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	<title>A Sceptical Mind &#187; Debunking</title>
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	<link>http://www.scepticalmind.com</link>
	<description>The ramblings of a Danish sceptic liberal</description>
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		<title>Energy saving hype</title>
		<link>http://www.scepticalmind.com/2008/09/11/energy-saving-hype/</link>
		<comments>http://www.scepticalmind.com/2008/09/11/energy-saving-hype/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:17:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Lind Mortensen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Debunking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global warming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[linux]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.scepticalmind.com/?p=73</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I saw a new TV-add from &#8220;Elsparefonden&#8221; this morning. As many before it, it tried to get people to think about how much power they consumed and thereby consume less to save the environment. Before I go on, you can watch the add here from YouTube: So what&#8217;s my problem with this? Well, basically it&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I saw a new TV-add from &#8220;Elsparefonden&#8221; this morning. As many before it, it tried to get people to think about how much power they consumed and thereby consume less to save the environment. Before I go on, you can watch the add here from YouTube:<br />
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<p>So what&#8217;s my problem with this? Well, basically it&#8217;s just plain bullshit! Sure, power consumption will fire up energy production demands and thereby harm the environment because the energy production harms the environment. However the only reason why energy production harms the environment is because of low-quality materials like coal! Why the hell try to get people to go back in technological development by using less power, instead of just making our energy production more effective and clean (which would probably also be cheaper than all does damn adds all the time).</p>
<p>But apparently the global warming hype has become almost a religion, with fanatics fighting to jump back in time on a lot of fronts like electronics, food, industrial production etc. For some reason they believe the world population was better off with the status we had 50 years ago! Like for example a Linux guy I heard at FOSDEM 08, whom claimed that the German government should not use Windows Vista and instead use Linux &#8211; what was his reason? Vista uses more power and Microsoft was therefore fighting to destroy the environment&#8230;. Now, there are many valid arguments for using Linux instead of Vista, however saving the environment is definitely not one of them! It really pisses me off a lot of organizations are using this global warming frenzy to push their agendas, just by coating it with some environmental bullshit.</p>
<p>So &#8211; My conclusion? Shift all energy production to wind power and nuclear power &#8211; and stop irritating us with demands of lower power consumption. The only real reason to consume less power is saving money &#8211; power is expensive and will probably keep on getting more expensive for a long while, so if one can develop machines that consume less power, these machines will obviously be cheaper &#8211; this however has nothing to do with saving the environment.</p>
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		<title>Folkia loans &#8211; The stupid man&#8217;s loan!</title>
		<link>http://www.scepticalmind.com/2008/08/06/folkia-loans-the-stupid-mans-loan/</link>
		<comments>http://www.scepticalmind.com/2008/08/06/folkia-loans-the-stupid-mans-loan/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:27:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Lind Mortensen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Debunking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[math]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.scepticalmind.com/?p=36</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was watching tv the other day and suddenly this add came up: Mikrolån: Du kan vælge at låne 1.000 kr. eller 2.000 kr. (til Danmarks laveste afgift). Lånet skal tilbagebetales inden 30 dage. Now.. this is obviously Danish. Roughly translated it means: Micro loans: You can choose to loan 1000 Danish Kroners or 2000 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I was watching tv the other day and suddenly this add came up:</p>
<blockquote><p>Mikrolån: Du kan vælge at låne 1.000 kr. eller 2.000 kr. (til Danmarks laveste afgift). Lånet skal tilbagebetales inden 30 dage.</p></blockquote>
<p>Now.. this is obviously Danish. Roughly translated it means:</p>
<blockquote><p>Micro loans: You can choose to loan 1000 Danish Kroners or 2000 Danish Kroners (at the lowest rate in Denmark). The loan has to be repaid within 30 days.</p></blockquote>
<p>So let&#8217;s see, how does this work? Well basically, you loan 1000 DKK or 2000 DKK and then repay the money + a fee of either 300 DKK or 450 DKK respectively.. oh yeah, and you have to do all this within 30 days. So basically you loan 2000 DKK and suddenly you&#8217;re 2450 DKK in debt and you have to pay it back within 30 days.. so you go out, have a night on the town, maybe buy a new mobile phone and then you&#8217;re pretty much broke again. So this took maybe 1-2 days and now you have under 30 days to earn 2450 DKK (after taxes of course) and repay those fuckers with that money.</p>
<p><strong>To sum up here:</strong> You begin your month thinking: <em>&#8220;I need money&#8221;</em>. You go to <a title="Folkia Mikrolån" href="http://www.folkia.dk">folkia.dk</a> and apply for a loan of 2000 DKK. You get your money (which actually assumes a bunch of stuff about your current job situation, e.g. a monthly income of over 10000 DKK) and then you immediately start using the money. A few days later you&#8217;ve used the money and now you need to find a way to earn 2450 DKK within 30 days, which in Denmark means around 4600 DKK before taxes for most people. So in all this time, why the hell didn&#8217;t it occur to you to just earn the fucking 2450 DKK in the first place and use the money at the end of the month you fucking retarded piece of shit!</p>
<p>Companies like this one seriously makes me sick! They exploit the stupidity of people who are already in financial trouble and generally lead to a more unstable population of people stressed by debt.</p>
<p>I hope people in Denmark will be smart enough to see through all of this and not make stupid mistakes.</p>
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