Government's gaseous problem with C02

Last Saturday morning (too early, by my standards of reading newspaper with coffee firmly in hand), three of my immediate neighbors starting mowing their laws in a cacophony of engine noise and expiration of CO2, which wafted somewhat onto my back porch, which I pretty quickly abandoned for my comfier and beloved big blue chair in my sunlit bay window. The CO2 from the mowers temporarily raised the CO2 content of the air in my backyard by orders of magnitude, I would imagine, over the modest increase in the earth's atmosphere due to human exhaustion. Such is the price I'm willing to pay for freedom, and I reciprocate upon my neighbors once every other Sunday while they are not going to church.

When my neighbors are not mowing their lawns, I can detect no greater amount of CO2 in the air around my house than I could as a child growing up in Texas. Air seems clean. Air is nice. My lungs feel good. But I'm told by Gang Green ("environmentalists" to those shameful many who do not ready this all important blog) and the United States Government of America (USGA) that there are dangerous levels of C02 in the atmosphere, being thrown there with reckless abandon by us lawn mowers, us car drivers, us business owners. And I'm being told by these Chicken Littleistas (excuse me, these caring, thoughtful people) that THE GLOBE IS WARMING and that my health is also in dire danger from all this human C02 and that we must all be blamed and that we all must curb our appetites for THINGS THAT CAUSE POLLUTION or we'll have hell to pay in taxation and regulations and monitoring (read Big Brother).

Let me take a breath and exhale some C02 and respond briefly to how this whole "problem" of C02 can be solved. Here's what we must do -- and do immediately. NOTHING. Let me repeat for those who have a difficult time reading big print. nothing. nothing. nothing.
Without mentioning that C02 doesn't actually cause global warming (it's the RESULT of global warming), and without mentioning that a warmer Earth would actually be a pretty nice thing for this skinny cowboy from north Texas, we've already got something in place for any person to legally address excess global warming or global cooling or excess C02 in the atmosphere or a dearth of C02 in the atmosphere. It's called property rights -- the right to have your property and be assured that others do not do it harm to some significant degree that a jury or judge would acknowledge as significant. If I wished, I could take my neighbors to court (and they take me to court) over their mower pollution wafting onto my property. I would be laughed out of court, as I should be, but I could legally do it. Speaking of laughing, I would not be doing so when the judge or jury fined me for bringing a frivolous lawsuit upon my neighbors, as the judge or jury should do, in my humble opinion.

I'm glad I used the word "frivolous." That is the nicest word I can think of to define Gang Green (Washington politicians included) for their attempts to take this judicial territory of property rights to the next level: the legislative and executive arenas of government. A better word is "demogogic," or even better, "marxist." USGA has no right (literally) to interfere in the pollution (though C02 is not technically pollution since I have been exhaling it now for 15 minutes) of humans or their machines or their industries. It has no right to violate property rights. To do so violates the rights of humans to exhale and pollute, which is the byproduct of life and life-enhancing industry. To do so is simply government aggrandizement. More fundamentally, it is misanthropy (the hatred of humans and their actions) translated into brute force.

If Gang Green wishes to get serious about "polluters," it can take us to court, as the gang unsuccessfully did in California recently, and watch as we giggle at their "proofs" and protestations. I personally hope they take me to court. I could buy that big Toro mower I've been swooning over with the big fine the judge or jury placed on Gang Green's marxist rats.

Meanwhile, you'll find me doing NOTHING (nothing) about excess C02 -- well, except enjoying those wonderful things that the glorious mind of man has brought me: my car, my mower, my frig, my dishwasher, my coffee maker, my TV, my Ipod, my computer and, hopefully one day, my airplane.

Now it's time to go for a run and triple my C02 output.

Finally, a "subsidy" I love

Apple announced today that will begin selling its iPhone 3G on July 11, 2008, for a mere $199 -- a startlingly low cost for a phone that has been upgraded to triple download speeds and has GPS capability, among other improvements. It is a product that I now will be buying, probably on July 11.
When Apple announced the price, I was stunned, since the original iPhone price started at $599 only a year earlier. Turns out that AT&T (Apple's wireless partner in the iPhone venture) has agreed to "subsidize" the iPhone 3G by paying Apple as much as $200 or more for each phone sold. Because the new phone will do so much more and so many more people will sign on with AT&T in its exclusive licensing agreement with Apple for the phone, AT&T will be charging an extra $10 a month to consumers (not bad at all, in my book). So, for AT&T's "subsidization," it will recoup it's subsidies to Apple within 20 months at most -- and probably much earlier since the phone company can charge for other features.
I want to thank the glorious geniuses at Apple for the wondrous iPhone.
I want to thank AT&T for the subsidy of my soon-to-be new iPhone.
Finally, a subsidy I love!