Ronald McDonald and the Food Liberation Army

No, this picture is not a fake. It is, however, a horrible spoof of an Al-Qaeda video - a spoof perpetrated by a Finnish group calling themselves the "Food Liberation Army". They have kidnapped a Ronald McDonald statue and are holding it 'hostage' unless the McDonald's corporation answers certain questions about its manufacturing process.

Questions that specifically include:

1. Why are you not open about the manufacturing processes, raw materials and additives used in your products? what are you afraid of?

2. How many tons of un-recycled waste do you produce each year? Why do you not publish that figure?

They state that if the questions are not answered, Ronald will be 'executed' on Friday the 11th of February at 6:30pm. I believe that's in England's time zone.

These kids need a goddamned Happy Meal, if you ask me. Because they apparently do like the food. Which just makes this thing 3 extra levels of ridiculous.

I found out about this news event from Fark.com, referencing me to this website which was in turn sharing the information from a UK news website. So forgive me for the fact that this is not all that new of news.

The video released by the FLA group goes on to state that "though they are fans of McDonalds burgers and fries, they believe that the food they love is being destroyed."

You. Idiots.

First of all, you're calling yourself the "Food Liberation Army" - yet you haven't liberated any goddamned food, other than into your gullets. How the fuck do you even "liberate" food in the first place? You can't set something free that's already dead, especially after it's been processed into food. All you've done so far is steal a statue and place a hood over its head in a mocking video. It's not food, and you haven't freed it. You want to KILL it. The "sweet release of death" does not count as liberation, especially since it's a fucking statue and not alive or dead at all. In fact, it has clones of itself in every damned restaurant in the franchise!

Is your next plan to rob a McDonald's of all its Chicken McNuggets, and then set them free in a field, where they can live out the rest of their days in peace? where they don't have to suffer under oppressive human rule, awaiting death by consumption, until they are... consumed by wildlife or a passerby hobo?

And how do your random questions being answered make any difference in the grand scheme of things? Un-recycled waste amounts and more detail of the ingredients used in the manufacturing process of McDonald's food? They're a publicly-traded billion-dollar company. This shit is already available information. Try asking the Food and Drug Administration, or the Health Bureau or whatever governmental body in England would have investigated and would know the manufacturing processes after approving them as upholding the health code? Hell, McDonald's spokesperson even said that they are willing to engage in constructive conversations with our customers, stakeholders and the media - which means that if you weren't acting like idiots, you'd get your answers even faster.

This is, all in all, an unnerving trend where groups of idiots think that by giving themselves a ridiculous name and spoofing acts of terrorism, that they are entitled to whatever they want and have the moral high ground.

You are wrong, Food Liberation Army. Your moniker is ridiculous. You have committed an act of theft. You have made insipid demands for information that could easily be attained through various legal channels. You have lampooned the acts of terrorists and deserve to be punished for both making light of actual horrible acts as well as encouraging others to do the same.

I know it comes as no surprise that I would side with McDonald's here, but after such an incredibly-dumb act has been perpetrated by such a group of incredibly-dumb criminals - wouldn't you agree?

What do you think? Should McDonald's negotiate with these "terrorists"? Leave a comment!

And then Digg this article!

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Kyoto Protocol Failures

I remember a slew of jokes that were circulated at least half a decade ago about how the U.S. was refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol. The thing has existed since 1997, and about 180 countries have signed and ratified the Protocol. Well, the first joke is that the U.S. did in fact sign the Kyoto Protocol. There's just no way in hell we're choosing to ratify it, which means that all of the objectives and consequences of the protocol are non-binding to the U.S. and the signature was merely symbolic.

And you know what? It's a damned good thing we didn't ratify it. Because most of the countries who did ratify it are failing and it's going to cost them over $46 billion as penalties.

Twenty nations including Japan, Italy and Australia are likely failing to meet the goals/restrictions on greenhouse-gas pollution set for their countries. The problem is that because they ratified the Kyoto Protocol and are likely going to fail to meet their requirements, the nations are required to buy permits for every excess ton of the heat-trapping gas released between 2008 and 2012.

For just those twenty nations, a London-based research group named New Carbon Finance estimates that the damage will be about 2.3 billion excess tons of greenhouse-gas emission, resulting in their forced purchase of as many permits.

Given the going rate of these permits right now, the estimated financial damage for these twenty nations will be 36 billion euros ($46 billion).

Add to that the fact that out of those 130-odd nations that signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, only 37 are on track to meet their pledges. And while the other failing nations aren't as large as the twenty that will result in the $46 billion penalties, the fact that there's more than 70 other countries who are failing and will be paying for their failure to meet these expectations simply does not bode well for the environmental movement at all.

In fact, a few countries are out-and-out admitting that these goals are rather impossible.

In Italy's case, ``It's obvious the goals are not possible,'' Corrado Clini said today at an energy conference today in Rome. Italy will need 421 million permits over the five-year period, and Spain, 405 million, the research firm said. That would cost each country more than 6 billion euros, using the current price of CERs, though both governments have said they may share the costs with local industry.

Point Carbon, an Oslo-based emissions-market analysis company, estimates Italy will need 325 million permits and Spain 395 million.

Italian government and corporate officials are increasingly criticizing the Mediterranean nation's looming emissions costs. Kyoto is ``pure folly,'' Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Eni SpA, the nation's largest oil company, said Nov. 10 on an Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor report.

Italy is among countries that may go the Canadian route of choosing not to buy the permits they need to meet their targets, said Steven Knell, a London-based energy analyst at the economic consulting and research firm Global Insight Inc.

``It is unlikely that Italy would formally drop out of the Kyoto, however non-compliance is a distinct possibility,'' Knell said. ``The cases of non-compliance may well pile up as many states are well off the mark.''

Italy's Clini said the government and industry would purchase the permits together and not withdraw from the treaty. ``We won't pull out of Kyoto,'' Clini said. ``At this point, we're in it.''

Australia, which only ratified Kyoto in 2007, will need credits to cover 20.6 million tons a year, at an estimated annual cost of 325 million euros, based on the CER price. Japan, which New Carbon Finance predicts will need 587 million credits, says new energy-efficiency policies will help the nation meet its target.

To add insult to the environmentalists' injury, one only needs to speculate about the planned conference in Copenhagen scheduled for next year to discuss what can only be described as "the next phase" and making even more-ambitious promises to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution in these countries.

Plain and simple, if they couldn't manage THESE unattainable goals - the prospect of meeting to negotiate even MORE-unattainable goals is laugh-out-loud preposterous.

So the next time one of your friends makes a joke about the Kyoto Protocol and the arrogance of the United States - remind them that if we HAD gone along with it, we'd likely be also paying an assload of money for our inevitable failures.

And then get some new friends. Read more!

Earth Hour?

I'm really torn between enjoying this pointless event's creation or wanting to banish it to hell like all of the other fake, self-puffery, nonsensical, environmentalist bullshit going on in the world.

"Well Aaron, if you hate this kind of bullshit so much, why would you even consider possibly enjoying its creation," I hear you ask.

Because it's an HOUR.

In case you missed it last year, Chicago was the victim of environmentalist atrocity at a level of unspeakable proportions. Here's my scathing review of a piece of crap known as "Earth Month". Which wasn't even a month - it was 34 arbitrary days of scattered environmentalist meetings and demonstrations and recycling center groups. The worst part was their catchphrase of "Make Every Month Earth Month."

At least with this, they've scaled it all down to one hour of pretending to care about the environment.

The weird thing about this event is that I'm still trying to figure out HOW they plan on getting people to care or make a difference. The whole basis of this event is that around the world on this day at 8pm local time, everyone turns off their lights for an hour. Not "don't use energy at all for an hour" but just turning off the lights.

One hour of lights-out for a typical residence would result in no more than $0.25 in savings for the monthly electricity bill (and I think that's assuming they usually have every light turned on and like 100-watt bulbs in all the fixtures). So it has nothing to do with convincing people that they can save money. They're not telling everyone to turn off everything in their home - so it can't be a way to convince people that they can still have a great life while "living green" or something. I haven't seen any promotional T-shirts or hats or anything that you can buy in support of Earth Hour - so it doesn't seem like the WWF is trying to profit from this event.

I'm really baffled - what are they trying to do?

Any time something catches on and it's a widespread event, SOMEONE is looking to profit. Money makes the world go 'round, and wherever you've got millions of people who are gullible enough to turn their lights off because you've created Earth Hour - you HAVE to have someone profiting off of the gullibility.

Maybe it's the candle companies? After all, it seems like everyone who participates is going to need to be able to SEE, so candles are the way to go. Are candle sales really that low that they need a worldwide scam to have people turn off lights just to move a few extra candles??

Seriously - this is bothering me.

The website claims:
Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let us know you want to join Earth Hour.

It's not doing anything for the planet except making regions of it dark for an hour.
It's not doing anything to affect the climate.
It's not doing anything for the environment at all.
It's not doing anything for the people participating other than making them feel smug about "helping".
It's not doing anything for greedy profiteers, except possibly candle companies.
It's not doing anything at all...

Please help me figure out why the hell this exists at all. Things need to have meaning or else they are literally meaningless. In which case, they shouldn't exist in the first place.

(Here's the website, in case you can figure any of this out.)


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Global Cooling in 2007

I seriously hope that George Bush has seen this article. I'm actually thinking about forwarding a copy of it to him at the White House or something, though I don't like the notion of being put on some "list" because I attempted communication with the President. I think he would thank me, though - if his e-mail weren't read by interns and there's only a slight chance it would ever really reach him.

We've all heard stories about George W. Bush and his statements about the nonexistance of global warming. Some of you laughed. Some of you were enraged. Some of you are just plain hippies so any time he opens his mouth you just assume the worst and then eat some organic granola or something.

Well what would happen if he were RIGHT? Think about that for a minute, and then read on.

I found an article by Brit Hume that has some scary information for all of you global warmers out there.

"Now there is word that all four major global temperature tracking outlets have released data showing that temperatures have dropped significantly over the last year. California meteorologist Anthony Watts says the amount of cooling ranges from 65-hundredths of a degree Centigrade to 75-hundreds of a degree.

That is said to be a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. It is reportedly the single fastest temperature change ever recorded — up or down."

Did you read that? The year 2007 basically erased a century of measured global warming.

Some of the scientists are attributing the global cooling to a reduction in solar activity - which is a much more powerful factor in temperature than any man-made greenhouse gases and whatnot have been. So does this really mean that global warming is true, but the sun basically counteracted all of it by itself? Possibly. Does it prove that global warming itself is a myth or a lie? Not really.

But you have to admit - it does present a good argument against the protesting green-movement hippies and all of the global warming fearmongering going on. Which is why I think Bush needs to see this and rub it in some liberal faces for a change.

Of course, the story came from Fox News, so I guess we should take it with a grain of salt. But when has that stopped us from blowing a story out of proportion in the past?

What do you think? Global warming going to kill us all? New Ice Age cometh?

(The Fox News story)


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Earth Day, Earth Month, Earth Year?

Back in the 1500's, Copernicus was figuring out that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Apparently, nobody bothered to let the Earth know that.

Sure, it sounds like a mean thing to say - accusing the Earth of thinking that it's the center of the universe. Well, take a good hard look at reality and you'll see that we humans still have this mindset that the Earth still IS the center of the universe. We just no longer think of its LOCATION as the center of the universe. We still have the SETI program and other scientists and wingnuts scanning the airwaves for extraterrestrials trying to contact us. Why would E.T. want to talk to us? Surely, being the center of the universe and focal point of everything - any alien communication should certainly be coming OUR way. Aliens in other galaxies MUST be figuring out ways to talk to EARTH!

But I digress. This is about Earth Day and how it has been manipulated into a gigantic guilt-trip overexaggeration of its former self.

Earth Day started not only as a response to a 1969 oil spill, but as a culmination of an earth-friendly ecological movement. Industrialization had been booming, and people decided it was time to think a little bit more about the environment. Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin, called for an "environmental teach-in" which he called Earth Day to be celebrated on April 22, 1970. That's it. One day to be recognized, not even asking for it to be an annual thing, which happened to be on the birthday of the man who founded Arbor Day almost a hundred years earlier in 1872. I don't know if this is coincidence or planning on Nelson's part.

The Earth Day of 1970 went well, for the most part. 20 million people celebrated that day, and events were led by Senator Nelson himself. And because NO non-political celebration should EVER be without political undertones, the events were modeled after Vietnam War protest events, and part of the festivities including actual protests of the Vietnam War. In fact, war protests were a part of Earth Day for a while after it became a national holiday repeated in 1971 and each year afterwards. Nothing screams "hippie liberalism" like combining environmentalism and war protestation!

Also in the aftermath of the 1970 Earth Day were the creation of the Clean Air Act as well as the foundation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The celebration of Earth Day is celebrated globally, observed in 175 countries by more than half a billion people each year. It is considered to be the largest-celebrated secular holiday in the world.

So why isn't that enough?

This season, I was greeted with posters and advertisements on the trains and buses for Earth Month Chicago. April 17th through May 20th was to be a celebration of Earth Month, completely disregarding the history and importance April 22nd had in the beginning. All of a sudden, it wasn't enough to focus on the Earth and ways to improve it for one entire day - now the Earth deserved more. It deserved an entire month! An entire month to be celebrated by ONE CITY. Why bother having one day that over 500 million people in 175 countries can share, when one city in one country can spread it arbitrarily over a month??

Are you starting to see the flaws in the logic?

The only thing that the Earth Month Chicago was doing that Earth Day simply couldn't was... No, wait - not a single thing during Earth Month Chicago couldn't have been done on Earth Day. The only difference is that the normal gamut of activities and events one would normally find on Earth Day were being spread across this period of a month. And it wasn't even that the events were to take longer - they were just broken up in little bits everywhere around this month. Whether it was the used cellphone recycling drive, the Green Business Conference, eyeglasses collection or even the recycling convention for household chemicals and computers (I can't figure out why those two are together) - all the events could either be crammed into one day, or could have been celebrated simultaneously in DIFFERENT CITIES. Hell, you could have one in the downtown area and one in a north suburb and one in a south suburb for all I care - get it DONE in ONE DAY and that's your EARTH DAY.

There's no excuse for it to take an entire month. Especially since it's not even a calendar month in any sense. At least Black History month is all of February. This is April 17 - May 20; a very-arbitrary 34 days! It's incredibly hard to celebrate a festival period if you have no clue when it ends or begins. It's even harder if you don't even care in the first place. But the madness doesn't end there - no, not by a long shot...

"Make EVERY month Earth Month!"

That's right - they're actually suggesting that what used to be a one-day-a-year celebration and good idea become an every-day-all-year monotony! There's a reason why most holidays are ONE day out of the entire year - because we'd get sick and tired of it every day and it would lose all its meaning and special qualities! If every day were Valentine's Day, not only would we become disgusted and enraged as the colors pink and red, develop diabetes at more-alarming rates, and probably see the divorce rate spike after a few weeks of love-based torture - but we'd lose all honor and respect for the holiday itself. Not that we had much for a "Hallmark Holiday" in the first place, but that's still more respect than most of us hold for Earth Day as it is.

So let's try and save what little sanctity there is left of Earth Day.

Not a month, not all year. Just one day - April 22nd. Like the other half-billion people in 175 countries.

You know, the people of the Earth we created a Day to focus on. Read more!