A year or so ago I did a column on how much we could all save if we did away with plastic grocery bags — the annual consumption, I calculated, in the United States equals Utah’s entire oil production, and Utah is 10th in the nation in oil production.

Which is to say, we don’t produce a whole lot, but in these days when we’re sending billions to Saudi Arabia to buy oil from people who hate us and call us infidels and hold television telethons to raise money for suicide bombers in Israel, should we really be taking any of our oil, at all, and using it for disposable bags? Probably not.

Not to mention, the silly things cost 5 cents each. That’s a lot of money, especially when you consider the dimwit who usually bags my groceries only puts three items in each bag.

Anyway, Florida is discussing a proposal (click here) to do away with plastic bags, phasing them out and then charging people 25 cents each if they do use them. When Ireland instituted a similar fee for plastic bags a few years ago they disappeared overnight. It’s being attacked as a horrible huge tax on the poor, but it seems to be the poor are as able to buy a reusable bag as anyone else, especially since they only cost a buck each, can hold what three plastic bags can hold (6 if you get the kid who bags mine) and will pay for themselves many times over.

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In a post right below  here, Doug Gibson looks at recent polling data and wonders why more Americans call themselves conservative, but the Republican Party is losing ground.

I posted a response to him there, but thought I’d expand on it here.

I’ve been telling Doug for some time now that the terms “Republican” and “Conservative” don’t mean anything any more. Same thing goes for “liberal” and “democrat.”

You can be conservative (the adjective) without being A CONSERVATIVE (the noun) if you catch my drift — the title is totally disassociated from the action, and the Republican Party even more so. In Nixon’s Checkers speech he said his wife Pat had “a good Republican cloth coat,” and he chose that phrase very carefully because the Republican party fancies itself as the party of the common man, and the common man watches his pennies.

I’m conservative because that is how I lead my life — simply, cheaply, with an affinity for small consumption, little govenrment intrusion and a demand that government pay for what it buys, just like me.

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There is a fixed deposit of $24.5m usd in my bank branch (Hang Seng Bank,Hong
Kong) where i am a director and i am ready to share 50/50 with you if you
choose to stand as my deceased client’s next of kin. if interested mail me at
the address below: (email removed.  sorry. this is my game.)
Yours Truly,
Ming Yang.

One has to wonder where the anti-Christ will appear. There is speculation in some circles that he will reveal himself (herself?) in a more disassociated way then as a mere human being-type person.

Consider the cell phone.

An article in the NYTimes (here) describes the remaining 15 percent of the population that hasn’t been enfolded in the warm embrace of the cell phone yet. In 20 years this new technology has grown, Borg like (Blob-like, for us older types) and it looks as if it is going to take a lot more than phaser or fire extinguishers to make it all stop.

It is interesting that an entire technology has grown to encompass 85 percent of the population in a mere 20 years or so. Billions of dollars of the economy depend on it now. Sure would be cool if they made those things in this country.

But I digress.

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I see where the White House is lashing out at former Veep Dick Cheney (WaPost story here) because the former Veep is saying President Obama is taking too long — “Dithering” — on his decision over Afghanistan troop levels.

Why can’t someone get this jerk to shut up? No, seriously.

This is beyond irresponsible. Sending troops to war is not a thing to be done hastily because making a mistake in that decision will get people killed.

One really has to wonder what the real agenda of Cheney, and perhaps the military who are leaking their reports about the war, is in this matter. Why are they in such a hurry? Why the rush to get soldiers killed?

This war was messed up on their watch when they didn’t just dither; they delayed, procrastinated, sat on their hands and them moved their efforts somewhere else. NOW, when the decision is not theirs, they want to act quickly?

Afghanistan is a place only fools rush in to, and we did, eight years ago. We’re paying the price for that foolishness now in treasure and funerals.

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heres a lot of discussion about a talk that LDS authority Dallin Oaks made a bit ago. Our editorial is HERE (CLICK) A political cartoon by Bagley at the SLTribune (go find it yourself, but it’s worth the hunt) is going viral.

In addition to wondering why members of a church that suffered incredibly unfair discrimination at the hands of Bible thumpers would turn around and sanction, in any way shape or form, discrimination against anyone else is beyond me. I was particuly puzzled, also, by Oaks statements about atheism, saying it is hostile to religion.

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I made a sad observation at the Golden Hours Center the other day while listening to a POW from the Vietnam War speak.

While waiting for the speaker to start, I talked with several of the people there, all older people of course. As usual, a lot of them liked the column and had to come say so.

One woman surprised me when she said “I would like to shake your hand but they tell us we can’t touch anyone or hug anyone,” and that was about the time I noted the large economy sized bottle of hand sanitizer on every table in the place.

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Ok, maybe not the real end, such as the Mayan Calender running out so we’re all going to go “pfft!” some day, but interesting national stories that do show that, essentially, we as individuals have little real power to protect ourselves against the corporate masters increasingly turning themselves into feudal lords.

Consider this story in the NYTimes (click!) about a woman who had a “angus select” hamburger and was paralyzed by the resulting e-coli which, the story makes clear, even following FDA food preparations guidelines might not have prevented because the stuff is so dangerous.

I was struck by several things in the story — the comparisons to practices in Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” are inevitable and reasonably accurate. The statements by the head of the FDA that he can’t require better testing because it might make things hard for the industry, and he can’t do that, of course. Which raises the question, who’s on our side if our own govenrment doesn’t put our safety first?

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