Gods of Naughtiness

I know that there are certain people who will want to have me lynched for saying this, but I shall be brutally honest and tell you right now that I don't believe in God. This doesn't mean that I don't respect the opinions of people who have such beliefs, because I do. No, really. However, unless you're one of those hateful unreasonably staunch fanatics, you will agree with me that the only sensible argument you could possibly have going for the existence of such an entity is faith, and nothing more, which is why I would have to strongly disagree with a certain article that has been handed to me for inspection.

Now I will be frank and say that whoever wrote this hasn't been very clear about what he or she's on to, but from what I can make of it he or she is trying to brainwash us into thinking that the reason things exist as they are is due to an highly superior unseen presence, or a God, if you will. I can actually end this whole thing by saying that you simply cannot use something that hasn't been proven to exist as a valid argument for anything, but because I have to write a 400 word essay on this I shall be forced to elaborate.

In his opening sentence, the writer assumes that almost everyone knows that the Earth spins around its axis at speeds of thousands of miles an hour, which, as a certain someone pointed out, is a rather ambitious assumption because as far as I'm concerned it moves quite slowly, or at least it seems this way from here. He or she then proceeds to mumble something about big tortoises standing on the the top of huge elephants, which I couldn't see the relevance of initially but after considerable ponderation I suspect this is supposed to refer to a time when humans existed as huge, hairy gorillas.

The writer then proceeds to spit out some apparent facts about the Earth and our existence in general, and while I must admit that said facts are logical and make rather alarming amounts of sense, I feel inclined to point out that he or she should have at least included some credible references after the text to prove that the aforementioned facts are in fact true. All of this was supposed to be proof of the existence of some sort of higher being, because as he says: 'Such a well-organised structure cannot exist and be created incidentally, can it?'

If this ignoramus ever bothered taking secondary school physics, he or she would know that the reason everything in this part of the universe is so well balanced is because of something called equilibrium, which occurs when the forces acting on something balance each other out. Now if whatever magical forces acting on our world weren't in equilibrium, just like most other objects in the universe, we wouldn't even exist. The writer mentions that the reason we are alive and well right now is because the conditions here are just right, but what he or she neglected to consider was the fact that most of the universe isn't as fortunate as the part that we are miraculously lucky enough to live in, which is why the rest of it seems so lifeless until you take into consideration the significant possibility of something else living and breathing in a region of outer space even the most ridiculously expensive equipment can't explore.

Our beloved writer does not seem to have a reasonable understanding of the English language, a fact proven when he describes Darwin's theory of evolution as notorious, because it most certainly is not, reason being the word notorious lends whatever it's being used to describe a rather negative connotation. Famous yes, but definitely not notorious. The philistine then even goes as far as to say that the fact that no one still seems to know how we came about to exist, even after tedious amounts of researching and hypothesizing, is proof of the existence of an almighty being. I find this rather ridiculous because you simply can't attribute everything we're dumb enough not to know to this entity called God.

As a last-ditch attempt to justify his/her argument, the author starts quoting statements from famous scientists who favor the existence of a higher being, and while these were people who made huge contributions to all things scientific, they are merely opinions, and opinions do not guarantee fact. Whoever wrote this does not seem to be very bright because 'All believers of a religion cannot be wrong; at least the grain of truth must exist.' This is something called herd mentality, and I'm sure you've heard of it. There was a dark time when everyone was marrying their sisters, but I'm quite sure this wasn't right at all, unless of course you had some sort of weird, creepy fetish for incest.

The article finishes with 'Anyway, it is appealing to believe in something as pleasant as the reservation of the tiny hostel somewhere in paradise, which you might deserve after passing away, instead of something so horribly and terribly named as nothingness, isn't it?' Basic logic tells me that when we die, we cease to exist, so there's nothing for us to suffer or enjoy. Now of course I can't be completely sure of this, but when I do get out of here and if I find out that there really is an afterlife, I'll be sure to try my best to let you know what it's like.

Emission omission

I've just noticed a rather significant (or insignificant, depending on how seriously you take the art of engine-making) blunder in my previous post. I mentioned that a certain French automotive manufacturer has given birth to a tiny engine capable of producing as much power as an engine twice its size with only a fraction of its emissions. As it turns out, the aforementioned car giant was Italian, not French. Yes, it was Fiat that came up with the 1.2-liter two-cylinder 85bhp TWIN-AIR engine, not Renault. I sincerely apologize for providing you with the wrong information, a consequence of my unrelenting tendency to be lazy.

This engine is one of the fundamental reasons why I would reject the very concept of a hybrid. You see, I'm an insufferable petrol head (and a pyromaniac, if there's even the slightest relation) and any self-respecting petrol head would only want to be seen in something that's powered purely by some form of crude oil. The reason for this is simple, really: Petrol powered automobiles provide us with the widest grins upon flooring of the throttle. There are plenty of imbeciles who will tell you the a car's one and only purpose is to get you from one point to another, and it is these imbeciles who will be willingly seen bumbling about in one of those god-awful hybrids. In case you didn't know, a Prius is one of the worst cars to drive around in. Yes, it probably will save you a few quid on gas, but it's one of the dullest things available to mankind. The handling is rubbish, it takes roughly an hour to get from 0 to 60, and only people like Leonardo DiCaprio are to be seen in one. If you actually take the time to think about it, running out of petrol has absolutely no negative environmental effects. In fact, we're actually doing our planet a favor because no fossil fuel = no pollution. I therefore urge every single one of you to climb into the nearest V8 and make merry with the accelerator. If we're going to run out of fossil fuel we might as well enjoy every last bit of it as best we can, and that's exactly what the TWIN-AIR is for. I have previously mentioned that this revolutionary little thing will make hybrids the automotive equivalent of Betamax, and I still stand by it.

Why would you buy a Prius with its dirty internal combustion engine and its toxic batteries when you can get cars that spit out nothing but water? No, you aren't dream-reading, there really are cars with drinkable emissions. Such cars run on hydrogen, one of the most abundant elements in the UNIVERSE, and therefore if you're genuinely interested in saving Mother Earth you should get one of these instead. Do yourself a favor and give it a nice long thought: a car that runs on something available in plentiful amounts not just here but in places further than the Hubble telescope can see, and when you're feeling a bit thirsty you could simply place a mug at your vehicle's tailpipe.

Now I shall tell you that I'm not pulling you leg on this one because there already are hydrogen powered cars running around in exclusively selected places. I am of course talking about the Honda FCX Clarity, a car so very sexy that if it should appear right in front of you right now you'll find your unmentionables having emissions of their own. This of course sounds too good to be true, and sadly it is, at least for the moment because the process of extracting hydrogen itself consumes a rather alarming amount of energy, but then if they can send people to the moon I'll bet my bollocks that they'll figure out a much better way to do it soon enough.

Boom

Internal combustion fuelled transport has always been a problem (at least for environmentalists) since pollution started coming into the picture. This of course presented an almighty business opportunity to the world's leading automotive manufacturers, who decided that the world needs something that sips as little fuel as possible. Naturally, everyone decided that the best way to go about this business would be to come up with a vehicle that runs mainly on fuel but is assisted via electrical means wherever possible so as to reduce emissions while increasing mileage (we're looking at you, Toyota). And so, the hybrid was born.

For the ignoramuses among you who still don't know what a hybrid is, let me explain: A hybrid is a vehicle that is propelled by two or more different sources of power, and in most cases it would be a combination of petrol/diesel and electricity. The whole point of this is to save on fuel and more importantly, cut down on those nasty, nasty things that come out of a car's tail pipe as the electricity is supposed to assist the car in moving so that less petrol would be needed.

Now I shall attempt to explain to you how exactly a hybrid works, and this might get a bit technical depending on whether or not you finished your primary school education so bear with me. A hybrid essentially consists of an internal combustion engine, a very big lithium-ion battery (the same kind you'd find behind your cell phone) and electric motors, usually one at each wheel. The batteries power the electric motors which are used to assist the car when accelerating, and because a car uses more power as it goes faster, this is supposed to help save on fuel. Most hybrids also have the option of only running on batteries at low speeds, usually up to 40km/h, which eliminates fuel use altogether and of course emissions. Each motor also acts as a generator which charges the batteries when the car is coasting down or whenever the brakes are applied. This is the reason why so many Hollywood celebrities have chosen the unholy Prius as their runabout of choice in their miserable attempts to gain green credentials.

As green as all this sounds, there is, however, one little niggle: The process involved in making a hybrid vehicle like a Prius actually does more damage to the environment than said Prius would be able to redeem in its entire petrol-and-emission saving life. This is because the bits needed to make the battery like lead and magnesium are actually rather toxic and need to be mined and then shipped from various parts of the world to the place where the batteries are made, and any idiot can tell you that mining releases the sort of things that would make Mother Nature flinch. Then of course the raw material is shipped by means of huge barges that release the wrath of their engines into the unsuspecting atmosphere.

So there you go, the Prius isn't actually as green as it seems. Hybrids are also rather expensive, so it would be better to just get a small car with a small engine because that would use about the same amount of petrol as a Prius. Then there was the time Top Gear put a Prius on a track, told it to go as fast as it could and had a BMW M3 follow it, and surprise, surprise, the Prius actually drank more petrol than the M5. Now this makes the Prius look quite bad when you consider that an M3 has a big-bore V8, which just proves that a hybrid wouldn't be all that good if you were to drive it on the Autobahn at high speeds.

Renault recently came up with a tiny two cylinder engine that put out as much power as a four cylinder engine twice its size with just a fraction of its emissions. Now there is a very real possibility that cars having engines like this would make hybrids obsolete and unnecessary since the process of making one is exactly the same as that of other conventional cars.

This brings us to the question of whether or not hybrids are still relevant, and the answer would depend on whether or not engineers can figure out a nicer way to make their batteries, otherwise it will be much better if we just stick to small engines like the one mentioned above.