Editorial Conundrum

I’m in a bit of an editorial quandary.  Last year I ran a pro-wind piece extolling the virtues of sustainable wind power.  I don’t claim any special expertise on the subject other than being surrounded by a sea of these devices here in the Umwelt-sensitive district of Munsterland.   That said, I am in extremely close proximity to these devices.  They’re everywhere.   My enthusiasm for the technology caught the attention of some anti-windfarm group because there’s been an attempt to inject some anti-wind propaganda into the comment thread on that piece.

I’ve never blocked or banned a comment on this blog that wasn’t outright spam.  I even let the haters and the trolls take their shots.  I am willing to risk the potential of PTSD because, as a Vietnam-era service member, I know that shell shock is a risk of battle.  It’s been that way for men as long as there have been men.  But I digress.  This is not about my particular sensitivity to criticism or inability to take as good an ad hominem homo-baiting as the best of the Tea Party ‘tards has to offer.  It’s about whether I give exposure to what I consider is a coordinated attempt at consumer misinformation and propaganda.

Part of me wants to expose the anti-wind shill/idiot(s) involved.  Another part of me is reluctant to give them any publicity at all.  It’s an editorial conundrum I’ve not encountered in the past.  I’ve reviewed the material and visited the websites of the links that were attempted to be placed in my comment section and find them to be total rubbish and some of the more transparent anti-wind FUD propaganda I’ve ever seen.

About the only crazy claim not being made by these lunatics is that the windmills are somehow dragging down the rotational speed of the the Earth.

Just to give you one example of something we’re all suppose to be deathly afraid of?  The possibility of an out-of-control fire in one of these generators!!  As if a relatively small fire once in a blue moon, on a tower a high up in the middle of a field somewhere is suppose to be more scary than global warming or nuclear accident?  Give me a break.  It’s insulting.

Even though it would be fun to deconstruct the rather transparent attempts at misdirecting the public discussion on renewable wind power generation, I am going to set it aside for now unless prodded to do otherwise by an overwhelming request from the masses.

Enjoy.

 

The Heretics Hayride

Here’s a spring gift that I hope my aging tech, geek, atheist, skeptic, and nimble-minded Euro-youth niches will all appreciate.  I’m pretty sure I’ll offend, applaud or confuse quite a few other niches along the way.  As always, join at your own risk. I don’t want to read or watch whiny Youtube videos about a bunch of hurt feelings when everybody laughs at you for falling off the back of the skeptic’s hay wagon.

If there isn’t enough hay to begin with, there’s a good chance I might be able to stir up a little extra along the way.  Hold the horses!! Heretic HQ just called to tell me that if there are no rules of conduct, then the ride cannot be certified by the head of the Atheistplus Action committee, the formerly estimable Dr. Richard Carrier (aka Debbie Downer).  Since this blog insists on inclusiveness and I have been accused of being something a tad south of totally gracious, here goes:

The Heretic Hayride rules of conduct are as follows:

Leave your pets at home (no #carrierpigeon allowed).  Be aware that our path crosses the known territory of a doughy looking, blue-haired Siren, as well as a cinnamon skinned fuzzy-haired monster.  DO NOT attempt to approach either one. The latter is known to have hair trigger rage issues and an incredibly acute sense of hearing. Snap a PIC, Tweet to World, Call security, write blogpost, but DON’T be foolish enough to confront either of them directly if we have the misfortune of making their encounter.  Keep your arms inside the wagon at all times and avoid loose or dangling jewelry.  Dongle type earrings are known to be specially prone to snagging.

Having to construct and conform to arbitrary rules of conduct took all the fun out of the adventure, so the ride has been officially cancelled for today.

Enjoy.

Blaming Xenu

Despite creationist protestations to the contrary , I understand that I can’t “prove” that Jeebus “speaks” to me with any kind of scientific rigor, (at least not the kind that actual scientists “believe in“).

In the hazy shadows provided by the dictates of “non overlapping magisteria“, Jeebus has every right to reach out to anybody he wants and to tag any old reprobate as his messenger, making me as logical a choice as anybody, now that Hitch is dead.

The message Jeebus seems to be beaming to me lately is, like the visions of TV show psychics and spiritualists, a tad lacking in specifics.  If you don’t keep that foremost in your mind, you could end up as crazy as a teenage kid bent on digging around a forest for mysterious Golden Plates.

It is undoubtedly just part of Jeebus‘ mysterious ways that the messages people get from him are so often mixed and garbled.  With all those caveats in mind, the BEST I can sort out of Jeebus’ message to me, because of background chatter from the Xenu Inter-Galactic Network, is this:

Whenever anybody “likes”, “retweets”, “follows”, “favorites” or “subscribes” to any of my web posts, Jeebus bends down and pats his dog on the head, baby bunnies smile, and at least one old man gets a tingle in his nether regions.

So it is written. So it shall be done.

Enjoy.