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It's not the Warming of the planet that worries me, because that's just a symptom of how we've been changing the composition of our atmosphere. On a drive to a meeting a while back, I did a little armchair math to guess how much tonnage of CO2 we contribute to the warming effect.

The USA burns a daily habit of 360 million gallons of gasoline every day on average. That's about 6.3 pounds per gallon, so that's about 2.268 billion pounds burned per day.

The hydrocarbons in gas are roughly at 1:1 ratio of H:C (of three types in the mix, some chains are 2 carbons extra, others are two carbon short, but most are equal.) That means the ratios of atomic mass are roughly 1 part Hydrogen by weight to every 12 parts Carbon.

Being generous, we might guesstimate that for every 13 parts Hydrocarbon there are two parts other additives. (e.g. Regulations in California require 2% Oxygen by weight in order to reduce carbon monoxide.) So each 12 out of 15 parts is carbon burning with external oxygen, which will add weight to the CO2 from out of the air intake. Even counting just 11 of those 15 parts by weight as burning into CO2 (and probably failing tailpipe emissions tests), that's still 4.62 pounds of carbon burning into CO2 per each gallon.

If carbon's atomic weight is 12, and is combined with 2 oxygen at a weight of 16 each, that means CO2 has an atomic weight of roughly 44, expelling roughly 17 pounds of CO2 per gallon, on a bad day. (Later reading reveals the government isn't as generous and claims 20 pounds CO2 per gallon gasoline burned. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml )

*So* our gas burning contribution to greenhouse gases amounts to more than 6 billion pounds CO2 per day, or 3 Million TONS of CO2 daily, just from our gasoline habit alone, just in the USA.

That doesn't include other countries, nor the USA contribution by the coal and natural gas which fuel our heat and electrical plants. It's not even the deisel and related fuels used by our airliner fleets and trucking fleets. 3 million tons CO2, just from gasoline, just from the USA, every freakin' day.

Out of the blue i got the following email. I can only guess he either read this journal or some similare aspect of my website.

craig pribil wrote:

Wake up and smell the coffee mr. child-like mentality. If Gore carried his own state, Gore wins. If FL voters punch Gore instead of Buchanan, Gore wins. If FL voters punch chads off, Gore wins. Bush's win was Heaven sent.....you atheist you (Archie Bunker said to the Meathead). Don't be a meathead by presuming you can possibly figure out the whole "TRUTH" about the universe. This would be horribly arrogant. We are in the child-like stage of our development. Have faith in the larger powers that be.

To which I replied:

Speaking of arrogant child-like presumptions... Faith in the larger powers that be? There was a time when faith meant holding up your end of a contract, as in "faithful to the deal" or "faithful to marriage." There is nothing responsible about blind belief, in the sense you use the word "faith."
Bush has an established criminal record, and is turning our country from the leadership of the free world into the laughingstock of real democracies.
Know you not of Dubbya's Drunk driving arrest in Heimlich county TX? his cocaine possession arrest in Connecticut? his AWOL from being a Lt. in the Air Force reserves?
While the institution of the US Presidency has dirty laundry for everyone's "regime," I'm more worried about his active destruction of the Judicial checks and balances, and him filling his coffers at the expense of all future American taxpayers. What he calls medicare, AIDS research and Energy programs, has so far been nothing but a ploy to boost Pharmecutical and Big Oil investments, billed to future federal deficits our tax dollars pay for. Have you ever looked up the historic definition of "scallywag?"

  - joel

This Slashdot Article already picked the amazingly shocking line for its inline:

If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.

So what is there for me to add? The Republican win in California? The wide publicity about their machines insecurity? Perhaps enough has been said... but to enough people? If there didn't exist open source software as an example of post-scarcity economics, I'd doubt there is freedom left in life.

There's little about the Bush administration that bugs me more than its broad and deep affiliation with crime. The more a company violates federal law, the more our current administration seems to reward it with government contracts. While Bush's selfish misdirection of federal spending into his own investments bugs me nearly as much, you occassionally catch some news that says there may still be hope.

This AP news article points out charges against the former CEO of WorldCom (now MCI). Oklahoma is one among other states bringing criminal charges against Bernard Ebbers, for the accounting scandle that has presently grown to $11 Billion.

So even if Bush fails to get impeached for his lies to congress or other crimes, there may yet be a glimmering hope of Justice still in our country. Assuming he doesn't further destroy the checks and balances the Judicial Branch was supposed to hold.
Now if only Microsoft would taste the similar fruits of their actions...

This Story on C-Net news is one of the better pieces I've seen for summarizing the issues at the crux of the SCO v. IBM lawsuit. IBM's counterclaims, and C-Net, help detail the nature of the contracts in question.

The best SCO could do in response is call the claims of IBM, and Red Hat, "groundless." Yet what is groundless about objecting to what SCO has been saying publicly?

LWN.net has just added the text of IBM's couterclaims.