Given the recent violence by many Muslims using the Danish cartoons as an excuse, I have thought quite a bit about the role of tolerance and freedom in our society. Here are some random and sometimes insensitive thoughts:

• There is no other religion that has so many extremists who wrought so much violence for something as simple as a cartoon.
• For all the violence in other countries, no Muslims in the U.S. reacted in this way - why?
• No one deserves to be respected or tolerated, it is earned.
• No matter how much you have earned it, people still have the right to say and do things that may offend you.
• No one, no matter how disgusting, may have their civil liberties encroached upon.
• The one thing we must be INTOLERANT of, is anyone that puts their beliefs, and thus themselves, above the rule of law.
• Toleration means only that the act or belief being tolerated is not illegal.
• Political correctness is not tolerance, but rather it is fear of offending
• When we all act politically correct, our lives will be ruled by those who say they are offended the most
• No picture could possibly offend me. Disgust me, maybe. Offend me, never.

it's rare that I go to church and less rare that I enjoy it, but today it happened. We don't go often, maybe 5 to 10 times a year,  but our focus recently has been to bring our kids to Sunday school. My wife is more religious than I am and she feels strongly that the kids should be exposed ("indoctrinated?") to Christianity. I'm totally okay with the Sunday school lessons.

Over the last couple of years, we have gone less and less to church service and more and more to discussion groups during the kids Sunday school sessions. Mostly, we go to a parenting one, where we split time bitching and putting our challenges in context and coming up with perhaps better solutions to life's little problems.

Today, we went to the "Three Faiths" discussion group - basically a discussion of major world religions. The facilitator, "Joe", and one of the church "elders" provided a rich historical context to the formation of not only Christianity, but also other religions, primarily the Jewish and Muslim faiths. While I was probably the only one in the room that would say I am not a Christian, the discussion was extremely honest and open. I actually find myself wanting to go back.

While Joe suggested that these discussions and questions that might be taboo in other churches (even those just down the street from us), he found that they served to strengthen his faith. I respect that. He has taken a fair, intellectually honest approach and has made some informed decisions. For me, it perhaps strengthened my notion that there is a lot less "divinity" in the formation of the church than one might be lead to believe.

Today's discussion was mostly, but not all, about Christianity. The course is based on a book about several religions, some of which have been covered, some yet to be covered. We have already had, although I was not present, a Muslim guest speaker and we are having a Rabbi come in the near future. Interestingly, Joe shared that his faith was in part based on what he described as the amazing following that this "simple" man, Jesus, developed, not through victories or conquest but by leading and mentoring. I don't disagree that it is amazing, but I would argue that some powerful people over the next 300 hundred years appear to have had a great deal to do with creating that phenomenon.

My intent is not to denigrate anyone's faith. My point is merely that I am eager to learn more of the historical context of Christianity as well as other religions to improve my own knowledge. Anyone who is secure in their faith should not feel offended or threatened by that - we'll see.

The Dems base part of their platform on their supposed “care” for the environment (don’t get me wrong – both sides pretend they care for various things in the name of power and control, I just chose one that the Dems use). I just want to take one example of how little the government can really do to impact our current situation. This is very simplistic and will never show up in Popular Science, but I think it accurately depicts the broader point.

 

This regards the discussion of the government imposing higher fuel standards (CAFE) on passenger vehicles. Arguing over CAFE standards like our politicians do is like killing someone over stealing a nickel.

 

Current fuel standards are approximately 21mpg for light trucks and 27.5 for cars. Recent legislation efforts were looking at increasing standards by about 10% for new vehicles built in the next 5 years. Let’s just up the ante a little and assume the following legislation:

• All cars and trucks MUST get 40pmg
• All new cars sold starting TODAY must meet that standard
• No cost impact to the car manufacturer and/or car buyer

 

Based on the bureau of transportation statistics, the following are accurate as of the year 2000:

• 225 million registered vehicles
• 190 million  licensed drivers
• 2.5 trillion miles drive (motorcycles plus 2 axle vehicles)
• 126 billion gallons of fuel consumed
• ~ 20mpg on average.
• 1.85% - Average annual growth % in the number of total passenger vehicles between 1995 and 2000
• 16 million new cars sold in 2004

 

I’ll also point out trucks on the road had the following impact:

-         Over 8 million trucks (3.5% of passenger vehicles)

-         205 billion miles (8% of passenger miles)

-         35 billion gallons of fuel consumed (almost 28% of passenger fuel consumed)

 

Buses are another separate segment for which I will ignore.

 

So, performing some simple math and relying on extending the above statistics I determined the following:

-         4.8% first year reduction in total fuel consumption (passenger vehicles only)

-         17% total reduction in 5 years

-         Adding trucks back in (assuming NO growth in truck fuel usage) the decreases fall to 3.7% and 13.5% respectively.

-         If we changed the standard to 30mpg for all passenger vehicles, then the decreases fall to 1.5% and 5.7% respectively (leaving out trucks)

 

These numbers are clearly overestimating the potential in that we assumed some things that will likely not happen:

-         40mpg? – yeah, right! 30mpg is not even likely.

-         Starting today? Uh huh.

-         Leaves out trucks and buses which together use about 1/3 as much fuel as passenger vehicles in total

-         Assumes no increase in number of miles driven per car per year (historical stats show it increases every year)

-         It also leaves out air travel entirely.

 

But let’s just assume that in 5 years due to these nifty legislative guidelines, that reducing fuel consumption by 17% from today in 5 years is possible. What difference will that make? Oh, I agree that we have to start somewhere and I agree that less is better than more, but exactly how far are we going to go by increasing fuel efficiency? No where! Especially when you realize that a reduction of this sort it quite simply impossible. Also, if we all stopped driving today, how long would it take for the impact of all our past driving to be wiped out? Reducing fuel consumption 17% does not mean that we are reducing the sum total of greenhouse gases, only that we are reducing the additional amount we are adding each and every day. What I would guess will actually happen is that even with any legislation, our fuel consumption will continue to increase in total as we put more cars on the road drive more miles each year even when buying slightly more fuel efficient vehicles over time.

 

My point is that arguing over the finer points of the CAFE legislation is useless. Environmental groups complain that Bush is not being tough enough with standards. Maybe so, but my point is that there is no viable standard that would make that much of a difference anyway. Democrats can cry foul all they want on this, but they must realize that the impact is almost insignificant. If politicians REALLY “cared” about the environment, they would:

-         Stop using their own cars, mostly SUVs and limos, and planes and start using alternatives – Leading by example would be a start.

-         Finding ways to encourage alternative energy and methods of transportation that the market (you and I) can embrace. Talking about this and “throwing” money at it over the last 3 decades has produced NOTHING!!

-         Create REAL market incentives for companies to build alternatives.

 

My 2 bike rides to work per week do more to save fuel than any standard that could be put in place. My car gets about 25 mpg (this is real time, not what the car advertises) driving to work which is about 25 miles round trip each day. To save the same amount of gas by driving all 5 days as I save by biking, my car would have to get 41mpg. There are NOT many cars out there, if any, that get that kind of mileage commuting in traffic. If I ride one more day per week, the car would have to get 62.5mpg.

It might be more cost effective to pay me, via a tax credit, a couple of bucks for each ride than to impose some stupid fuel standard. Same thing applies to car poolers and mass transit users.

 

So when people get mad at conservatives for supporting a president that has a horrible environmental record (i.e. by not having tough enough CAFE standards), just remember the context of the actual impact we are arguing about.

 

As I’ve said before, let’s start getting some REAL solutions from both parties and stop all the play acting around insignificant tinkering with loser solutions.

 

One thing I'm basically SICK of is hearing about how the Democrats can do it better. I'm very open to good ideas, but I haven't heard ANY in quite some time (from either party really).

This brief article just pounds home my point: Virginia Democrat tells Bush there's a 'better way'.

It's a brief article and ABC is probably partly at fault by not sharing the whole story, but the article just once again bashes Bush. It suggests there's a better way, but doesn't provide even ONE idea - new or old - on how to do anything better.

Somebody please send me the link when PETA decides to say something about the Heroin Puppies. Oh, they're probably too busy creating funny, controversial videos to worry about silly little puppies anyway.