THE HYPOCRISY OF MOURNING SAUDI KING ABDULLAH

We are appalled to see how the world is fawning over the Saudi royal family and lowering flags out of false respect for the death of the incredibly cruel King Abdullah.

This Saudi leader that the world now pretends to mourn was a repressive tyrant whose regime has, among countless terrible acts:
executed people whose crime was that they were accused of being witches,
dragged people through the streets and beheaded them,
flogged women for the outrageous crime of driving a car,
and, most recently, sentenced liberal blogger Raif Badawi, who only wanted more freedom, to 1,000 lashes for blasphemy.
Nearly all of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis!

We try to teach our children how to stand up to bullies, but how can we do this when our own government--liberal and conservative alike--acts with such utter hypocrisy?
We are not endorsing more hatred in the world. We are, however, unhappy that the our own country, with all it stands for, bows before such tyrants. Why?

Oil!

There is, to us, an obvious solution. That solution is to turn to solar and wind (and use the tools available to us to design these resources so they don't kill such great numbers of birds while we're at it.)

We need our politicians to make solar affordable for everyone, not just the rich, so that we can all put solar panels on top of our homes and businesses. We need electric cars that can be plugged into outlets where the energy comes from solar and wind power. This would also put a stop to the devastation caused by oil spills and fracking.

Then we need, gently, to teach our crueler neighbors on Planet Earth about kindness and freedom, rather than fawning over them. It's time to stop the kindergarteners from running the school.