email from Michael:

Here in the States it's difficult to find old 50s homes that still have their nice basement incinerators ... and most cities have passed resolutions outlawing their use.

Up here they started coming down hard on fireplaces which are "politically incorrect" and aren't being put into most new homes. Most cities and towns have bylaws against burning leaves in the back yards (that started about ten years ago). Anything that gives the individual one iota of independence is anathema to them. To me the PROOF that they don't give a dam about the environment is their massive brainwashing campaign that resulted in people (with washing machines and dryers) putting PLASTIC diapers on their babies. That started in the eighties and continues to this day. It always amazed me how quickly and unthinkingly the mindless masses bought into that crap (pardon the pun). One Pamper's diaper takes something like a million years to decompose or whatever. The hospitals put the newborns in them now and the pediatricians in the magazines do their bit by telling new moms to not worry about toilet training - let the kid do it in his own time. In MY day, the deadline was two years old - now some mothers are still buying plastic diapers for toddlers. And not a PEEP is ever heard from the environmentalists (or Leninists or Animalists as Orwell referred to them).

When I first came back from travelling the world I was disgusted with our continent for our wasteful habits. I couldn't get over how our grocery stores had everything encased in styrofoam and saran wrap. Elsewhere in the world this wasn't done. That has changed now of course. I was in England two summers ago and they've got the big massive super-markets now and gone are the little green grocers and butchers etc.

It all makes sense when one realizes whose running the show and what their goals are. Everything that is GOOD and RIGHT is a threat to [them] and so they seek to destroy it. ~ Jackie Jura

Michael answered:

We have the bans on leaf burning, too. Most new homes around here have gas fireplaces, if they have them at all. The glow of the television screen is what everybody gathers 'round, anyway...

You've got excellent points about plastic diapers and toilet training -- that subject would be a great piece for your site! Where are the eco-greens insisting on cloth diapers? I don't see it. I understand that preschoolers (age 3) now get sent to school in Pampers, and their teachers change the diapers.