A blog about thoughts on religion, politics, the occasional intersection of both, and other stuff.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
I am a Populist-leaning, Socialist-leaning Republican
--Not Republican as in GOP, though, thank God. I took this quiz. You can take it too, but take it with a grain of salt. It's a libertarian thing and the biases in wording are fairly obvious. I am somewhat skeptical of these descriptions.
According to the website, I can be broken down as follows:
Populist-leaning on the Liberal-Populist line:
Many who consider society excessively loose or irresponsible fall into this ranking, supporting certain measures to enforce a somewhat more rigid code of moral standards like blue laws, dry county laws, and so forth. The typical social conservative falls here.
Capitalist-leaning on the Capitalist-Socialist line:
Most Democrats and a few Republicans fall here. They are skeptical of corporate scandals, think that balanced budgets are a good reason to raise taxes, and want a more progressive taxation system. They view the estate tax and capital gains tax as necessary balancing devices against the power of the wealthy. They are skeptical or even adamantly opposed to free trade, and consider the IMF, WTO and World Bank to be closed, dangerous, undemocratic and serving the wealthy. They associate economic success with more government spending, low unemployment, and a trade surplus.
Republican on the Radical-Conservative line:
This includes a large bulk of modern-day American politicians, whether Republican or Democratic. This includes values of basic racial equality but not necessarily affirmative action. It's a strong rejection of racism and a strong embrace of democracy, but not into the social levelling or hyper-secularism of the democrat level.
The deteriorating cement roof tiles of the Paul VI auditorium will be replaced next year with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity.
....
Pope Benedict has criticised "the unbalanced use of energy" in the world.
Last year he said environmental damage was making "the lives of poor people on earth especially unbearable".
The Paul VI auditorium was designed by architect Pier Luigi Nervi and built in 1969.
The cement panels on its roof have deteriorated and were due to be replaced anyway, said Vatican engineer Pier Carlo Cuscianna.
When the 6,000-seat hall is not in use, the surplus energy will be fed into the Vatican power network.
The Vatican is considering placing solar panels on other buildings although St Peter's Basilica and other historical landmarks will not be touched.
This is probably how I would go about it if I wanted to make things more environmentally-friendly. It seems a shame to replace a perfectly good roof with solar panels, so the right thing to do is to experiment by doing one building first and seeing how it works out before committing yourself to redoing everything.
Of course, I've never been an early adopter of technology. I was years behind the curve in adopting CDs and DVDs. I wouldn't consider buying a hybrid car until the technology had proven itself with data on cars that have been on the road for five years. But that's just me. (8:01 PM)
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