The Smarmy Carny

This post has been re-posted at Random Fodder, Novac's personal blog.

The windmill farm

Yesterday, I decided to drive a little out of my way to visit the windmill farm and finally fulfill this goal. Unfortunately, it was a bit rainy, but there was also plenty of wind.
To the best of my recollection, this farm had 10 windmills — three on one side of the road and seven on the other.
The trip was nice, though I imagine that a picnic-type adventure in a couple months would have been more enjoyable.

See more progress on: visit a windmill farm

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and with the damage from Hurricane Rita, New Orleans faced setbacks on the progress they had attained. My local talk radio station took their afternoon show to invite people to call in with a one-word summary of what had happened down in New Orleans and other affected areas. "Humbling" and "devastating" were a couple words offered up by the hosts, but the first three callers offered suggestions such as "Biblical," "repent," and "Revelations." Each of these callers suggested that God had sent the hurricane(s) for such-and-such a reason. Of course, New Orleans isn't quite the Salt Lake City of the south, but I still remained uneasy about the willingness of these people to pronounce that Katrina was simply God's wrath on the sinful city of the south.

I was reading through The Religion & Philosophy Blog from Houghton College's Religion & Philosophy department tonight. It's a new blog with only a couple entries to date. The most recent entry to date was written by Dr. Richard Eckley. Eckley is the author of the book Revelation: A Commentary for Bible Students, so I knew he would have some interesting insight into the issue of claiming that Katrina's destruction was due to God's wrath or even the end times.

I urge you to read the article, titled "Leviathan Alive and Well in Louisiana." For the click-challenged and just plain lazy, here's an excerpt that should serve as some motivation to read the entire article:

Though these natural forces are deemed demonic because of their destructive chaos, the line between God's sovereign control and Satan's activity is blurred.

Certainly assigning an apocalyptic meaning to such natural disasters gives some sort of purpose and meaning to these cataclysmic horrors, howbeit merely to resign us to their happening in the "end times"–as if such things never happened in the "middle times" or the "earlier times!"

Natural disasters allow us to see evil at work in an indiscriminate and meaningless way (when a tornado runs through your neighborhood, trees fall on the rich and the poor alike.) Evil as surd at least allows our theology to stay neutral. No one caused Katrina to happen, and no one should try to find purpose in it happening to them.

Read the full article.

In the wake of hurricane Katrina, Google Maps now has satellite imagery of New Orleans on August 31 at 10am.

I wonder if they will be releasing additional satellite imagery in the near future.

The Red Cross

I have added a banner to the upper-right corner of the website.

This particular banner will link you to Amazon.com's donation page for the Red Cross. Their method may be more convenient, as they will already have your information, assuming you have an Amazon.com account. (Who doesn't?)

I was watching a game show in the cafeteria at work, and someone noted that there was not hurricane-related news on the television. I might as well offer a few thoughts on the events surrounding the hurricane.

• Evacuation — They should do a whole lot more to help get the sick and elderly out of the hurricane regions when an evacuation is in effect. Perhaps an evacuation hotline might make sense, but it might also be too impractical. In the area where I grew up, there were road signs near major strips for evacuation routes in case of problems with the nearby nuclear plant.
• Rooftop rescues — Assuming a better, improved evacuation procedure, they should fine every single person who has to be rescued by helicopter. I see many seemingly healthy people on the news coverage being lifted out via helicopter. Likely, these people were simply of the "We're not going to leave home. Forget the evacuation, because we're sticking it out!" mindset. This stupidity wastes the time of the rescue choppers that could be doing something worthwhile, like aiding ground rescue teams or pulling out any floating corpses that may be contaminating the water.
• Looting — What's the deal with looting? I can somewhat understand the food situation, since the grocery stores aren't open and there aren't many/any other methods for obtaining food. This leads me to a suggestion: If you're dumb enough not to evacuate, then stock up on food! Tulane University's hospital is trying to evacuate because they are experiencing problems with looting. Someone stole the hospital's generator off of one of their command stations. If that weren't enough, one of their ambulances was overturned as well. Smart.

That having been said, I have decided to make a decision and take a stand against hurricanes.

Windmills

As I was driving around through farmland and hilly landscape today, I noticed a strip of about a mile with several yellow "No Wind Turbines" signs posted in some lawns. The signs also had a web address for "Save Upstate New York," a self-described "concerned citizens' group."

Personally, I enjoy windmills of all sorts. Granted, the power-generating windmills are more practical than aesthetic, but it still seems visually pleasing to me.

The only people who I could imagine disliking wind power are corporations providing alternate sources of power and Don Quixote.

Oh, and lest we forget the typical NIMBYs ("Not In My BackYard"-ers) that crop up over any such issues. The reason that this issue has become so overblown is because one of the NIMBYs down in the Chautauqua Lake area happens to be ever-unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Thomas Golisano. He has more than enough money to throw around, giving lousy signs to hapless folks so that he doesn't have to have windmills in his area.

For additional information, read the (northeastern NY paper) Press Republican's article "Wind-farm opponents step up efforts." Irreverent Buffalonian magazine The Beast also has an insightful article titled "A Mighty Wind: Wind Power Threatens Corporate Bottom Line."

If you have read my blog for any period of time, you'll know that I am categorized on the right half of the political spectrum on most issues. The articles I have read finger the Republicans for being corporate jerks and not wanting the windmills to drain any revenue from the oil companies. Oddly enough, however, most of the arguments against wind turbines are environmental and ecological in nature: Soil erosion, bird and bat collisions, noise pollution, ice throw, flashing red lights (plane warning lights), and the deadly "shadow flicker."

They argue that birds and bats have collisions with structures, turbine blades and wires causing death or injury. This is hyperbolic, but even if it weren't we really need to make sure we keep all the bats alive. They are endangered, and we need all the bats we can get!

They also use the Liberal tactic of class envy by noting that "wind power is made financially viable and–in the short term–highly profitable for wind developers through multiple tax incentives." Yeah, let's protest wind power because wind developers might make some money! No one should make money!

Another crazy item is that windmills will have a negative impact on tourism. Ever hear anyone say "My family had planned on vacationing in ______, but then we realized that they had windmills there now, and it's just not the same." Anyone?

For more wind power information, feel free to check out windpower.org