fotD 14

Cool pic, but check out the large version (while you're at it, check out this rooftops shot).

Hysterical,

...given the weird presidential primary leap-frogging and jostling that's been going on, to the endless annoyance of everyone but those doing it: Nebraska Moves 2008 Presidental Primary to 1:30 This Afternoon

re-defining the world

Some RSS feed the other day mentioned a battery made of paper or some such thing: I read it, thought something along the lines of 'those wacky nanotubes!' and moved on.

Then I read this article about that same breakthrough and realized 'Holy crap, these guys are operating on a completely different plane.'

orangs and your stupid f-ing SUV

Make no mistake: ethanol and bio-fuels can not be anything more than a very temporary and very limited stop gap on our road to fuel efficiency.

Indonesia and Malaysia together produce 83 percent of the world’s palm oil. In 2004, the Indonesian government released a plan calling for the conversion of 40,000 square miles of Borneo to palm plantations by the end of the decade.

Borneo currently supports the largest surviving wild orangutan population. However, environmental groups fear this may not be true for much longer, as the primates are rapidly losing their habitat due to the deforestation. They are also often beaten by plantation workers. Lone Nielsen, head of Borneo Orangutan Survival, says the group sees orangutans with “broken bones, cracked skulls, burns, internal injuries… The plantation workers beat them because they want to catch them and the only way you can catch an orangutan is to knock it unconscious.”

And it's not simply the loss of one species, the orangutans, that is the problem here - it's the globally-repeated willful destruction of the last vestiges of wilderness to fuel the short-term interests of those who think oil is bad, but who don't want to simply conserve and become more efficient. Countries like Brazil and Indonesia will happily mow under the last preserve, at the behest of Western multi-nationals, to slake our thirst for energy. Please use less.

not needed...

...like oxygen, needed like another potato chip.

Next stop, bad juju?

clustrfriends

Woohoo! My Mozambique red dot is back!

re-velo-lution?

From VeloMondial, via Bike Hugger - Qatar, a country defined by intense heat, humidity, and incredible wealth (and attendant health risks like obesity and high blood pressure), is working on an 18-mile bike path shaded from the sun and cooled geothermally. One of the few things I remember about the little country from when we went to war with Iraq the first time was a report that they had special air-conditioning hookups at drive-in theaters so people didn't have to leave their cars running to get cool air (this lack of adaptation to their own environment must have something to do with them rolling over and then paying a foreign power to bail them out). Using renewable energy to help people enjoy cycling seems like a much better idea which could hopefully be exported to their hyper-developing neighbor Dubai.

Granted, this type of thing will only be happening in wealthy areas, but if this path is successful, what's to keep other countries from benefiting from similar projects (geothermal could be used in the opposite way, too, keeping snow and ice off the paths in cooler climes), and how far could the benefits of large numbers of people cycling together reach?

To a few of my friends

I spent five years in the Navy and have been lucky to keep in touch with some of my friends from then. A few of them told me they voted for George W (some even twice - *shudder*) because of one issue: the perception that Republican administrations look out for military members (i.e. they pay them more and give them better stuff, not 'they keep them from dying for no discernible reason').

I debate this and even started an analysis of military pay that I wanted to match up with the corresponding administrations and Congresses, but the project's complexities quickly convinced me to put it off. Doesn't matter. Congress approved on Sunday a $460B Pentagon budget (that doesn't include Iraq spending), and one fact being reported by multiple news outlets across the media sums reveals the tremendously craven attitude of our present administration (italics mine):

The bill would provide $2.2 billion to cover a 3.5 percent pay raise for service members. The administration objects and says its recommended 3 percent pay increase is sufficient.

If my math is right, that works out to a difference of $400M in a budget a thousand times larger than that. So if you're in the military and actually voted for this guy based on how he was going to look out for you, how do you like him now that he's quibbling over a half of one percent that could be going into your pocket?

if they're not climbing them, they're counting them

This was a very entertaining and well-written article from the BBC about, of all things, smoking.

Now it's happening in Britain. It's already
happened in Scotland, where any space with three walls is designated a
non-smoking zone. After that law came in, you could see otherwise sane-looking
people counting walls and you knew that they were smokers.

Fishing With John - Tom Waits

You may know him for his gritty and innovative music, but did you also know Tom Waits is an accomplished fisherman?

"It looks like the same fish, Tom."

"No, it can't be. The first one's in my pants."