Umbrellas are Awesome

I saw a tourist on the side of the road yesterday with a little hand towel over his head as his only protection from the extremely intense midday tropical sun. I see many tourists lathered up in chemical lotions or burnt red from overexposure however I rarely see one that isn’t a middle aged Chinese women that seemed to know that umbrellas are as useful on sunny days as they are on rainy days. When shopping for an umbrella I strongly recommend buying the best one you can because it costs our biosphere a lot less to make one good umbrella than it does to make three cheap ones. The same goes for most other daily use items so remember to buy better in order to use longer.

P.S. The best umbrella isn’t necessarily the most expensive one. I invested around 70 USD in a Blunt umbrella thinking/hoping such an expensive, sturdy, and seemingly well-built umbrella would last me a few years however it ended up lasting only a few weeks before the locking mechanism which kept the canopy open failed. To make a long story short I was able to get the original replaced and then replacements replaced a total of 4 times so I have experience using 5 Blunt umbrellas and 4 out of 5 of them were not worth half of what they’re sold for and I won’t be buying a second one. I only sent back one so I’ll see if I can get the 2 broken ones and 1 leaking one I currently have fixed and back into operation.

Church Roof Collapse

Yesterday in New Jersey the roof of a church collapsed onto a group of Sunday churchgoers. One person was seriously injured and about a dozen had minor injuries. According to the NPR News Podcast I was listening to on my way to buy vegetables the Mayor said something like “God was watching over them because it could have been much worse.”.

As any freethinking person would I thought if god was looking over them then why did he let a roof fall on their heads. After doing a search I discovered there have been a lot of church roofs falling on a lot of peoples heads. I’m not implying that there’s any connection, I’m just saying people in an old church worshiping god are no less likely to have a roof fall on their heads then are people in another old building worshiping the devil.

However could you imagine if the roof of one of those atheist churches collapsed and injured people. What do you think a frighteningly large portion of the U.S. population, and world population, would be saying then? Perhaps something like “That’s what happens when you try taking god out of the church.”. I bet an incident like that would help many reaffirm their faith as so many unrelated but desperately rationalized events and occurrences do.

Immoral Cooking Tricks

As humanity strives to feed itself without destroying the environment it’s outrageous that some people are actually taking pills and preparing their precious food in ways they hope will reduce their bodies ability to absorb it. Whether it’s food, water, or any other natural resource I hope you also feel that waste is bad, really bad, and will do your best to reduce it by not doing things like reducing your bodies ability to digest the precious food you eat. If you’re a researcher in the field of nutrition please don’t waste your time pursuing things as idiotic and immoral as finding ways to prevent people from digesting their food.

Scary Statistics

According to a recent Pew report on religion the portion of the population that identifies as atheist, agnostic, or unaffiliated is projected to decline as a percentage of the total population over the next few decades. The good thing is that unlike religion the ability to reason isn’t spread by having children and brainwashing them therefore we freethinkers don’t need to try and breed our way out of this crisis all we need to do is continually speak out and set good examples which encourage those born into religions to think for themselves.

When they do they’re almost certain to come to the conclusion that we’re one species of many living within a fragile biosphere whose fate along with our own depends on our actions. Not on ghosts, not on gods, and not on people who claim to have links to them, but on us, the greatest of the great apes in the sense that we’re capable of the greatest evil as well as the greatest good. I hope this report will turn out to be way off in its projections however that depends on the work of you, me, and all the other people who have replaced superstition with freethought and recognize the supreme importance of human, social, and environmental health.

Do You Really Need All the Chemicals?

I haven’t used soap, shampoo, deodorant, tooth paste, mouthwash, laundry detergent, dish washing soap, household cleaners or anything else the average person has been persuaded they need in order to be clean for over 7 years and you don’t have to either. So why not give it a try and see for yourself what the wonders of healthy living along with some water, sunlight, and fresh air can do for you, others, and our planet.

Our Chemical Lives

Respect the People, Close the Base, Save the Dugongs

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Operation Iceberg which is more commonly known as the Battle of Okinawa. A battle in which perhaps as many as 200,000 people, many of them civilians, died premature and often painful deaths over a period of 82 days of intense fighting on the small subtropical island of Okinawa. However although nearly 70 years have passed since the end of WW2 the people of Okinawa are still struggling to gain control of their land and future.

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Pilot Murder

It’s wrong to use the term “pilot suicide” to describe the horrific crime that took place in Southern France last week and to describe similar heinous acts.

Pilot Suicide: When a lone pilot intentionally crashes an empty plane in order to kill themselves.

Pilot Murder: When a pilot murders innocent people by intentionally crashing a plane.

Tragedies like this will become much less likely to occur when all airlines and aviation authorities who haven’t done so already mandate that two people be in the cockpit at all times on all passenger flights.

I hope the tragedy of Flight 9525 helps everyone realize how fragile and unpredictable life is and reminds us to be grateful for and make the most of the time we have left on our tainted yet still beautiful planet.

Common Sense Science

Common sense tells me that putting a bunch of dead fish of questionable freshness into a grinder, separating out the oil, and placing it into gel capsules which will sit in a bottle for a week, month, year, or more before it’s consumed is not the healthiest thing a person could be spending their money and our environmental resources on. Common sense also tells me that among many other things eating leafy green vegetables is also good for keeping ones mental abilities sharp. However even common sense should be questioned, tested, and verified so it’s nice to often see studies like these in the news.

Fish Oil Claims Not Supported by Research

Eating green leafy vegetables keeps mental abilities sharp

Zoonotic Diseases

What zoonotic diseases are, and how to stop them

A good article on an important topic except although it told readers what zoonotic diseases are it didn’t tell us how to stop them. Disease surveillance in other animals in addition to humans is great but what we really need to focus on is keeping humans away from animals. This could be done by working harder to protect the world’s remaining forests and ending the trade in wild animals. Finally if we really want to stop or at least slow the emergence of new and potentially devastating diseases from making the leap from animals to humans we can stop eating animals with an emphasis on those that have been raised, handled, and slaughtered in conditions that make the emergence of another zoonotic disease far more likely.

Mercury Pollution

Supreme court weighing rules to limit pollution from US power stations (An article from The Guardian.)

If this concerns you please voice your concern to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here’s what I just sent:

Please side with human and environmental health and vote to support the rules to limit the release of mercury and other toxins unnecessarily emitted from coal-fired power plants and other sources. I support these rules because the intelligence of children and the health of the population in general is far more important than the profits of a few companies.

Thank you for considering the broader and long-term implications of this issue and remembering just because you aren’t receiving many emails like this from young mothers and their young children I assure you they would also support these rules as would the vast majority of the U.S. and global population had they been better informed and more involved so amongst all the corporate lobbying please keep the silent majority in mind when making your decision on this important issue.

Big Cats and Sports Cars

The Illegal Big Cats of Instagram (A video from VICE.)

I watched this while eating breakfast this morning is that it’s correct to blame and necessary to punish the people who poach wild and often endangered animals with little concern of the effects this has on ecosystems, wild populations, and the poor animals themselves. Furthermore most would agree that even more blame and more severe punishments should be dealt to those who are willing to pay for these animals, or animal products, and thus create a demand for them which entices some extremely desperate and/or greedy people to sink so low as to supply it. However far too few people take the next step and follow this trail of immorality to its source and realize the people who are perhaps the most to blame for the plight of these animals and the waste of societies financial resources as seen in this video is very likely to be themselves.

It’s understandable that some people desire a nice house and a nice car however the desire for personal palaces and private car collections isn’t so much a result of a desire of material goods which came at great environmental costs, but rather it’s the result of a desire to achieve the attention and admiration the possession of such goods unfortunately still gains people in our sick society. So not only should the people in this video be frowned upon for how they use their wealth as well as punished for what they do to these animals, a big fat finger should also be pointed at all those Instagram followers and even the reporter herself for fawning over one of his many luxury sports cars or his baby white tiger because that’s exactly why rich and immoral people like this do what they do.

If we as a society see someone driving around in a decadent car, perhaps with their pet Cheetah, we should not say: OMG! So cool! We should say: Wow what a waste of money, they could’ve bought a really nice electric car and still had a few hundred thousand dollars to perhaps invest in renewable energy, versatile non-toxic compostable materials, or maybe desalination and water filtration systems not to mention helping some poor children gain access to clean water, basic nutrition, and an education. If it became not only “not cool” but actually shameful to behave in these immoral and decadent ways our world would become a better place over night. So if you’re one of the well over 300,000 people following people like this on Instagram and other social media sites then please reconsider.

Once people stop encouraging people like this they’ll realize they need to behave in other ways if they want the attention and admiration of society. In essence only when the average person stops aspiring to these types of immoral and decadent lifestyles will those who do have the financial resources to live them stop doing so and start living more responsible lives and find better ways to spend their time and money.

Israel, Iran, and U.S. Foreign Policy

In light of recent events now is as good of a time as any for the U.S. to re-evaluate its relationship with Israel and put an end to policies which often leaves the U.S. as a lone voice in the U.N. defending the misdeeds of Israel and policies that provide it, a country with a per capita GDP on par with that of Spain, with around 3 billion dollars annually in foreign aid.

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Dolphin Abuse

I’m strongly against the kidnapping, imprisonment, and exploitation of dolphins, orcas, or any other animals for human amusement because in addition to being immoral in itself it’s also what makes brutal dolphin hunts so profitable. If people want these hunts to stop they need to stop supporting/visiting the establishments which fund them, e.g., zoos and aquariums.

Former Orca Trainer For SeaWorld Condemns Its Practices

Dolphins slaughtered in Taiji, Japan: leading zoo body accused of links to hunt

Also before going all anti-Japan please scroll back a few posts and watch the video on the factory farming and realize just because you pay someone else to do the mistreating and butchering doesn’t mean you’re any less a part of it. More or all plants less or no animals and if you do eat animal derived food please make sure it comes from responsible sources.

Failed Superpower

I’m not referring to how the U.S. has conducted itself as the sole superpower since the breakup of the Soviet Union, but about how we as a species have conducted ourselves since the advent of human civilization when we became the sole superpower species. When viewed objectively it would be hard to show, thus far, that we have been anything other than an utter failure. You may be thinking that’s ridiculous and cite how we’ve spread to all 5 continents and greatly increased our lifespans.

That’s all true however when you remove the anthropocentric blinders and look at the big picture, at the biosphere which humans are just one part of, you’ll realize that although we’ve been quite successful at improving the lives of most of humanity we’ve been a disaster for nearly every other species and ecosystem on this planet. The good thing is it doesn’t have to be this way because not only do we have the potential to live comfortable lives that are in balance with nature we also have the potential to use our knowledge and technology to actively assist in the regeneration of what we’ve already tainted and destroyed.

Market Math

It’s hard to believe how many adults can not add or subtract at even the most basic level because these are skills that most of us use every day, particularly if you sell fruit for a living. Moreover rather than put forth a tiny effort to improve basic math skills by not relying on a calculator for everything, and I mean everything, it seems most people prefer to reach for the calculator. I’m not talking about for double digit multiplication but for things like: something cost 60, I give you 100, how much should I get back. I encourage you to and to encourage others to use their brains and bodies more. Getting in the habit of doing basic math in your head is a good place to start. Just because someone has a calculator don’t expect them to do the math for you and instead see if your brain can beat their fingers to the result.

Population Growth

In 1800 there were about 1 billion people on the planet.

It then took around 127 years before the population reached 2 billion.

Can you guess roughly how long it took for humanity to add the last billion?

a.) 127 years  b.) 60 years  c.) 30 years d.) 12.7 years

If you answered d then you are correct and with over 7.2 billion of us the population is still growing. However what’s more worrying than rapid population growth in a heavily overburdened biosphere where human induced extinctions already occur on a daily basis is the rapid increase in unsustainable consumption which unlike population growth shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Reuse, Recycle

U.S. and World Population Clock

P.S. Can you name the top five countries according to population size? For the answers check out the bottom of this map that shows country size adjusted according to population size.

World Population

Freethought and Bananas

Where I live on the Kra Peninsula there are these awesome bananas which in Thai are called Kluai Heen which translates to Banana Heen. Most people around here feed Heen bananas to the poor birds they imprison in little cages which spend their days jumping from one side of the cage to the other probably imagining what it would be like to fly again. Because they lack of empathy and apparently have nothing better to do many of the local men often bring these poor birds to poor-bird-in-cage competitions where they see whose bird can cry “Let me out of this cage so I can fly!” the loudest.

Since most people consider them bird food when people see a foreigner eating a hand of Heen bananas they’re a bit surprised. In the area I’m referring to people do eat them but it seems rarely unless they’ve been cooked. One day I was looking to buy breakfast from a roadside fruit stall and I saw a hand of ripe Heen bananas in the back. I asked if I could buy them and she said they weren’t any good. When I insisted she said I could have them so I started eating my banana breakfast. I rarely eat bananas for breakfast as I prefer more juicy fruits in the morning but that day I was happy to make an exception.

After eating one and confirming my prediction I told her they were awesome and offered her to try one but she gave me a slight “surprised/you’re crazy look” and refused. She said they were no good because those bananas have to be cooked before you can eat them and only birds would eat them like that. I asked her if she had tried ones that are ripe and she said “No.”. So I asked her how she knew they were no good and she said “Because my husband told me.”, so I asked her if he had tried them and she said “No.”, so I asked how would he know and she said “The elders told him”.

The point of this post is to remind anyone who reads it not to blindly accept the assessments of perceived figures of authority and instead think for yourself, do your own research, and when applicable/safe do your own experiments and who knows maybe one day it might even score you a free breakfast.

banana heen