Frazz by Jef Mallett for August 27, 2013

Sadly – I see tons of air fuel exhaust pollution dumping over our crops and causing health issues. Just so some spoiled person can get to a “disney” type vacation faster.

I see a global illuminati conspiracy to poison us with mind-control chemicals and sterilize the hoi-polloi, thus rendering us incapable on focusing on the real reason for crop circles. It’s true! I saw it on the Internet!

Methinks it is like a weasel.

Nice plug for TED.

Some of us got up in a sour mood today…

An Excerpt from the Notebooks Of Lazarus Long:

There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who “love Nature” while deploring the “artificialities” with which “Man has spoiled Nature.” The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of “Nature”—but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his for love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers’ purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the “Naturist” reveals his hatred for his own race—i.e., his own self-hatred. In the case of “Naturists” such self-hatred is understandable; they are a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate. As for me, willy-nilly, I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being a part of a race made up of men and women—it strikes me as a fine arrangement and perfectly “natural” Believe it or not, there were “Naturists” who opposed the first flight to old Earth’s Moon as being “unnatural” and a “despoiling of Nature.”

Y’know, high-bandwidth digital video (aka “telepresence”) was supposed to make all that flying-between-conference-rooms stuff obsolete. Yet, if anything, there’s more business travel than ever. Why? The best explanation I’ve heard (in part because it matches my experience when I was traveling on business) is that most business meetings aren’t really about their supposed subject—they’re really about establishing and confirming unspoken cultural roles. In particular, the power relationships—the fact that person A must go through the inconvenience and expense of flying to meet with person B. Or that person B, by dragging people from all over into a conference room to meet with person A, confirms that person A is higher-status (and the people person B dragged in for this meeting? just props, ultimately).

As mentioned earlier, population density is a major factor. Plus, the cost would be enormous to build a high-speed rail system across the country. It might be easier in the western states, as the Federal gov’t owns most of the land but in the eastern states? Lastly, do the taxpayers have the stomach for another bankrupt public transit system, this time on the Federal level? Most public transit systems (even the touted European ones) do not turn a profit. http://www.demographia.com/db-htld-rail.htm

Of course, that source is a decade old.

Only in Germany,France,Spain,UK and Italy have high speed trains. Other countries have good regular systems. Switzerland would be impossible to have high speed trains except for the TGV Geneva-Paris run.

Sorry, FrazzPeople can’t look up without seeing unpleasant things…

Because bullet trains would involve government, working together across state borders for the good of all, and might just possibly suggest that government – as the instrumentality of society – could succeed at making society and people’s lives better. And because no single company would make a buck on it. And because airplanes can go more places than rails nailed to the ground, justifying expensive construction projects to build airports in lots of congressional districts.

Plus the US is just so darn big. Once you get away from the densely populated coasts, there’s a LOT of terrain to cover.

Hello Kitty mooning him? Do you understand that from now on I won’t be able to look at clouds without thinking about this? The horror!

Nabuq is a crank and a troll. He likes to comment on newspaper websites, especially, but not limited to, comics. He’s published several books, including “Global Warming, Challenged.” He considers the scientific theory of anthropogenic climate change to be “religion.” He calls himself, nonetheless, a scientist and a theologian.

Our public transport system isn’t nearly that developed. Most experts think it’s because the Automobile came along before we finished building it, so we never finished. That and the large spaces involved here in the US. I would like traveling by rail myself but Amtrack doesn’t have service in the south, so there are only a few local service ones.I remember, as a child, taking the train to visit my Grandparents farm. We would get off in the middle of nowhere, no station even, and walk over a hill then there it was. Good times.

I agree. I don’t know what I was thinking. :-)

“Life is easier if you don’t think about things too much”Is that what all of us should be doing?Is that advocating we should be looking at things in a different way?Or not looking at all?

actually I often fly rather than take the train to Berlin, as it is gcenerally cheaper, and if you are two or more it is always cheaper to drive.

My neighbor sees chemtrails. Then I explained that it’s just Di-hydrogen monoxide in vapor form.

I have now created a monster.