Finding Their Religion

I have made no secret that I believe environmentalism in general, and global warming in specific, has become a de facto religion for many on the left. In fact, the proselytizing is often more militant and annoying than anything coming from Christians.

This has always struck me as odd coming from a group that is so openly hostile to religion, at least it did until I realized that most of the hostility was directed solely at Christianity and Judaism, not religion in general. It is not uncommon, on leftist sites, to hear about how religious Republicans (and Bush in particular) are a bunch of theocrats 1000 times worse than the Taliban.

Of course, as an atheist myself, I find all religion bizarre and disturbing. However, not being of the militant type, I am content to live with my beliefs and let others live with theirs so long as I am not proselytized and they don't try to force their beliefs on me via government.

Lately, however, there seems to be a trend within left to claim Christianity as their own. It started with the typical sound bite stuff like "Jesus was a Liberal" etc and moved into attempts at justifying their desire for socialism with religious appeals. Well, that honestly scares the crap out of me. It was one thing when those on the right wanted to throw their social mores on me using the law, because as long as I have economic freedom, I can have social freedom.

Now that the left is combing its religions of socialism and environmentalism they can only get more fanatical, and might even get some on the right to join them. That is likely to have a much more troubling affect on my day to day life. Already the neo-prohibitionists are at work on the left trying to control everything from what we eat and drink to what is and is not allowed on TV and radio. Because of that, you get stuff like this:

Once she wrested control of the Senate’s Environmental and Public Works Committee from conservative stalwart Sen. Jim Inhofe (R.-Okla.), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.) was expected to aggressively pursue legislation to combat global warming. What wasn’t expected was that she would do it with blessings from the Church.

Last Thursday, Boxer held a hearing that highlighted the growing role of religion in liberal political campaigns--particularly in the name of “environmental justice.” There, a coalition of 35 religious denominations called for an 80 percent reduction in global warming emissions by the year 2050, and bill S.309, sponsored by Boxer and avowed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I.-Vt.), calls for the same.

“Evangelical Christians, Catholics, African Methodist Episcopals, Jews, mainline Protestant Christians, and many other people of faith see the need for action on global warming as a moral, ethical and scriptural mandate,” Boxer said.

As McQ over at QandO points out, much like the feminists did with Clinton, you can expect most of the secularists on the left to just shut up and pretend this isn't happening. After all, Christianity is only bad when it is being used to push things you don't like, when it works for you, then it is great.

Party in a Pouch

Just wait until MADD finds out about this:

DUTCH students have invented powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.

The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20g packets that cost €1 to €1.5 ($1.60 to $2.45).

Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-coloured and flavoured drink with just three per cent alcohol content.

There is sure to be a full on battle to keep this from making it to our shores here in the US. I would be very interested to see a legal analysis of US alcohol laws to see if this is or is not currently permitted.

Also, look for this reported loophole to be closed as quickly as is legislatively possible:

The students said companies interested in making the product commercially could avoid taxes because the alcohol was in powder form.

Update: In search of the answer to Tom's question concerning how the alcohol is powdered, I came across a post from 2005 about a German company that had a powdered alcohol product:

According to the manufacturer, the powder is produced in the following way. A solution of water and alcohol is mixed with maltodextrin and then spray-dried at relatively low temperatures. Each molecule of alcohol is encapsulated by dextrin during the spray-drying process and the smaller water molecules are allowed to pass through the surface and evaporate. There is about a 5% loss of alcohol on the surface of each droplet.

I have no idea if the Dutch students used a similar process or if this description is correct as the website of the German company is currently down.

I will do some more searching to try to track down the exact technique used by the students.