Flimflam (a.k.a carbon offsets)

“It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.”
- W. C. Fields

You know there are all manner of ways that folks (read: stupid gullible idiots) get conned out of their money. One of the more interesting and notorious scams to come to mind, is the "African Money Transfer" scam. You might recieve an email that would request your help in securing a few million dollars. In a nutshell . . . the africans need you to help them with bribes to officials and/or $10,000 to open an account in their country, etc. all in order to, eventually, facilliate the wiring of a large sum of money from their country into a bank overseas, usually Europe - these folks even produce official looking government and bank documents to bring you along. You, of course, would take a large cut for your help. As you can imagine, since this is being referenced in a blog on scams, you never see a dime. It's such a sweet deal, it makes me wish I would have come up with it. I think I could have bilked way more than those uneducated and cretin-like third-worlders - hell(!) my toilet flushes and when I want something I just push the buttons on my replicator (take that bitches!).

Moving along . . . to one of the newest scams out there: the carbon offset. Carbon what? Of course if you are not a liberal, hug a tree, mental defective, Corky Thatcher (Life Goes On allusion! - bonus points [cha-ching]), Gore-clone (my term, I coined it, please cite ME when you use it [and you know you will]), meaning . . . you are reasonable, decent human being, you've probably not heard of the term either. Of course those of you who do know of these, how-do-you-say, "carbon offsets" might protest you are "cultured" or "well read" - NO! - you are a jackass, and if you actually bought some carbon offsets, you are also an idiot to boot.

Let me explain the "carbon offset" . . . it seems that the carbon offset is "something" that you purchase that is supposed to lower the amount of CO2 in the enviroment. Yay! But here's the deal . . . you keep doing whatever it is that you are doing but you also put money into a windfarm, thereby absolving yourself of any of that annoying, guilt that self-hating liberals have too much of in the first place. So from a purely psychological perspective I can understand the primal need to buy offsets - I mean, how else are the shame-filled, mental-midgets going to sleep at night (we all gotta sleep, right?). It's like the Indulgences and the Roman Catholic Church. For a set price you may "pay it forward", and then bugger all the little boys you like, and will still find a fluffy cloud and a golden harp in heaven (sweet deal!). Another analogy if I may . . . it's like me taking a shit on the floor of your living room, but, "Hey man! It's cool! Sorry, I know I didn't need BOTH burritos, but don't worry, I'm having the neighbor's floor cleaned!" Whatever. Many offsets actually buy a tree's CO2 using potential you are not even buying the tree. If you do this amazing stunt, you are actually paying someone for something the tree was going to do anyway!

The whole offset business went mainstrem with the revelation that Al Gore (yes - Mr. "the world is going to melt because the world is getting too hot because humans are putting too much CO2 in the air" [btw if the coastal regions really flooded the whole world would be a better place, because who lives on the coast? that's right liberals and poor people]) spends like $30,000 a year in utility bills on his HUGE freakin house in Tennessee. Now I personally do not have a problem with $30,000/year ultility bill nor do I have probablem with HUGE freakin houses - the bigger the better! What I do have a problem with is someone who tells me that I'm killing the earth because of CO2 and that I need to change everything about the way I live, yet Mr. Doom and Gloom himself sits in his HUGE freakin house and polutes the enviroment with the very stuff he says is killing it. Where I come from, that person is called a hypocrite. Gore's rationalization for such extravagance? Carbon offsets.

Here's probably the best part, and you just cannot make this shit up . . . it turns out Gore "pays for his extra-large carbon footprint through Generation Investment Management a London-based company with offices in Washington, D.C., for which he serves as chairman". He pays himself for the carbon offsets! HA! (And the geen-nazis discount everything any scientist with any tie to an oil company has to say, but if Gore has a financial conflict of interest in carbon offsets, we shall turn a blind eye? [where the fuck is the consistency bitches?])

So, in the spirit of the posting, I am, as of this moment, offering a new and special carbon offset special! I have two cacti which I have lovingly raised from baby cacti. What is special about my offset compared to any other? Ahhh, I am glad you asked! Cacti are CAM plants! Which means that they take up CO2 at night! Oh joy! So while all other offsets are taking up CO2 during the day, they have left a huge gaping hole in the 24 hour day. So please, if you love the globe and care about global warming sends checks - lots and lots of checks - to me. Please make checks payable to the acronym C.A.S.H. (CAMplants Are Saving Humans).

And as an added incentive bonus for every check I recieve I will light one fart! Thereby, reducing the amount of methane in the air! And if you are worried about the CO2 produced by the combustion reaction, don't worry I will only light farts at night when the cactus are working.

(give me a fucking break . . . seriously . . .)