This recent article from Scientific American Mind will guide you. It contains summaries of the results of several studies.

To start off my day today, I reviewed some of the inconvenient history about Thanksgiving. Then I moved on to anticipate the headline in tomorrow’s paper. In what way (it’s not a question of if) will the newspaper urge us to spend our precious time on the planet buying things we don’t need. 

Wishing everyone some enjoyable time off from your routine, and a chance to spend time with the people you love. 

But do stay away from the stores.  Why?  See this post and affiliated links.

I’ll close with Jon Stewart’s take on Thanksgiving:

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.

This is one of those really funny Onion articles with an extraordinarily sharp edge. Bravo to The Onion.

Listening to a talk show at work yesterday, I heard some fall-out from the recent suicide of the young girl who had been “duped” on MySpace.  When I first learned of this tragedy, I ran through a series of thoughts about the dangers posed by the interfaces we use these days, which put us often too early and unprepared into contact with things in another era we would simply have had no opportunity to encounter.  This girl was a casualty of the wavefront of experience that comes now in new forms and through media that never before existed.  

I never once thought it was her fault.

How could you?  She’d been deceived.  Inexperienced, unwitting, she invested a bit too much, and it put her over the edge to discover that what she thought was “real” was in fact a deception.

History is full of examples of people committing suicide over things with only marginal reality.  Especially among adolescents.  We’ve learned in the last decade a great deal more about brain development than ever before, and one of those things is that adolescence is the time of some of the most intricate and fragile growth–physically–within the brain.  The hormone storm that is unleashed at the onset of puberty, the growth spurts visible in every other part of the body, the physiological changes of emergent sexuality and secondary sexual characteristics, all have their equivalent in cognitive development.  It makes perfect sense after the fact, but for a long, long time we blithely assumed that adolescents were more or less just like adults.  Instead we find that, because of the rapid and complex changes they are going through, teen-agers who appear out-of-control, impulsive, overly-sensitive, clueless, clumsy–in short, borderline insane–really are all those things and it is the responsibility of the adults around them to set guidelines and provide aid to get them through this period to the other side and (hopefully) “normality” and sanity.  (When this fails, we have all manner of screwed up adult.)

Which is why holding a teenager responsible for not behaving like an adult is absurd on its face.

And consequences of this journey can run the gamut from perpetual clumsiness to neuroses to schizophrenia to manic-depression to suicide.

It is one of the challenges of our new awareness of these things to take actions to mitigate the worst effects and to do what we can to ensure a healthy mind in the emergent adult.

Something like this tragic suicide occurs, though, and when we listen to what comes after we discover how unlikely that is for some people.  Many people emailed this talk show to express their opinion that the dead girl “got what was coming to her.”  It was somehow her fault.

When we tease through this senseless reaction, we come to the bottom line opinion that what she was doing on MySpace was something she shouldn’t have been doing, something that is to some people Bad.  In fact immoral.  Evil.  That she reaped the rewards of an inappropriate indulgence.

This is pathetic.  But rather than condemn it outright, maybe we ought to take a look at this and see where it comes from.  This echoes similar responses to other events, like rape.  “She shouldn’t have been out that late, she shouldn’t have been with Those People, she shouldn’t have been dressed Like That.”  We’ve heard all this.  After enough of it, you’d think the poor rapist had absolutely no choice but to attack That Female.  It was all her fault, she brought it on herself.

Blaming the victim.

This happens to men, too, but in less obvious ways.  (more…)

According to this post at Alternet, there are many forms of rampant self-indulgence.  The GOP specializes in the most pernicious forms:

While the culture at large was adjusting to the idea that families don’t all look the same and that private sexual morality was not the business of the state, the decadent economic elite and right wing ideologues had systematically defined deviancy down to the point where Moynihan’s deviant “altruism” can be illustrated as giving bonuses to workers who denied cancer patients their medicine; his deviant “opportunism” is seen as giving hundreds of millions of dollars to failed business leaders who lost their companies billions; and his deviant “normalizing” can be observed as society tossing aside its taboo against government-sanctioned torture.

Psyblog presents a handy summary of ten of the most famous social psychology studies. The post is a succinct review of each of the following studies, along with thoughtful commentary.  The social psychological studies include the following:

 1. The Halo Effect - Nisbett
 2. Cognitive Dissonance - Festinger
 3. Robbers Cave - Sherif
 4. Stanford Prison Experiment - Zimbardo
 5. Obedience to Authority - Milgram
 6. False Consensus Bias - Ross
 7. Social Identity Theory - Tajfel
 8. Bargaining - Deutsch
 9. Bystander Apathy - Darley & Latane
 10. Conforming to the Norm - Asch

Who is Psyblog?  It’s Jeremy Dean, a lawyer/psychologist who has assembled an impressive collection of clearly written posts on various aspects of psychology.  It’s definitely worth a visit–though you might end up staying for quite awhile.  I certainly did. 

Other recent Psyblog posts include the following:  Can Cognitive Neuroscience Tell Us Anything About the Mind? (it’s questionable) and Why Career Planning Is Time Wasted.   And why is career planning wasted?  Because we aren’t even capable of knowing what sandwich we’ll want each day for the upcoming week, much less our job preferences.  “Your future self is probably a stranger to you.”  In fact, “70% report that they have been significantly influenced by chance events.”

Printed with permission of http://caglecartoons.com/. 

Warning:  The site discussed in this post might be a scam.  Check the comments before doing business with this site. 

I visited The Art of Mental Warfare tonight.  It presents itself as a “clarion call to action for an apathetic nation.”  The site is based on a book of the same name, by David Vincent.   The site offers the following quote by that well known Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

The themes of the site?

Corporate media, for starters.  How many corporations dominate US mainstream media?  It’s dwindling:

1983 = 50
1993= 14
2007 = 5

How much do we pay for public broadcasting?

Germany $85
UK $83
US $1.54

Hence, the battlecry:

The mainstream media is an elaborate and sophisticated propaganda apparatus that is designed and utilized to deceive, manipulate, dumb down, distract and marginalize the American public. We realize that the mainstream media is not giving us the vital information that we need to develop informed opinions and participate in this so-called “democracy.”

However, the average US citizen still does not understand this. They are too busy working hard trying to make ends meet, trying to provide for their families, trying to pay off their homes, credit cards and debt. They don’t have the time to spend hours everyday researching issues that the mainstream media doesn’t even mention or discuss.

In fact, with hundreds of television channels, radio stations, magazines, newspapers and movies, the average citizen thinks the amount of viewpoints in the media are overwhelming and diverse. They don’t realize that the vast majority of media companies are controlled by a handful of the world’s most powerful interrelated corporate interests. They don’t realize that over the past 25 years we have experienced a scandalous concentration in media ownership and an all out attack on public TV and radio.

Okay, perhaps I’m being a bit harsh. But I found some videos on YouTube purporting to show simple homemade tricks for getting power from essentially nothing. The culprit calls himself HouseholdHacker These are very slickly directed and composed, very amateur-looking videos, full of straight-faced monologue and how-to demonstrations, illustrating nothing real.

Sure, the videos seem to show how to power a 25″ TV from a single AAA battery, or an iPod from an onion. But I — as an individual who actually has a clue about how electricity works — am puzzled at the number of responders who actually try these things and wonder why they don’t work. I’m aghast at the apparent shills responding that they did try the techniques, and that they work!

Fume.

There is enough anti-science and anti-sense on the web from well-intentioned individuals. The rising tide of disinformation doesn’t need more heroes!

There is plenty of really bad advice for home chemistry procedures that only might injure someone (as opposed to certainly will). But these might be assumed to be attempts to recruit people for the Darwin Awards (perhaps a bit much for a practical joke). At least the works of HouseholdHacker will only produce annoyance and a few broken cables and small peripherals.

After all the Creation “Science” websites I view (bastions of misleading misquotes, side-stepping logic, and intentional anti-science), why pick on this source of disinformation? Because this guy appears to know what he’s doing, and appears to be showing his techniques working. Seeing is believing!

Point to discuss: Should we even discuss suppressing obviously intentional misinformation that is being widely broadcast? Is is bad that sources like Google might then (mis)inform curious innocent people?

First amendment freedom of expression? After all, if the bomb-designers and hate-provokers have the right to spread their joy, why not this relatively harmless disinformer?

What of the willful incitement to trivial destruction of property presented by HouseholdHacker on YouTube and at HouseholdHacker.com? Does inciting a few hundred gullible people to each ruin  less than $100 worth of stuff add up to a $10,000 crime?
Was it a good idea to link to the posts from this miscreant? (My guess is, “no”.)

Speculation: What is this guy’s game? Is there some hacker contest to dupe the maximum number of technical ignorati?

One of my favorite current cartoonists is Brooke McEldowney. I discovered his work online a few years ago in the form of “A Fairy Merry Christmas”. In the interest of copyright non-violation, I’ll leave it to youse to Google up your own excerpts.

This cartoon series was an NEA sponsored 6 week series. Finally, a use of NEA funds that anyone can appreciate. Except that it only appeared online, and maybe in a few papers. Anyway, I was captivated by the sense of humor. It doesn’t hurt that McEldowney has a magnificent grasp of sensual line in his figure drawing.

After its conclusion, I found his two other strips, 9 Chickweed Lane, and Pibgorn. It took my local paper about another 2 years to discover either one of these, but I’ve been reading them online. (Pibgorn is temporarily without a home as of this writing).

Well, I’ve started reading the cartoonist’s blog, wherein he refers to his teenage daughters as Snark Major and Snark Minor. This led me to one of the Snarks own blog, currently written from her post as a freshman at Aarkvard University (arch rival of Dale, you know).

So, if you want to follow a mental roller coaster of exceptionally twisted and oblique prose, check these out. I had enough fun there to be willing to impose it on yall.

The news, reported by Jamison Foser of Media Matters, is depressing:

Through 17 debates this year, roughly 1,500 questions have been asked of the two parties’ presidential candidates. But only a small handful of questions have touched on the candidates’ views on executive power, the Constitution, torture, wiretapping, or other civil liberties concerns. (A description of those questions appears at the end of this column.)

Only one question about wiretapping. Not a single question about FISA.

There has, however, been a question about whether the Constitution should be changed to allow Arnold Schwarzenegger to be president.

Not one question about renditions. The words “habeas corpus” have not once been spoken by a debate moderator. Candidates have not been asked about telecom liability.

There are other ways to keep older minds active. These other activities involve contributing to society rather than hiding out with a word puzzle.

I am really getting tired of reading articles that advise “elderly” people to pass the hours doing crossword puzzles in order to keep their minds healthy and active.  It’s really hard to think of anything more self-centered or useless then sitting at home, alone, and filling in the little squares to pass the time. Maybe it’s the sort of thing you would do if stranded in a lifeboat, waiting to be rescued, but why spend your precious hours on Earth this way when there are so many valuable ways to spend your time?

Am I exaggerating when I suggest there is a lot of this misguided crossword puzzle advice directed to elderly people?  Not at all.  You can spend an entire day reading articles if you Google “elderly crossword puzzle mind.” Check out this story from NPR.  And take a look at this and this and this. 

Who are the “elderly” in the context of these articles?  Presumably everyone who’s elderly or becoming elderly.  Presumably, that includes everyone who’s not “young.”  The bottom line of these articles is that we must do crossword puzzles or else our minds will atrophy. These article argue that our brains won’t shrivel up as long as we contemplate “14 across” and “43 down” (at least until we give up and look up the answer).  Telling a person to play crossword puzzles has that same snake-oil ring that recently publicized “mind development technique,” Baby Einstein.

I am aware that by dissing crossword puzzles I risk incurring the wrath of the millions of people who love doing crossword puzzles.  And I realize that some crossword puzzles do require some quite a bit of work.  But those who excel at these puzzles are not necessarily well-rounded.  They merely have the skill of being able to seek out and retain inert facts–facts that don’t require one to have an integrated view of what it means to be alive. In this respect, crossword puzzles are akin to trivia contests.  Both activities are opportunities to feel as though one has accomplished something merely by flinging about inert facts.

I am not saying that all people should stop doing crossword puzzles.  If you like doing it, have at it.  All of us like to take breaks from the stress of the real world.   But we don’t usually honor the way we take those breaks.  For instance, I occasionally play Tetris to “escape.”  I would be flabbergasted, though, were someone to tell me that I need to keep my mind sharp by playing a video game.

To the extent we truly value our senior citizens, there are numerous meaningful and mind-exercising activities available to them.  Why do we keep insulting them as though they are half-brain-dead when most of them aren’t?  Certainly, there are some elderly folks who have serious conditions (Alzheimer’s) that limit their ability to stay connected with their communities and to contribute to their society.  Perhaps word puzzles give them relief and I am not criticizing them.  For those who are not limited in their abilities, though (and many elderly people never face any form of dementia), it is not necessary to do crossword puzzles to maintain an active mind.  There are hundreds of other activities that both challenge the mind but also contribute to society. (more…)

It is amazing to me that so many active duty members of the military would risk repercussions by taking a strong position contrary to the President.   The effort has been organized by Appeal for Redress. 

Many active duty, reserve, and guard service members are concerned about the war in Iraq and support the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Appeal for Redress provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional Representative and US Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation. The first Appeal signatures were delivered to members of Congress on January 16, to coincide with at the time of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January 2007. Appeal for Redress will continue to collect signatures until all active duty, Guard, and active reserve soldiers are out of Iraq.

The wording of the Appeal for Redress is short and simple. It is patriotic and respectful in tone.

As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.

This effort was commemorated in January 2007 by cartoonist R.J. Matson (Since the publication of this cartoon, the number of active duty military signing on has exceeded 2,000:

Cartoons often communicate complex political ideas faster and better than prose.  For this reason, DI recently purchased a license from Cagle Cartoon Syndicate in order to reprint the cartoons of some of the best cartoonists in the business.  We are proud to support this work.  Today’s topic is oil. 

(more…)

I haven’t kept up with Pat Buchanan.   I noticed a column of Buchanan’s in a brand new publication of columnists called The Cagle Post (this is the same Cagle of Cagle’s Professional Cartoonist Index)

So what does Buchanan think about Guliani’s proposed team to lead the “war on terror”?

Team leader is Charles Hill, a co-signer of the Sept. 20, 2001, neocon ultimatum to Bush, nine days after 9-11, warning the president if he did not attack Iraq, his failure to do so “will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender to the war on international terrorism.”

Yet Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.

A second member of Rudy’s team is Martin Kramer, an Israeli-American who, according to Ken Silverstein of Harper’s, “spent 25 years at Tel Aviv University and whose Middle East policy can best be summarized as, ‘What’s Best for Israel?’” Silverstein calls Rudy’s eight-man advisory group “AIPAC’s Dream Team” — AIPAC being the Israeli lobby, two of whose leaders go on trial in January for espionage against the United States

According to The New York Times, another key Rudy adviser is Daniel Pipes, “who has called for profiling Muslims at airports and scrutinizing American Muslims in law enforcement, the military and the diplomatic corps.” Another is AEI’s Michael Rubin, “who has written in favor of revoking the United States’ ban on assassinations.”

Best known of Rudy’s advisers is Norman Podhoretz, who wrote in June, “The Case for Bombing Iran” in Commentary, thinks we are in “World War IV” and writes that “as an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart” Bush will bomb Iran.

Buchanan concludes this piece by suggesting that “a vote for Rudy is a vote for endless war. And, as James Madison said, wars are the death of republics.”

For me, a car is a means of getting me from A to B.   I just don’t “get” the idea of spending money for a “luxury” car.  But many people aren’t like me, and rental car companies know this.

Two days ago, I rented a car through Expedia.  I reserved the cheapest car available at Enterprise.  It cost $10 for the day, according to Expedia.  I was on the flight with another attorney on the same case and I offered him a ride to the Kansas City courthouse to save him a cab fare.

A friendly person at the Enterprise quickly greeted me and took me out “to get your car.”  That’s when the fun started. 

The Enterprise guy, a young fellow in a suit, gestured to the big lot of cars and asked me what car I wanted.  I told him that I wanted the $10 car I reserved.  He gave me a look of disdain.  “That car is a Kia.  It’s only a go-kart.  You certainly don’t want that.”  He scowled some more for additional effect. It’s always interesting to hear a merchant disparaging its own merchandise.  It’s a signal for savvy consumers to dig in.  I told him I wanted the Kia, because that’s what I reserved.

He told me he “I can put you into a Charger for only $40,” gesturing to the Charger.   I told him that I wanted the go-kart, because it is a small car that uses less gas.  “It’s more responsible to use smaller cars and use less gas.” 

He was frustrated, and gestured to the far end of the lot, saying that they must be washing the Kia, so what should we do?  This is code for “We don’t really have any $10 cars.  My job is to upgrade you”

He paused, then asked, “How about $15 for the Charger?”  Because we needed to get going and because I really didn’t know the fellow to whom I had offered the ride,” I compromised.  I was tempted, however, to wait for a $10 car, whether it be the Kia or something else.   Interesting, though, how a $40 car turns into a $15 car.

But the negotiating was not over.  Then the Enterprise guy raised the insurance question.   He cautioned me that I should get the insurance ($15/day) because “You’re responsible for anything that is damaged, including a cracked windshield.” He pointed to me and continued, “We will take the cost of those damages right off your credit card.”   I told him “no,” because my credit card covers collision/comprehensive insurance coverage (many credit cards do, making most of these daily insurance charges rip-offs.  

The epilogue?  Enterprise got its $40 in the end.  How?  An impressive array of taxes and mandatory charges.  Check out this receipt:

The fellow who tallied the charges at the end of the day said that KC is the most heavily taxed rental car city other than Phoenix.   What’s an “Arena Fee”?  I was told that I’m paying for KC’s new arena.  Refueling?  $8 for 2 gallons, because I couldn’t find a gas station to top off the car, but not unreasonable.  But look at the other stuff:  “Transportation Facility Charge”?  I guess that “free” shuttle ride wasn’t free.  “Vehicle License Fee Recovery?”  Am I paying for Enterprise to maintain vehicle licenses?  If so, that’s a hefty fee, indeed.  If that car is rented out 3 times per week (a conservative estimate), that amounts to $184/year.   And, oh yeah, there’s sales tax too.

The bottom line was $37 for a “$10 car.”  Good thing I (mostly) insisted on the go-kart. 

This one took a lot of work to set up, but it’s quite entertaining.

At least 6256 US veterans committed suicide in 2005 - an average of 17 a day - the network reported, with veterans overall more than twice as likely to take their own lives as the rest of the general population.

While the suicide rate among the general population was 8.9 per 100,000, the level among veterans was between 18.7 and 20.8 per 100,000.

That figure rose to 22.9 to 31.9 suicides per 100,000 among veterans aged 20 to 24 - almost four times the non-veteran average for the age group.

“Those numbers clearly show an epidemic of mental health problems,” CBS quoted veterans’ rights advocate Paul Sullivan as saying.

Writer John Scalzi recently visited the Creation Museum.    He  has written his report, assessed his impressions, and concluded…well, you should read his conclusions for yourself, here.

I do  not have Mr. Scalzi’s flare for describing expensive nonsense in such finely satirical, subversive, and somewhat detached a manner.  There is also a FlickR show attached worth a look—go through the images separately, though, rather than as a slide show, as he has added comments also worth a look.

The capacity of human beings to deceive themselves and ignore evidence that things really aren’t the way they wish them to be might in itself be proof of god’s existence.  How else does one explain it?  The fact that money was spent to put this elaborate Rube-Goldberg explanation on exhibit, that people who are otherwise perfectly reasonable and intelligent seem totally unwilling to use that intelligence and reason when it comes to a pet obsession, is proof of something.

Surely it is.  But what?

I am not at all sure.

But they are.

This question is not really fair.  After all, there are many people out in the suburbs who don’t have it easy and there are many people living in the city who have never had to overcome serious challenges.

Nonetheless, it is my prejudice that those people with the highest character, those people we admire the most, are people who have overcome adversity on regular basis.  They are people whose character has been forged through adversity.  Not  necessarily constant adversity (which can also destroy character), but the lack of adversity can results in people who are more like lumps of clay rather than admirable human beings.

The “suburbs” have often served as a token for a place that is pernicious, and for good reason statistically.  There are certainly many people who have been raised in the suburbs (I am one) who have never had to face serious external adversity.  Many of those people will never develop character unless they challenge themselves.  Many people raised in the suburbs will never have the need to challenge themselves.   We all know such people.  They have been coddled by their families from day one.  They don’t know how to fend for themselves, because they never really had to fend for themselves.  This is especially true if the parents were “normal,” not abusive in any way and not alcoholic (no greater impetus for developing self-reliance than having a dysfunctional parent).  No greater curse, I think, than a totally “normal” upbringing with video games, computers, television, and lots of financial resources that enable the purchase of a constant stream of material possessions and amusements.

What brought this on is a conversation? I had a long discussion with a friend last week.  He taught high school in the inner city for a number of years and was concerned that many “suburban” children will never have a chance to develop real character because they will not have to face or overcome serious challenges.  I chimed in by mentioning several families with whom I am acquainted where the entire world revolves around the child or children.  These are all families headed by “normal” (sensitive and intelligent) adults who don’t recognize the important need of their children to be regularly deprived of their immediate wants. 

In one child-raising book I once read, the author spoke of the need of children to get a regular dose of “Vitamin N,” (”No”).  In that book, the author asked the reader to think about how many times they tell themselves “no” during a day.  For instance, you’re at work, and every 10 minutes you think of getting up and (fill in the blank: take a walk, call a friend, eat a snack, watch a movie, surf on the Internet).  But you usually tell yourself “no,” right?  And those of us who are disciplined enough to ride herd over ourselves were likely raised with a certain amount of adversity and left to deal with it on our own.  We learned to either sink or swim.

This friend and I tried to come up with a set of rules that children “in the suburbs” are deprived of learning, unfortunately, due to their deficiency of adversity.  Here’s our list of the things many such children are deprived of learning out in the “suburbs”:

1  Life is not fair.
2  You don’t always get what you want. 
3.  Life’s not always about you.
4.  Some things don’t come easy.
5.  You must sometimes delay gratification.
6.  You will need to spend time with people who are not like you.

Writing this, I am now wondering whether it is true that our greatest heroes rise out of serious adversity.  I wonder if anyone has done a careful study documenting whether this is true or whether it is an (no pun intended) urban legend.

Over the past several weeks, people around the country have submitted questions to 10Questions.com. The 10 highest-rated posts will be answered by the presidential candidates.

Here are some of the questions:

To vote on these questions or many other questions, go here.

Here’s a good list of some of the most common logical fallacies. Succinct and clear-cut.

How common are these fallacies? The better question is to determine whether there is any corner of society where you don’t hear people constantly engaging in such reasoning.

Words have great power to frame thoughts. Here’s a good example reported by Ebonmuse of Daylight Atheism, reporting on the recent Secular Society Conference in NY:

The conference organizers next played a rare audio recording of [Carl] Sagan reading the famous passage, Reflections on a Mote of Dust, from his book Pale Blue Dot. Afterward, Ann Druyan (who was more than a little choked-up herself, and who could blame her?) took the stand to speak of Sagan’s legacy. She said, in a speech I hope always to remember, that the word “supernatural” is a terrible misnomer. Instead, she said passionately, we should call it the “subnatural”, because even the most elaborate imaginings of humans pale beside the majestic glory of the cosmos as it is revealed to us, and that communicating that sense of awe and wonder was what Carl Sagan did so well. Even today, over ten years after his death and over twenty years after Cosmos was first broadcast, it’s never gone off the air, and it’s still one of the most beautiful and compelling scientific documentaries of all time.

Yes, and I’m a bit jealous that Ebonmuse took advantage of his opportunity to mingle with so many of those freethinkers I admire (his photos are proof).  

The environmental analysis is surprisingly complicated, according to an article in Slate, “Public bathroom dilemma: Paper or air?”

What is one or two paper towels or 30 seconds of hot air compared to the emissions belched from cars stacked on I-84? But consider the following: So far this year Americans have used 1.8 million tons of paper towels and tissue, according to the American Forest & Paper Association, an industry group. There are approximately 3 million hand dryers installed in the country and most run for 30 seconds around 100 times a day, according to World Dryer Corp., one of the country’s leading manufacturers. That’s 690 billion watts of electricity every day — enough power to run an estimated 280,000 homes for an entire year.

The responsible choice seems to be the third option at the very end of the article . . .

I was shown this clip at a conference today. It’s already made the rounds, but it’s worth a chuckle or two if your haven’t yet seen it.