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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
sockpuppet22
Published Letters: 114 Editor's Choice: 4
I am very surprised by the increasingly apocalyptic strain of environmentalists posting on salon. It runs the gamut from saying the Earth is dangerously overpopulated (where's the evidence), global warming will be the end of the world, to having a child is the worst thing you could do for the planet. There was a time in the Earth's history, some 55 million years ago, when temperatures in the Arctic ocean were in the mid-70s F. This was most certainly not caused by human activity since there were no humans on planet Earth then. The dinosaurs lived on this planet for about 135 millions years, 67 times longer than homo-sapiens has existed as a species on this planet. The only reason the dinosaurs aren't around today, is because a 6 mile wide asteroid landed off the coast of Mexico 65 Million years ago, sending a cloud of vaporized rock around the world, killing of the dinosaurs, and allowing mammals to become the dominant species. I am sure there are some of you who would be glad at the thought of an asteroid wiping out the planet, because then evil humanity wouldn't be around to wreak environmental disaster to the environment. So in the face of all of this, you're telling me that a few extra tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a couple of degrees of atmospheric warming, will be the end of all life as we know it, and the only way to mitigate that disaster is to commit collective sepuku. I wonder, do you think a lion feels remorse when he kills a zebra, or that if you tell a grizzly bear how much you love the environment he won't tear your head off. Of course not, why, because that's nature, that's the environment. It is not some idealized forest where ancient elves dwell and birds sing happy songs. It's asteroids wiping out species, animals eating each other, young people dying in the woods for stupid reasons, and one species coming to dominate his environment, namely us. I have yet to be convinced that even if the worst nightmares of the environmental movement came true, that it would be the end of the world. Ironically, if all this gloom and doom did come about, there is one species that would most certainly survive, albeit in smaller numbers: humanity. If some super virus concocted by a mad scientist wiped out 90% of humans, it would still leave 600 million people, a far larger number than the small band of humans who left Africa all those millennia ago. So why all this sky is falling bullshit. So if you want to do something for the environment: walk more. Go ahead and have kids, even get on a plane once in while, in the long run we're all dead anyway.
I find it very hard to defend the concept of 'celebrity privacy'. It's not like someone puts a gun to their heads and says 'you're gonna' be famous dammit'. If anything it's the opposite. How long do you think it would be when Brad Pitt/J-Lo/LaLohan et. al. lose their celebrity cache before they'd be the next guest in celebrity house, or whatever, on VH1. Not very long. The whole concept of 'leave them alone, there just like you and me' is laughable. Being a celebrity is a choice. You can choose not to do outrageous things to get attention, you can choose to stay home and play scrabble. You can chose to eat right and not be anorexic. But the don't, the crave the attention. If they wanted the big bucks, and the privacy, they would have gone to business school and worked on Wall St, where you make as much, or more, that a Hollywood actor, but no one outside your office knows your name. But they don't
E.g, I recently saw the Kiera Nightly interview on CBS Sunday Morning recently, when she talked about suing a Newspaper for publishing non-doctored photos of her anorexic frame while claiming that she was shocked when she heard what they said about her. WTF, you don't like someone pointing out your health problems, yet you wanna be the next Meryl Streep.
Or when Kirsten Dunst was talking about how Spiderman was so over yet she's making $20Mil per picture. How much you want to bet that in ten years she'll be like remember me, I was in Spiderman. I'm looking at you Rick Springfield.
So when someone gushes over seeing so-and-so on Houston and Bleecker, you shouldn't be like, you're a psycho what's wrong wit you. I say move to Iowa or France or whatever if you, as a celebrity, don't want someone noticing you, god forbid.
Congratulations on your recent article for the NY Times! Someone's moving up to the big leagues! It's totally awesome!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16wwln-idealab-t.html?ref=magazine
It's totally awesome;)
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
