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    ####  ###                  "I'm a Genius"                      ###       
     #######                      by Jason                                  
      ####                                                                  

        I'm a genius, and I have proof!  Today I had a second interview with
 a company for which I had to take some token aptitude test for some job. It
 had language, math, and analytical stuff on it, most of which I thought was
 pretty easy.  Today they told me that I did better than anybody else they
 had ever seen.  See?  My brain is easily one of the top 20 million on the
 whole planet! If only I was doing something worthwhile with it...

        So today I had yet another stunning insight.

        "Aw Christ!" the moron in the back shouts.  "Not ANOTHER one!  My
 head already hurts!"

        I continue, raising my voice to be heard over the savage clubbing my
 faithful goons are giving to the infidel.

        So lately, Ford has been advertising that new electric car they call,
 ironically,  "Think".  As an electric car, it has room for exactly two
 people and is smaller than a subcompact.  It probably has a top speed of
 forty miles per hour, too, and goes about 200 miles before it needs to be
 recharged for 8 hours...

        Now I'm as much in favor of protecting the environment as the next
 granolavore, tie-dye-wearing, pot-smoking, hasn't-bathed-since-the-60's
 hippie, but I'm the furthest thing from a radical.  In the past, I've ranted
 against the "carbon dioxide is cooking the planet so let's stick it to
 industry to satisfy our socialist wet dreams" movement and the "Let's force
 Detroit to make electric cars that nobody will buy just because we have too
 much free time" mentalities.  I noted that most so-called environmental
 groups have more concern with hobbling industry than actually changing
 anything.  My proof?  The fact that NONE of them actually encourage people
 (read CONSUMERS) to quit driving their SUV's at 80 miles an hour down the
 highway or cranking the AC to 50 degrees (Fahrenheit, for my international
 audience) or throwing stuff away when the recycling bin is sitting right
 next to the trash bin.  Actually, I bet there were groups like that, but
 they probably got run out of town buy the clueless radicals.

        But this is not contemptuous diatribe against brain-dead nutcases who
 spend two years in a tree named LUNA.  Nope, I determined a way in which
 those much vaunted electric cars are as bad as their gas-guzzling
 predecessors.  Sure, they don't use gas, and therefore don't release any
 carbon dioxide.  They run on electricity, and as we all know, electric
 motors don't release carbon dioxide.  There is that sticky little problem,
 though, of the law of conservation of energy.  The electricity has to come
 from somewhere.  It comes from electricity plants, of course.

        So what?

        With the exception of less than 10% of all energy produced,
 electricity plants burn fossil fuels!!  Coal mostly (VERY dirty) and then
 petroleum!  Gee whiz, what the hell's the friggin' point?  There isn't one!
 Now I can't be certain whether an internal combustion engine or an electric
 car of similar capability (if they can ever make one) will be ultimately
 responsible for more emissions, but it ain't exactly the blessed deliverance
 form evil corporate demagoguery they would have you think.  There are
 cleaner alternatives, of course, such as nuclear power or hydroelectric
 power, but both of those are big environmental no-no's.  Hybrid cars are the
 best bet, since they get about 50 miles per gallon and charge their own
 electricity.  Of course, this is only an issue if you believe that carbon
 dioxide is causing global warming bullshit.

        While we're on the subject of the conservation of energy, I use that
 to scoff at any believers of telekinesis.  The energy to move or heat things
 has to come from somewhere, so how does it get there?  Pyrokinesis is
 particularly B.S., since it takes a calorie to heat a teaspoon of water one
 degree.  Therefore, to heat a teaspoon of water from room temperature to
 boiling, you'd need to expend over 140 calories, presumably from your own
 body.  Yeah, right.

        DAMN I'm a genius.

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 # (c)2000 aNAda e'zine                              aNAda068 .*.  by Jason #
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