I don’t have the time or energy right now to write a crafty response in reply to this comment, so I thought I would enlist the help of my brilliant friends to reply to this commenter with their own life experiences and thoughts.

The most popular post on my blog is entitled, Why I ditched Dave Ramsey. It’s gotten ton’s of comments, mostly it’s become a ground for folks to debt Dave Ramsey, but that wasn’t my intention. I originally posted that while Dave had written a caller’s concern about saving $30 a month on gas by driving a more economical and energy efficient car as being a ‘tight-wad.’ I felt he should have affirmed her concern and encouraged her to be a good steward and sacrificial steward with her finances. I said, “She was not being a “tight-wad” she was being a wise steward, one that sees the money she has been given not as her’s that God “blessed her” with, but for her to use wisely as God entrusted her with it.”

Yesterday, a reader replied with this comment:

As to the original blogger, geez, do you live your entire life in sadness? I think it’s great that you want to spend ALL your extra money sponsoring kids and such, but are you sure that’s God and not your own efforts to alleviate a “guilt complex” of some type for living a nice life in America? Enjoy the blessings God gave you and be wise with your money, and you can affect your world in far greater ways.”

I’d love to hear what you all think of that and your thoughts (even if you agree with him. Feel free to comment on this post or on the post after his comment.

In the absence of time to write myself, I want to highlight some friends writings…

My buddy, Ben, writes:

This Virginia Tech shooting is really sad, but its also a reminder of how sad our media is. Nowhere on TV, print, or radio is safe from what seems like deep exploitation for ratings. Each news channel seems to be putting on a show of sadness, while they are probably giddy to get a change to create new graphics, horrific segment titles, and story after story about why you too should be scared for your life. As the president of Virginia Tech said, “we live in an open society,” and while that brings with it incredible freedom and joy, it at times is open to unpreventable tragedies. Yet, even here in Seattle the local news can’t help but pain the local colleges here as the next possible place for terror, and older members of the media continue to talk about how more violent and worse off this generation is compared to the “good ole days.” While the media is busy painting this generation as violent and heartless they are missing…

Read the Rest of his Post here.

The Internet came to a crashing halt at the house. Josh said the wiring is really messed up which means it might be a while before it’s fixed. And knowing our landlord’s it’ll be even longer then that. It’s been nice not having the internet for a little bit, but I’ll appreciate when it’s back. Mindy’s has a lot of homework to catch up on so we’ll be spending sometime at a coffee shop that has free wifi I’m sure.

I’m gonna write a few post here quick so you won’t miss your daily dose, but just know that won’t be too lengthy, and I’ll be slow to reply to comments as well (what else is new?).

I was going to write a post on this, but I decided I’d rather post some links and quotes and hopefully generate some discussion on the topic. Here’s the quick summary. I want to be a environmental steward of my resources and I want to be a fair consumer of the earth’s resources. There’s all kinds of talk about global warming these days and choosing more sustainable and energy efficient lifestyle choices. There’s also criticism arising about those things. I want to hit two areas briefly. Global Warming and then more specifically, choice of vehicle.

First, global warming. Al Gore has brought to the forefront of conversation the issue of Global Warming through his movie an inconvenient truth.

The critics have returned not only with a critique that just says global warming is a scam, but with a whole response video that explains why the hype about global warming can actually be bad for society and the developing world. They also point out who stands to gain in the global warming frenzy. Definitely some interesting things I haven’t thought of before. The Great Global Warming Swindle:

Are you green? How
many flights have you taken in the last year? Feeling guilty about all
those unnecessary car journeys? Well, maybe there’s no need to feel bad.

Wikipedia notes:

• Author and economist James Shikwati says in the programme that environmentalists campaign against Africa using its fossil fuels:
  “there’s somebody keen to kill the African dream. And the African dream
  is to develop.” He describes renewable power as “luxurious
  experimentation” that might work for rich countries but will never work
  for Africa: “I don’t see how a solar panel is going to power a steel
  industry…We are being told, ‘Don’t touch your resources. Don’t touch
  your Oil. Don’t touch your Coal. That is suicide.'”
• An example is given in the film of a Kenyan health clinic which is
  powered by solar panels which do not provide enough electricity for
  both the medical refrigerator and the lights at the same time. The
  programme describes the idea of restricting the world’s poorest people
  to alternative energy sources as “the most morally repugnant aspect of
  the Global Warming campaign.”

Second, vehicles. I’d still like to see the day very soon when the wife and I can do without a car, but until then I’m still trying to make the best environmental choices I can when it comes to those vehicles. In light of that we’ve considered buying a used hybrid sometime down the road when we have to purchase a new vehicle. It seemed to be the wisest financial decision. Yet, there has also been some criticism of the hype about fuel efficient cars.

There’s a study done by a research outfit called CNW Marketing Research which attempts to determine the total energy used by a vehicle from mining the metals to final disposal. Interestingly the Hummer H2 comes out ahead of a number of more fuel efficient vehicles including the Honda Civic and the Toyota Prius. (Let it be said that the Focus and the Scion XP come out far ahead of the Hummer). There’s an interesting discussion of the results here and an audio interview with the researcher here. –a podcast

Going Private has an interesting take on hybrids:

Hybrids are such a horrible mess because they mix all the elements required to destroy the market forces.  Subsidies, state and federal.  Green investing.  Substantial research and development to avoid spending money on gasoline, which the market has actually left quite cheap, at the expense of a more expensive product.  (Hint: use cheap resources until they are not cheap anymore).

And more negative new about hybrids:

In reality, as put forward by auto-writer Richard Burr in the Weekly
Standard, hybrids don’t deliver anywhere close to the gas mileage that
the agency attributes to them. According to Spinella, hybrid sales
every month this year have reduced compared to the same time last year.
Reason being; people prefer to buy non-hybrid with the same mileage or
somewhere near that due to the lower price. Spinella’s customer
satisfaction surveys also reveal 62 percent of hybrid owners are
dissatisfied with the fuel-economy performance. Hybrids also have a
disastrous pollution and energy consumption record in Japan and other
Asian countries where these cars are manufactured.

And there’s this bit too:

The problem with Dalmia’s Op-ed, and many other irresponsible misrepresentations of the very ambitious CNW report: “Dust to Dust”, are that today’s costs, aren’t necessarily tomorrow’s costs, and Spinello himself admits
that hybrids will probably be more “dust to dust” energy efficient than
their non-hybrid counterparts in a relatively short time, as short as a
few years, as the technology is simplified and the manufacturing
process is streamlined. (Check out that podcast for a good overview of
the report’s conclusions.) New technology is always more costly early
in it’s development.

I just want to know the truth. I want to be fuel efficient, environmentally sound, a good steward, and I’ll drive a scion, a hybrid, or even a hummer if it’s the best decision for the world. But all this back and forth, biases and more leaves a person frustrated and confused. What’s the truth?  Anyone have some thoughts on the matter?