowhere is this clarion call for action demonstrated to really be more of a gleeful cackle of corporate executives ringing up profits than in the latest Vanity Fair "2nd Annual Green Issue" sporting on its cover a striking pose of a Leonardo DiCaprio who is so hot the ice he is standing on is actually melting under his feet.  Next to him is the cute polar bear cub Knut, Berlin's rock star of endangered species, who is generating controversy on his own as Animal Rights activists call for his execution due to his being raised by humans instead of his mother.

What gives away the real agenda of the Vanity Fair senior honchos isn't the horde of sexually oriented advertisements selling the scents, clothes, jewelry and cars you will need to generate the animal magnetism necessary to attract men and women of the caliber of desirability shown in the layouts.  No, we all know that advertising revenue is the bread and butter of these magazines.  Without it we won't be able to have articles like Jungle Law, Global Citizens and Quiet Thunder in this edition. What really gives it away is the disgusting Diesel "Global Warming Ready" ads beginning on page 173.

In the first ad a sexy young woman drives a motorboat loaded with shopping bags away from a partially submerged London.  Her pouty lips and firm inner thighs convey a sense of consumer confidence that overcomes even the inconveniences of global warming.  In the next ad a man and woman share an intimate glass of water on a sun drenched roof with a submerged Manhattan skyline in the background.  In the final ad a man smears sunscreen on a woman embracing a palm tree on a beach while the eyes of Mount Rushmore presidents peer just above the waves.

How can Vanity Fair allow this kind of advertising in a "Green" issue?  Because the green is the shade of money and the editors at this magazine have no standards which prevent accepting advertising money from a company named Diesel of all things, that promotes "successful living" in the form of dressing in expensive denim, unbuttoned shirts and preparing to fornicate while the rest of the world slowly sinks below the raising water.

Remember, nothing says debauchery quite like Diesel!