Watermelon: (Ever)Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside

Couple of interesting quotes from the Opinion page of today's Summer Watermelon, "Pullman's paper of record:"

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”

– Karl Marx

Depressed about the elections? So is Karl.

And

The American people themselves are “the greatest obstacle to progressive change” in America.

Still not too late to stage a takeover, conservative Cougars.

Welcome Alex Williams!

The only reason to read "Pullman's paper of record," The Daily Evergreen, this past semester wasn't its non-existent coverage of local issues, but rather conservative columnist Alex Williams, the Vice President of the WSU College Republicans.

I'm happy to announce that Alex has now joined the merry band of Forbicites here at Palouistics. I'm excited to read what Alex is going to share with us. I have also included a link to Alex's "College Conservative in a Liberal World" blog here. Check it out.

That's SIX students we have as contributors at Palousitics, and I'd like to have many more!

Andy Jones: Back from Italy and diesel misconceptions

Ugly American back espousing euro-socialist values and ignorance.

Here is Andy's original article here: http://www.dailyevergreen.com/story/24198
You might remember Andy's last propaganda article which focused on the wrong belief about 220v electricity: http://palousitics.blogspot.com/2007/10/turn-off-lights.html
I think the only thing I can really agree with Andy's article is that Italian women are beautiful. After my trip to Kennedy Space Center, there were many beautiful Italian women visiting since the "Harmony Node", aka Node 2 to the ISS, was built by Italy.
Mean while back at the ranch, Mr.Jones wrote something else that was full of crap: Diesel Engnines. Mr. Jones is correct about the efficiency of diesel engines but he is incorrect about the emissions from the engine.
When a diesel engine burns the diesel fuel it does put out black smoke when it starts up and some black smoke comes out when you put the pedal to the metal. This is unburned diesel fuel. When you start up your gasoline car in the morning you will see a lot of white smoke and when you throttle up the accelerator you will see white smoke. This is from unburned gasoline.
The reason why so many people in Italy, Europe and the rest of the world use diesel engines is the effiecency of the engine is about 25%, while the gasoline engine runs about %13. Another reason why diesel is used is it is cheaper than gasoline because you do not have to refine it as much. Go anywhere in Europe and the rest of world, except for the U.S.A., the cost of gasoline is more than twice the cost of diesel. Another side note I wish to add is that one liter of diesel yeilds more energy than one liter of gasoline.
I am willing to bet Mr.Jones has never seen smog before. He probably thinks that if Italy replaces all the diesel vehicles with gasoline, the smog will go away. Wrong, the smog will remain and probably increase since more gasoline will be needed to run the vehicles.

Ciao.

Ignore the Man Behind the Curtain

Kudos to the Daily Evergreen editorial staff for using their intellect to question what they refer to as "banalities" surrounding the Cougar Green Fund in today's issue. The staff want a "more concrete plan" to go with the "sustainability, environmentalism and reusability buzzwords."

Good luck with that.

Left wing causes such as social justice and environmentalism have become the new religion. People mindlessly parrot phrases they have heard in the media or in the classroom without having one iota of a clue what they really mean.

Once, man turned inward and sought comfort in spirituality. But now that the New York Times has officially proclaimed God as being dead, people have turned outwards to seek meaning and validation in their lives. Instead of perfecting themselves, they now try to perfect others. The perfect religion for the Age of Narcissism. People pontificate about the causes of the day, be it sweatshops, sustainability, Darfur, global warming, etc., telling us how we need to change to assuage the pangs of guilt they feel for their affluence and safe, sheltered, comfortable suburban existence. And then they go right back to living their selfish, self-involved lives. Nothing ever changes. As Michael has said many times before, when self-proclaimed "environmentalists" start taking these issues seriously, so will I.

A Duty to Tell the Truth

Satanic Mechanic recently brutally fisked a columnist from the Daily Evergreen that sent must have him scrambling for an electrical engineering textbook.

Undergrad Kool-Aider Haley Paul is back in today's Watermelon with yet another uninformed, sophomoric column about local business that demands a similar response.

Let me take her most outrageous allegations point-by-point:

With a fair number of small businesses around the Pullman and Moscow area to choose from, you too can participate in your own little form of activism. Going to an independently owned store is about more than just buying something, whether it's a sandwich, a book or a shirt. Frequenting small businesses – as opposed to large national franchises – is a way to support the local community. Going to Heros N Sports as opposed to Quizno’s for lunch is a way of quietly saying, “Hey! I like having diversity in this town. I like that every store is not a cookie cutter box store. I like that I can choose from a bagel shop, a panini place, or a coffee shop.”

Has Paul ever heard of the term "sales leakage?" How does shopping in Moscow support Pullman and local Pullman business? And has Paul never heard of franchising? Many national chain stores and restaurants in Pullman are owned and managed by locals. Quizno's is the perfect example of that. Ryan Davis, a Pullman resident, and his brother Aaron, opened Quizno's franchises in both Pullman and Moscow in 2003. They were so successful (Pullman has been one of the top Quizno's franchises inthe country) that they opened a Cartridge World franchise in Pullman last year. Davis is the kind of entrepreneur we need more of here. He has created jobs, provided more services to local residents, and helped keep tax dollars local. Who cares what the name on the door reads? Franchises are great for these local entrepreneurs because you get built-in advertising and reputation and therefore a greater assurance of return on your investment. What's wrong with that? Is a Quizno's sub intrinisically less "local" than a Heroes N Sports sub? Don't you think they both get a lot of their ingredients from the same suppliers? Do both restaurants not pay local wages and taxes? This is just an incredibly naive, short-sighted, reactionary, and elitist viewpoint.

I don’t know about you, but a world solely dominated by McDonald’s and Wal-Mart does not sound all that interesting.

Let me answer this with a quote from an Evergreen story from January 20, 2005:

Six people spent the first 21 minutes of the two-hour joint meeting between the Pullman City Council and ASWSU voicing opposition to the possible construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Several people also wanted a public comment period. April Overlie, a senior human development major, said the retail giant will hurt the Pullman community and that “our community means nothing to them. We are just another statistic.” Overlie also said there will be a meeting of Pullman Against the Wal-Mart Supercenter at 7 p.m. tonight at the Jefferson Elementary multi-purpose room. City Attorney Laura McAloon said the scheduling of any public hearing has not been scheduled yet. ASWSU and the City Council also heard reports about campus safety, game-day parking and recruiting new businesses to Pullman. ASWSU District 4 Sen. Matt Sobotta said the results from a survey of students conducted last year are finalized. “Students want for a sit-down restaurant — a Red Robin or Taco Bell for a fast food restaurant, and Target as a retail store,” Sobotta said. Fritz Hughes, executive director of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce, said the next step is getting together with students and other people in the community. Sobotta said there has been some communication with Taco Bell and Target, but not Red Robin.

So again, it comes to down to the name on the sign. We don't want to be a "McDonald's and Wal-Mart" town, but I guess a "Red Robin and Target" town is okay. What does that possibly have to do with planning? But let's suspend reality for a moment and assume that Paul wasn't being snobbish and really supported an all local business environment. If college students want national chains (and studies show they overwhelmingly do), and college students make up 70% Pullman's population, the market is going to give them what they want. What's wrong with that?

Then of course there are the bigger societal implications to consider when spending money at a large corporation. All too often, large companies fail to practice sound business ethics with practices such as reducing costs at any price by outsourcing jobs to Third World countries. According to the Omnex website – a company devoted to helping other companies find places to outsource “certain repetitive, non-core processes” – taking advantage of overseas labor in countries such as India, China, and Thailand can produce cost savings as much as 60 percent.

So while corporations get bigger and richer, Americans lose jobs here at home, and the few in control make the decisions that affect our society as a whole. The costs of the decisions that corporate executives make are then distributed throughout a society, as is the case with the United States losing manufacturing jobs overseas.

Oh no, not this again. So just because a store is local, they don't get their goods from overseas? Go take a look at the clothing labels in Tri-State, Haley. Just what is sold locally that is made (or even grown) locally? And just what is wrong with lower prices? Do elitists like Paul, who can already afford higher-priced domestic goods, want lower-middle class consumers to have their standard of living diminished?

Turn off the lights?

Looks like Andy did not research on Italy's power usage or appliances they use.

Looks like Andy Jones' pro-green article in the Daily Watermelon: (http://www.dailyevergreen.com/story/23471) missed the toilet and got on the floor. Looks like Andy did not research on Italy's power usage or appliances they use. Even in socialist Italy, power costs are huge even compared to the east coast of the U.S.A. Italy's power prices are 45% higher than that of the EU (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf101.html) If your electricity prices are high, you do not use much. One thing Andy did miss and missed big time was that Europeans use tankless water heaters, they use less electricity or gas, but it is not exactly hot water on demand, some delay and they do not have the room for a big water heater like we do.
Now we come to my favorite part of this article- AMPS DO NOT EQUAL POWER! Current, which is measured in Amperes or Amps for short, is the rate in which electrons flow. Voltage, Volts for short is the electromotive force, which "pushes" the electrons. Power is measured in Watts and how we manage to measure watts is current multiplied by voltage equals power (P = I * E). We run a TV off 110v and draws 2 amps of current, that means we use 220 watts of power. The same TV, only a European model runs off 220v and draws 1 amp of current, that means we use 220 watts of power. It does not matter what voltage we run with because the device will use the same amount of power. If you look at the back of your computer on the power supply or other appliances, you might see a switch that indicates 110v or 220v. Some companies make power supplies that can switch off between the two voltages while others make a fixed voltage supply because it is cheaper. If you use an Amp meter to measure the current of the same TV in the U.S.A. against the one in Europe, you will notice a higher current draw by a factor of two. But the TV in Europe has a higher voltage so the amount of power used is the same as the U.S. TV.
In Europe, they use a different voltage, a different frequency ( 50Hz vs. our 60Hz) and they use the metric system too! Guess what? There are other electrical systems across the world that are different voltages going to people’s households. In closing, Mr. Jones should do a little more research and less playing the X-Box.

"Pulling out sends the wrong signal; Long-term benefits of staying outweigh short-term benefits of withdrawal"

Last year, two WSU Young Democrats were opinion writers for the Daily Evergreen. There seems to be no shortage of Evergreen op-ed writers again this year suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome either, but I was heartened to notice today that not one, but two conservative student commentators, including Alex Williams, a member of the WSU College Republicans, are writing columns for the Evergreen.

The first column by Graham Dart is titled "Tales of Bush's tyranny overstated; Wild comparisons need to be reigned in" and does a great job addressing the constant argumentum ad Nazium/reductio ad Hitlerum arguments favored by campus moonbats and the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies.

Alex's column details an event the CRs held Wednesday on Glenn Terrell Mall. C'mon guys, post some stories and pics here on the blog! It sounds very interesting:

This being my first column in this newspaper, I would like to introduce myself as a conservative voice for The Daily Evergreen. Here are a few things to expect from me in my future columns:

First and foremost there will be no “Bush Bashing” – the election is over and has been for a long time. Get over it and move on. There is always 2008 (good luck with that, Hillary).

“Mr. Bush” shall be known as President Bush, just as I still call John Kerry a distinguished lieutenant for firing his M-16 blindly into the water and getting shrapnel in his arm.

You will actually hear the other side of current issues; believe it or not everything you read in the liberal media is not always right. I encourage you to read both sides of issues and decide for yourself.

Other things that I will tend to write about are the political movements on the WSU campus itself. This leads me to my first topic of the year – the College Republicans’ “Safe Sex Drive,” where they promoted that the “Pull-Out Method” is ineffective pertaining to the war in Iraq.

On Wednesday, the WSU College Republicans (0f which I am a member) held a “Safe Sex Drive” on the Glenn Terrell Mall expressing their beliefs on how the United States must stick with their current plan in Iraq and not pull out until the job is finished. The pull out method simply does not work.

The military has been in Iraq too long and put so much time, effort, money and lives into the war on terror that it simply is illogical to withdraw all the troops at once at this point in time. Pulling out would cause the democratic government currently set up to collapse, giving Iraqi insurgents and terrorists the chance to overthrow the current Iraqi government. This would be a complete disaster and put innocent people in imminent danger. The United States has accomplished too much by freeing the country of Iraq from one of the most brutal dictators in the modern world. Why make the irrational decision to leave with the job half done?

Heartless or stupid you may call me. Well guess what? Whether you believe the war in Iraq is just or not, we are part of it. Just like many people here on campus, I too have family overseas and want nothing more than for them to come home safely. However, I have come to the realization that in order for the soldiers to ever come home we must do what is right. We must finish the task at hand ensuring that the Iraqi people can have a little something that we call freedom, and freedom is never free.