Down with | - Part 15

Down with Organic Food

Posted by Ralph at 11:58 Down with

Nov 032013

Don’t Eat That!

Everybody is telling us how unhealthy our food it these days. Everywhere you look, they tell you that artificial fertilizers and chemicals have ruined our food supply. The fruits and vegetables at the supermarkets aren’t safe. They aren’t healthy. In fact, according to conventional wisdom, they are killing us. Well, I say bullshit to all that. These are the same Luddites that tell us we have to stop driving cars because technology is causing global warming. They are hysterical fools and if you believe them you are nothing but a sheep..

Take your pick – Pests? Pesticides?

Think about it. Why is it that we use pesticides in the first place? Duh! We don’t like bugs in our food or we don’t like it when the bugs get first shot at it. We like our fruit to look and taste good. We like our food without pests. That is what pesticides do. They get rid of pests.

Eat ugly

“Not good enough!” say the ‘experts. For your health you should eat the ugly, blotched organic stuff from the local market or, if you are Bill Gates, you can get the gorgeous, pampered organic stuff from Whole Foods. But does it really matter, health-wise? I say no.

Pesticides kill pests.

First of all, think about the word pesticide. What is the prime directive for a pesticide? You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that it is to kill pests. Pesticides kill pests. We don’t call them humanicides! They aren’t designed to kill humans. With a few notable exceptions, humans are not pests. If you want to kill humans with pesticides, you would have to drown them in the stuff. The small amounts that are still present on the foods we buy hardly register to our bodies,

Scared of the big C?

This means nothing to the ‘experts’ who want us to live in caves and eat wormy, bug infested food. ‘Pesticides cause cancer,’ they shriek, They ignore the reality that those tests use thousands of times the quantities on rats that are prone to tumors in the first place. Well, I say that carrots and potatoes cause cancer too, if you eat enough of them.

Grow up!

I’m not paying for organic food and I’m not buying the hype that I am going to die unless I eat buggy organics or use up my life savings shopping at Whole Foods. I say that a little pesticide never hurt anybody. I can’t say that about bugs.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Seat Belt Laws

Posted by Ralph at 09:16 Down with

Oct 252013

There is a big campaign going on in California. Cash Cow Cops, this time the California Highway Patrol (CHP) have bought billboards up and down the state warning us to “Click it or ticket”. This catchy little slogan means that if the Cash Cow Cops catch you without your seatbelt fastened, they will pull you over and you will pay $142. Nanny state progressives are forever going on about how many lives seat belts save and how much it costs us when people are injured. Spare no cost, they tell us, to save the lives of fools. What has this country come to?

Or pay my salary.

I can remember back in high school, cars didn’t have seat belts and when they were first offered, it was as a ‘safety’ option. Gradually, car manufacturers were forced to provide seat belts on all cars. Then we had seat belts and a shoulder belt. This was a really awkward and uncomfortable arrangement until somebody figured out that you could combine them. Still, it was your choice. Wear the seat belt and protect your life. Don’t wear the seatbelt and die. Darwin would decide.

This was completely unacceptable for nanny state progressives however and seat belt laws hit California in 1986. We want you to wear seat belts, they told us, because we love you but we would never make the police ticket you. That didn’t last long because nothing riles a nanny state progressive more than somebody doing something that is bad for them. They care so much about me that it just bunches up their underwear when I do something that risks my well being. Even my mother didn’t care so much.

So, of course, they had to use the Cash Cow Cops to make us pay for our reckless behavior and to save us from the uncontrolled hospital costs for the bad apples. California is a financial basket case but we do have the resources to change the focus of the CHP from keeping the traffic flowing to being home room monitors. The additional revenue will help keep those officers’ tanks full and we all can feel good that we are no longer responsible for our own destinies since the state is now keeping us in line.

Now just to be clear, I am no dummy; no Darwin reject, I. I use my seat belt because I want to live if I have an accident. What I resent is anybody telling me to do it because they know what is best. That is damn un-American and I resent it. I have every right as an American to be a damn fool so long as I don’t hurt anybody else in the process. If I don’t wear a seat belt, I am the one at risk. Everybody else is as safe as they want to be. No where in the Constitution does it say that the state is going to step in and protect me from being a fool but that is where we are going today. Maybe you think the nanny state progressives are right and that I must be forced for my own good to wear a seat belt but as you support them, think about what they will do once they have us all clicking those seat belts. Do you want them to tell you what to eat? No more fast food for you! Look out because it is coming. Nothing can stop a nanny state progressive when it comes to keeping you safe.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with- Ugly Cars

Posted by Ralph at 04:47 Down with

Sep 212013

Pop Quiz

The exercise for today is easy. Tell me the last time you saw a car that made you sit up and notice? Bonus points if you exclaimed out loud. “Damn, that car is hot! I’ve got to get me one.” Take your time. We will wait.

Finding a sweet looking car is hard

Did you come up blank? We sure did. It is tough today. It isn’t that there aren’t some knockout cars. It is just that they cost a gazillion dollars and if you live in backwater Sacramento, you are never going to see one, let alone ‘get you one.’ Today the run of the mill car is not so much ugly as boring. They all look alike. Have you noticed that there is one shape? It doesn’t matter what the make or hardly the model. Because of the dangers from the airbags, you can’t let children ride in the front seat so only swinging singles buy two door cars these days and the evolution of the sedan into an all-purpose vehicle with a hatch is virtually universal. It is hard here not to get sidetracked into a rant dedicated to the safety features mandated by the government but we are focused here on the topic at hand – cars today are pedestrian and indistinguishable.

Are we all mindless cogs?

So everybody drives some sort of four door car with cargo space in the back and you can’t tell a Subaru from a Saab (oh wait, Saab is dead so I guess you can tell). I don’t know who to blame for this. There are so many possibilities but I think you have to give the final award to the guys that buy the things. What kind of life must we be living these days if these cars give us a thrill? Why else would you put out the kind of money that used to buy a house for one of these eyesores.

But back to ugly

We haven’t even started with the truly ugly cars- the ones that make you want to stab your eyes out every time you pass one. You know the ones I mean – the Prius for starters with it’s odd front end and the two part greenhouse in the back, Even in the dark old days of the 80’s never did GM think up a car design that ugly. Then there are the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of ugliness, the Scion and the Cube. Fortunately people don’t seem to be buying these so I don’t have to scream in pain too often on the road.

So now it is time for group participation. Why do you think cars are so boring? What are you doing about it? Have we missed an ugly that needs ridicule? Let us know. And if you drive one of the real eyesores, share with us, for the love of God, why.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Cash Cow Cops

Posted by Ralph at 05:57 Down with, rants

Sep 192013

Got a traffic ticket lately?

Have you noticed lately? Politicians are so desperate to get more of your money that they are turning cops into cash registers. They have tweaked the timing on the traffic lights so you can’t possibly make it through before it turns red. There used to be no problem at an intersection. If it changed to yellow after you entered, you could feel confident that there was time enough and even when it turned red it was OK so long as you entered on a yellow. Those days are long gone. Not only is the time too short for you to make it through on a yellow, the money changers have turned our crime fighters into cash cows. They must have some pretty hefty quotas because somehow they are always right there when you run that light.

It’s not chump change anymore

It’s not trivial money either. My son recently got a ticket which ran him over $600 before he was finished. This is for running a red light or to be more accurate for failing to go fast enough to get through the intersection on the almost non-existent yellow light. First there was the fine itself of about $300 or so – pure gravy for the city since the cops are already a sunk cost. Then the court gets involved to get your incident appropriately recorded. Of course, to keep the ticket off your record you have to sign up for one of the approved traffic schools. That takes another $200 or so. Then when you think you are done and you try to pay with a credit card online, they charge you another $18. There is so much wrong with this whole process, I don’t know where to start. Everybody knows about the legendary speed trap cities in the South where the cops would ticket travelers to fund city operations. You can understand that. Fleece the travelers and the locals will love you but when you fleece your own taxpayers just because they balk at raising taxes is a sure way to disaster.

Remember Andy Griffith?

Cops have always been good guys. They stand between you and criminals. They protect you from danger. We always tell our kids to look for a cop if they are in trouble. Anymore I don’t know about that. I can’t say that my son has the warm fuzzies for cops every since one chased him into our driveway and ticketed him after he unfastened his seat belt when he turned into our block. Now after his recent ticket, I don’t think his first thought is that the cops are my friend. I don’t think he is alone in that thought. I don’t have much respect for cops with a mission to collect my money either. That isn’t what I pay taxes for. It doesn’t make me feel secure that they are still spending any time stopping real crime. I am suspicious about their prime directive and I no longer trust them.

The breakdown of civilization

For me that is the problem with turning cops into cash cows because what make civil society work is the belief that wrong doing will be punished and that the cops will protect us. It is hard to hold that belief when all around we see that the cops see us as merely as sheep to be fleeced.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Down with Pessimism!

Posted by Ralph at 05:57 Down with

Sep 192013

“I’d be astounded if this planet is still going by 50 years from now. I don’t think we will reach 2000. It would be miraculous.” Alistair Cook

Alistair was the spokesman for the BBC Masterpiece Theater Productions on PBS for twenty years until the 90’s. He was the epitome of British erudition for middle brow Americans in the 70’s and 80’s where he would introduce each episode of those classy TV shows. I never knew that he was also a credible reporter and an American by choice but he represented British class for me growing up. Apparently he was a pessimist as well. Despite his pessimism, he lived to the ripe old age of 96, fathered Janis Joplin’s manager and confidant and lived in a rent-controlled New York apartment until his death. He didn’t die until 2004 well after his predicted end of the world. There is no record that he revised his drop dead date.

: Image via Wikipedia

It is fashionable to be pessimistic. It is also hip and cool to be pessimistic. It is also safe to be pessimistic because nobody ever demands that you pay the price when those predictions are wrong. Look at Malthus and Paul Ehrlich who were sure that over population would destroy the plant momentarily. We are in far greater risk from under population than over population these days and the economic damage of low fertility is apparent in Japan and Europe. China is overpopulated with horny young men because of their one child birth control program but the regime still thrives. Pessimism may be costly but no one ever seems to pay the price for it.

It’s the same story with the doom and gloom about the health of our poor planet. I can’t get excited about the idea that anything done by man will have much of an impact on the earth’s health. Every dramatic change in the past has been caused by some cataclysm much more significant than anything man can do. The earth may end as we know it at any moment but if it does, it won’t be because of anything I did or didn’t do. Nevertheless we glorify anybody who suggests that the earth is going to hell in a hand basket and beat ourselves up about plastic grocery bags.

The evidence is pretty good that the pessimists are wrong. They might appear right in the short run but the planet and the human race seem intent on continuing to keep going strong. You may get short run satisfaction with pessimism. You might get adulation and money like Al Gore. Still you have to remember the long term. If you are a pessimist like old Alistair, be careful about publishing your predictions. You might just out live them.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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