A Rain of Frogs

Carbon offsets allow carbon-producing companies and countries to offset their carbon dioxide production in a variety of ways, such as planting trees or investing in alternative energy initiatives.

The Kyoto protocol that most countries have signed uses the concept of carbon credits to allow developed countries and large companies to offload some of their carbon dioxide production to lesser-developed countries for a fee. The idea is that these offset fees will then be used by those less developed countries to buy or develop clean energy technologies.

Offsetting is cool. But carbon dioxide is not the only evil in this world. Why not use the offset concept for the betterment of all mankind?

I propose the simple concept of sin offsetting.

The idea is that one can sin all one want, and then offset that sin on the pious and pure for some nominal fee. This fee could then be used to help the pious and now slightly-less-pure commit to some sort of penance schedule to erase this offset sin and once again guarantee their place at the right hand of the lord, in bed with 72 virgins, or whatever eternal reward they feel is coming to them.

The general level of sin on planet earth is reduced, the unrighteous continue to get laid, drink, go about the daily business of living, etc. and the nouveau-riche righteous, afraid of slaying their golden goose, stop pontificating.

Everybody wins.

“[The] experience was less like contacting the Gaian mind and more like having portions of my personal pattern of awareness scrambled arbitrarily throughout the larger organic order.”

You cannot pay people to write this stuff.

This Internet thing, think it’s it for real?

Solid gold!

I figured its been a while since I posted an image. I have a thing for super-clean sans-serif typefaces, and the ‘R’ and ‘K’ glyphs here just totally do it for me. Yes, I’m a font geek. Get over it.

Quick trivia question: Do you know what typeface is featured at so many Toronto subways stations? Hint: It’s not what you think!

Shame on you for googling it!

There is this bird in my marina. It’s some sort of cormorant, and it does the funniest thing in the world. It sits on its nest.

The nest is built in a floating wheel buoy. For those not familiar, a wheel buoy is an inflated tire on a wheel floating in the water and tethered to the lake bed by a chain. I am not sure of the purpose of this particular wheel buoy, but there are several around the marina.

So, this cormorant sits on her nest all day, every day. And every day her dutiful mate swims around, braving attacks from canadian geese and one very aggressive male swan, collecting food for her.

She’s sitting on eggs – one can see them when she deigns to haul her chubby butt off that wheel buoy and actually do something. There’s no problem with this, of course. Sitting on eggs is what birds do.

But these eggs haven’t hatched yet, and they were laid in May!

That’s right, little miss sunshine has been sitting on these eggs while her mate works his tail feathers off, in the full knowledge that these eggs will never hatch.

It is a shocking and appalling manipulation of the male bird’s instincts and nature. I feel deeply for that poor male cormorant.

Maybe this letter is why I didn’t become an architect...