Rwoerge, Rwi rwant rwone...

Autoblog has this video with Jay Leno up on it today about the Aptera 2e electric car. at first glance, it reminded me of George and Astro Jetson. after watching this video, Astro and i think we want one just because...

Earth Day...

some believe the earth is a fragile thing, but it has lasted through some of the most disastrous things. we, on the other hand, are fragile. our actions, or inactions, show just how much as we create machines that can destroy the balance we need to maintain with the place in which we live.

stop-gap or windfall?

in the NYT's today:

Bush Calls for End to Ban on Offshore Oil Drilling

and

Will $4 Gasoline Trump a 27-Year-Old Ban?

There is no need to explain the headlines. They tell the story very simply. You can read the articles for yourself by clicking on them.

They claim that it will mean an additional 18 billion barrels of oil in the future. The future means that it will take about 10 years to build the drilling and production facilities.

In the meantime, according to the estimates, the US consumes approximately 21 million barrels each day. That means it would add 857.14 days worth of oil. OR 2.35 years.

def.: stop-gap n. 1. That which closes or fills up an opening or gap; hence, a temporary expedient.

It's not a stop-gap measure if it's going to take 10 years to develop.

def.: wind fall 1> something (as a tree or fruit) blown down by the wind
2. an unexpected, unearned, or sudden gain or advantage.


Windfall? Who do you suspect will fund the search for and production of the additional oil? YOU, ME, and THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (again, you and me because we foot the government's bills.)


I was happy this week because for the first time in weeks and weeks it cost me under $70 to fill my tank (albeit only $67) but, if you stop and think about it, it's not something to be happy about.

how much did you pay this week?




just asking...

Earth Day...

The Nature Conservancy

EarthDay.gov

The Wilderness Society

Earth Day Network

Ecologue

World Wildlife Organization

Do something for yourself...
and your family,
and your friends,
and your community,
and your kids,
and your life,
and me...

i hate plastic bags...

I really do hate them. They are more of a nuisance and even more of an environmental problem.

Well, Ireland, the country not me, has come up with the solution and it's working. EACH plastic bag at a store costs 33¢! That's right. Customers are charged 33¢ for every plastic bag used in a store. The change has been so dramatic that use went down 94% in the first year of the tax and it is now considered a social faux pas to be caught with a plastic bag.

The New York Times reported all of this in a story today entitled Motivated by a Tax, Irish Spurn Plastic Bags.

They mentioned that the movement hasn't taken hold very well in the U.S. cities that have tried to do it. Whole Foods, along with other environmentally aware companies, are beginning to charge or refuse to carry them. Actually, Whole Foods here in Chicago, and I assume that it's true in all their stores, actually give customers 15¢ off their bill for each cloth/reusable bag they bring in with them.

I made the switch quite awhile ago and it really is much more sensible and even more practical. [The only problem I have is sometimes I forget to put them back in the car.]

The best part was that the bags originally only cost $1.00! They also hold more and they never tear. They are made of canvas.

Housewives in France long used this type of bag but got away from it over the years because of American influence. Of course, in Europe, they don't shop like Americans.

They don't buy for the week as we do. They buy food as they need it, almost always on a daily basis. It not only is more practical but freshness is assured. Instead of buying a pound of ham, it is sold in packages of 4-6 planches - slices. How many times have you bought an entire pound of ham only to end up throwing some of it away because you forgot there was any left? It went bad. I've done it too many times to remember.

I've taken to shopping twice a week over the last couple of years and found that not only do I not throw bad food out, I'm actually saving money with fresher food.

so, please, start hating plastic bags and buy yourself a few $1 canvas ones.

blog post must reads: December 30, 2007...

The Great American Pants[Law]suit revisited, over at Crooks and Liars - remember the judge that sued the Oriental dry cleaners for $67 million who lost his Armani slacks? the neocon Republicans have their panties all in a bunch...

Paris Isn’t Burning from the NYT - Illinois goes totally smoke free on Tuesday [yay!], but if Paris is doing it, that is BIG news. Maybe it's their queer mayor!

Tens of millions of birds disappearing across North America over at The Raw Story - large factory farms, over de-forestation, polluted waterways, decreased wetlands, and urban sprawl; impoverished planet...

Legal Fictions
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S DUMBEST LEGAL ARGUMENTS OF THE YEAR. over at Slate.com - kind of like Dave Letterman's Top Ten List, only without surprises...


Judge halts Oregon's gay partnership law over at PageOneQ - the law was to take effect this Wednesday, January 2, 2008. the christianists are beyond reprehensible...

fire rainbow...

The rarest of all naturally occurring atmospheric phenomena.

The picture was captured this week on the Idaho / Washington border, the event lasted about one hour.

Clouds have to be cirrus, at least 20k feet in altitude, with just the right amount of ice crystals and the sun has to hit the clouds at precisely 58 degrees.

Stunning!

"The arc (sometimes called a circumhorizontal arc) is usually produced by plate oriented crystals and is a close relation to the circumzenithal arc. Light rays enter the almost vertical crystal side faces and leave via the lower horizontal face (ray path 3-1). The refraction of the almost parallel sun's rays through faces inclined at 90° produces pure, bright and well separated prismatic colours ~ purer than those of the rainbow. The colours are at their best when the crystal tilts are smallest. Large crystal tilts produce more pastel hues." [Source: Atmospheric Optics]

the California fires - the fight is just starting...

The little voice in the back of most people's heads is probably questioning if global warming has anything to do with it.

but...

Michelle Malkin has already said that it is the environmentalists who caused the fires.

The wildfires are being compared to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

One cable pundit is saying that the people who live there deserve it.

A more famous one had this to say: "There always has to be a global warming peg, and they bombed out on the hurricanes, so now this is being blamed on global warming."


There's a drought in Georgia; there are wildfires in California; there was a disastrous hurricane in New Orleans; the ice in the Arctic is melting so that there may finally be a "Northwest Passage."

At this point, doesn't it seem a logical idea, even if global warming eventually does turn out to be just a cause célébre, to act as if it were true, just on the chance that maybe, maybe the world is under attack by the insanity of man and we should save it from ourselves? We may learn something important.

Below is a photo from NASA's Aqua Satellite of Southern California taken late yesterday.





when you see this doesn't it make sense to take some, any, kind of action? just in case?

just asking...

climate change? what climate change?

I know they are calling it global warming, but global warming is only one part of the bigger picture of climate change. It specifically deals with the warming of the oceans and air closer to the surface. In a domino effect, the warming of the oceans and air are causing the climates around the world to change.

Here, in Chicago, we have had milder winters and summers for the last few years. Other parts of the world are having more severe weather than they usually did. It's actually a very complex issue and the earth has undergone climate changes over the millenia, but not because of things that man is doing.

Of course, the Busheviks, Republicans, oil companies and anyone else who depends on non-renewable resources for profit deny it is actually happening and they know how to manipulate the data to make their arguments. I've worked with statistical analyses in education for many years. One can manipulate data, especially numbers, to say anything you want them to say. All you have to do is change the way you collect the data, juggle the sources or distort the conclusions. Like I said, it's really easy.

The one thing that is difficult to manipulate is a person's eyes. It is difficult to change what the eye sees. Of course, there are optical conditions, camera lens functioning, oh, and PhotoShop, but the untouched U.S. satellite shows exactly what is happening. These pictures are a comparison of the Arctic Ocean in 1979 and 2003 from the exact same location. One doesn't need to make a comment about the two pictures. The change is so obvious.



I can't wait to see the 2007 pictures...

cheney fodder - part four...

Leaving No Tracks, part 4 of the Washington Post series on Cheney's power, focuses on how he is able to influence policy and decisions for the administration and not have much traceable back to him. A great description comes from Paul Hoffman who owed his placement in the government to Cheney's influence.

"His genius," Hoffman said, is that "he builds networks and puts the right people in the right places, and then trusts them to make well-informed decisions that comport with his overall vision."

No one ever has to second guess what the v.p. wants when he contacts them, because they know beforehand what it is.

To add an air of legitimacy to the recommendations and decisions Mr. Cheney makes, he also puts into place experts in the field for which he focuses.

Aides praise Cheney's habit of reaching down to officials who are best informed on a subject he is tackling. But the effect of his calls often leads those mid-level officials scrambling to do what they presume to be his bidding.

There is no second-guessing. Everyone knows his/her role.

What happens to anyone who doesn't fit into the scheme of things? Christie Todd Whitman is a perfect example. As head of the EPA, she was responsible for overseeing a number of environmental policies that not only had been in place for a while but also those that Mr. Bush had made promises.

Mr. Cheney, on the other hand, was always known to be pro-industry before anything else. On the issue of easing pollution rules for aging power and oil refining plants he wanted action and he wanted it fast. Whitman cautioned that a quick decision could be a grand political problem. Cheney didn't care.

Even after meeting directly with Bush she knew that the decision had been made. She chose to resign instead of put her name to something in which she couldn't abide. At the time the reason given for her departure was that she wanted to spend more time with her family.

Recently, she let it be know that it wasn't the case.

By that time, Whitman had already announced her resignation, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family. But the real reason, she said, was the new rule.

"I just couldn't sign it," she said. "The president has a right to have an administrator who could defend it, and I just couldn't."

There is no room for discussion or dissent with the faux chief-of-staff role that Cheney put himself in place as.

Whitman was probably the first high-visibility resignation from the Bush administration. At the time there was thought that the excuse given was lame. As we've seen in the last couple of months, more and more members of the administration are resigning.

It's almost as if the rats are leaving the unsinkable Titanic administration. How many more will jump ship in the coming months? Especially, since it is starting to look like that there may be legal ramifications and prosecutions are not so out of the question.

just ask libby...

the imperium of inconvenience in man...

This is just about the wolves. When they were removed from Yellowstone National Park all havoc broke out with the ecosystem. When reinstated the balance almost immediately came back into view.

But wolves are only one small part of what K. George W's Department of the Interior wants to do. Senators question Bush endangered wildlife plan

A Bush administration plan to change rules of the Endangered Species Act protecting American wildlife drew pointed questions on Wednesday from five U.S. senators, who called the proposed changes "troubling....."

Environmental activists raised alarms about the draft rules change last month, saying the revisions would weaken the act so much that about 80 percent of the 1,300 species now on the endangered list would lose protection.

The activists also said government documents they obtained indicate revisions were being made as recently as February.

What's behind all of this? Why would anyone really need to ask? the oil industry, the gas industry, the logging industry, the farm industry...

In short, every single lobby group for big business is behind this. It's just one more of this administration's goal of enriching their friends at the expense of not just the ecosystem but of the general population from its actions. Afterall, they'll all be dead when the devastation is at its heighth. Why should they care? They can't take it with them...

For more information on what you can do to help, check out these websites:

Save America's Wolves

Endageredspecies.com

World Wildlife Fund

The Endangered Species Program - US Fish & Wildlife Service