agree with Barack that getting rid of the gas tax isn’t going to do crap for us. All the oil companies will do is say, hey, now we can charge 6 cents more. I don’t necessarily agree that we need to develop alternative fuels, we need rearrange our lifestyles and change the fact that we need so many cars. Just the idea of a fuel to burn is wrong, even hydrogen is stupid. We’d be wasting energy converting electricity into a liquid form when we could just NOT turn it into hydrogen and save all of that energy. We don’t need alternative fuels, we need alternative energy and to be more efficient energy in general. We need to be smart. (sigh)
It’s not that great of an ad except for that last line. “And you thought no one could be worse than George Bush”, that kills me.
Gore is passionate, convincing and inspiring. Now I understand what he’s going to do with his new ad campaign. I’m going carbon neutral. I want a footprint so light you can’t make it out in the sand. I want to be a part of the hero generation. Let’s save this planet people!
By the way, you should definitely check out more of the TED talks. They have amazing speakers that give really interesting presentations, performances, etc.
I’ve been following the Tibet protests with interest and especially now that they’re following the Olympic torch. One thing that I’ve noticed that China and it’s supporters are saying is that this about sports not politics. Essentially, they say this is not the time or place to discuss human rights.
It’s so incredibly hypocritical for China to say that the Olympics have nothing to do with politics. Does anyone really believe that China isn’t trying to show itself off as a world power with these Olympics? What they really mean to say is no one can use the Olympics for politics except them.
So I say, yes, the Olympics are sporting event AND they are a political event. To say they are merely a sporting event is simply wishful thinking. When sports teams are divided up by nation states, political entities, and then pitted against each other, how can than not be political?
I have a new favorite magazine. I’ve heard about Mother Earth News and probably seen copies of it laying around since I was young but never really read it until a couple weeks ago. I got a subscription after reading about the articles coming out in the next issue and after reading it cover to cover I ordered the 40 years of archives on CD. I can already tell it was an excellent investment. That’s a lot of wisdom for $50.
I’ve been reading back through the issues looking for articles and information that might help me on my way to a sustainable existence. I’d say about 75% of the articles are relevant or interesting to me. I’m especially interested in the renewable energy, natural building, gardening and water/rainwater management articles. I came across a really interesting one on solar power and wanted to share a few of the highlights…[continued]
I believe that this guy, Richard Heinberg, is absolutely 100% right on the money. I haven’t seen someone sum up everything I’ve read this well yet and I’m so glad I found it. This is why I’d like to start an organic permaculture farm and live a sustainable lifestyle. After I get myself taken care of I want to start working on a local level around the farm to teach others and help the community work on larger community projects that can’t be done by individuals.
Anyway, watch these videos. They’re important. You may not want to hear it, but it may be the most important thing you’ve ever watched.
Click to continue reading this entry and view the other 5 parts to this talk.
When I look around me I see a lot of people chasing things that will never make them happy. I imagine there are many more like me who can see that the dreams the powers that be teach us to chase are hollow. Whether it be only a piercing ray of truth slipping through the cracks or an undercurrent of suspicion always there but never coming into focus.
It’s easy to understand how uncomfortable the process of realization is if someone is to acknowledge that they have spent so much time and energy on an illusion. The urge to block those rays and suppress those truths is made all the easier with the diversions provided by the ones profiting off the willing labor supplied chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. Yet even those profiting are chasing unfulfillment…
“The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children”
- Bill Mollison.
I’d only had the slightest idea what permaculture was before this evening. I’ve always seen the term in conjunction with organic farming. It was usually the one with a funky drawing on the cover, which is probably because the idea was first introduce in the 1970’s.
I just assumed it was the spiritual version of organic farming and went with some more technical. I associated the culture with agriculture, instead of the general culture and not just a sustainable future, but one that grows.
No one wants to live on a dieing planet and I think most people see living without all of the comforts we’ve come to know and love as lowering ourselves to a place we can never hope to be happy again. The problem is that we think comfort is the same thing as happiness.
It also didn’t occur to me that the spirituality in this vision of permanent culture might resonate with me so strongly. It probably wouldn’t normally, but after listening to just this brief interview with Bill Mollison it really has me interested.
He seems like such a good smart honest guy that I really relate to. I want to know what he knows. Why the hell isn’t this kind of stuff they show kids in school? That was way better than any biology video, scratch that, any video I ever saw in school.
Hey Everyone, I just read this post on ThinkProgress about the right wing campaigning to have an anti-global warming blog win the best science blog of 2007. A number of right wing media outlets have been pushing people to vote for “Climate Audit”, run by a former mining executive.
The voting is open to the public and it ends tonight. Currently “Climate Audit” is leading “Bad Astronomy Blog” by around 700 votes. Please take a second to go and cast your vote for someone who deserves the title of “Best Science Blog of 2007″. You can cast your vote here.
Update
As the polls closed last night, the “Bad Astronomy Blog”, which isn’t actually all that bad now that I’ve read some of it, pulled of an upset win by only 45 votes! Thank you to everyone who helped take down the misguided attempts of global warming deniers.
I have a morning ritual. I go to three different web sites that simply by clicking on a link and shown a page with advertisers you can get those same advertisers to donate cups of food to the poor, save so many square feet of rain forest, and plant a tree(every 5th click).
The pages only let you do this once every day per internet connection. So every morning I make the rounds to www.TheHungerSite.com, www.EcologyFund.com, and www.LandCareNiagara.com and get my karma points for the day. Every workday I also make the rounds at work and rack up double points…
I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of democracy ever since the Burma protests happened. It seems to me that the push from democracy only happens when a lot of people’s lives are impacted negatively enough that they can not be ignored and unite people behind a mutual front.
The thing that sparked the Burmese protests was initially a very large increase imposed on cooking fuel by the government. The stamp tax united Americans against the British. Now clearly those were just the last straw in their respective circumstances, but it’s something to think about.
Democracy also appears to have a flaw similar to the boom and bust market cycles that caused the recessions in the past. As democracy succeeds and many of the things that were negatively impacting the people subside, people begin to lose cohesion and begin focusing on their personal lives and lose site of the civic responsibilities necessary for the continuation of the democracy. This process is facilitated with advertising that tells us to focus on ourselves by buying product x.
It reminds me of what happened to the romans. The generation of Pax Romana did not know suffering and life without democracy so they let it crumble around them. I think we’re in a similar period today as depressing as it may sound. I would like to think we could learn from the past, but that may be simply naive.
I don’t actually read USA Today, but I found this just browsing around on ThinkProgress today. It’s a full-page ad that Amnesty International placed in the paper. I think the picture is phenomenal.
The purpose of the ad is to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Military Comissions Act, which essentially removed the right of habeas corpus. The bill was passed under the guise of “protecting us from terrorism”. In reality they’re just eroding the protections that many people have fought and died for…
After writing my previous post about Burma I decided I really wanted to do something. The next day while I was cutting my hair(yes, I cut my own hair), I was looking at my head and thinking about the monks shaved heads. It dawned on me that shaving my heads in solidarity with the Buddhist monks would be a good way to do something. It turned out I was right, I probably had several dozen conversations about my head and Burma. I think I raised a lot of awareness.
When I got the e-mail from the U.S. Campaign for Burma people about the rally in Washington, D.C. I decided to go for it. I spent the few days before the protest thinking about what I wanted to put on my sign and I finally got the idea after seeing an illustration of the Olympic rings with a bullet hole for the last ring…
I plan on writing more about the “Free Burma” rally in D.C. earlier today, but I just saw this on CNN and couldn’t believe it. If you go to the latest news on CNN.com and click on the article entitled “Washington demonstrators rally to ‘free Burma’“, you’ll see a beautiful picture of the back of my head and the poster I made.
My jaw pretty much dropped when I saw that not only did CNN do a story on it, but that I was the lead photo. I shaved my head last week in solidarity with the monks. I guess it really only takes something moderately outrageous to get in the news.
Anyway, last time I went to a protest it was for the anti-war rally and there were maybe 40,000 people there and not a peep out of the major news outlets, and now 200 people rally about something different and there it is.
As you may well be aware, the military regime of Burma(officially called “Union of Myanmar”) is in the process of crushing a popular democratic uprising led by the country’s Buddhist monks which was initially sparked by an increase in fuel prices and subsequent attack on monks protesting the drastic price increase. The military regime is Orwellianly known as the “State Peace and Development Council”.
In 1960, U(Mr.) Nu, was democratically elected for his third, non-consecutive term, as Prime Minister in a landslide victory. Two years later the head of the military, General Ne Win, led a coup d’etat and seized power. U Nu had been elected several times previously in the few elections the country had held since 1948, when Britain released them from colonial rule. U Nu had given up power before and was continually re-elected as a popular leader. His popularity stemmed from being head of the AFPFL which led the movement for independence from England…
I was watching a clip from Politically Incorrect the other night. Bill Maher was interviewing Robert Draper, the guy who wrote the biography about George Bush called “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush”. The guy seemed to buy a lot of what Bush says and does but was critical of his stubborness. He said that Bush seemed to be waiting on things as if a miracle were going to occur.
Normally I would just chock that up to the idea that Bush thinks he’s literally God’s gift to the U.S. of A, but I suddenly had a minor epiphany. I started thinking about Bush’s life pre-presidency…
I arrived in downtown D.C. in front of the White House about 30 minutes late for the protest. I was a little worried that the march would have already started but the speakers had only just started. The place was packed, it was an ocean of people. If I had to guess I’d say that there were 50-60,000 people (the organizers claimed 100,000) there when the march first started. However I think only about 20,000-30,000 ended up at Congress after the march.
I managed to get within about 50 feet of the stage and got to here Cindy Sheehan, Ramsey Clark, Adam Kokesh, Etan Thomas, and Ralph Nader speak. I think the largest applause was for the Iraq veterans, but calls for impeachment and ending the corporate dominated government also got big cheers…
I found this video clip on Alternet earlier and I was well…shocked. I knew that the republicans were using September 11th to push all kinds of radical and obscene legislation through congress but I hadn’t really thought about it being used as frequently as it has. Apparently, the video is a sort of introduction to a new book called “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” by Naomi Klein. It looks like she did a lot of really great research and connected a lot of dots. Its on my gotta have book list and I’ll get paid right before the September 18th when it gets released. Well, let me shut up and you watch the video for yourselves, we’ll talk after you’re done.
In a short synopsis she has on her web page about the book, she says that she tracked this trend back
My grandmother created and guards my family tree. It’s not very detailed, mainly names and dates, but it’s still intriguing. I suppose it’s human nature to want know when and where your ancestors lived. It’s integral in fact to answering the ego’s demand to know who it is. All of this in the hope of figuring out why you’re here and what your purpose is. Who, what, where, when and why. Life is really just one big question, but what if we don’t like the answers.
I’m reading a book that I’ll write a review about when I finish. It tracks the evolution of man over the last 5 million years when our ancestors split with the chimpanzees. I began thinking about what those ancestors would have been like, surely very foreign and my instinct would be to disavow them as my ancestors. That’s clearly the instinct that many people give in to when they refuse to believe in evolution…
I’ve been following the Tibet protests with interest and especially now that they’re following the Olympic torch. One thing that I’ve noticed that China and it’s supporters are saying is that this about sports not politics. Essentially, they say this is not the time or place to discuss human rights.
I have a new favorite magazine. I’ve heard about 
When I look around me I see a lot of people chasing things that will never make them happy. I imagine there are many more like me who can see that the dreams the powers that be teach us to chase are hollow. Whether it be only a piercing ray of truth slipping through the cracks or an undercurrent of suspicion always there but never coming into focus.
I’d only had the slightest idea what 
After writing my previous post about Burma I decided I really wanted to do something. The next day while I was cutting my hair(yes, I cut my own hair), I was looking at my head and thinking about the monks shaved heads. It dawned on me that shaving my heads in solidarity with the Buddhist monks would be a good way to do something. It turned out I was right, I probably had several dozen conversations about my head and Burma. I think I raised a lot of awareness.
As you may well be aware, the military regime of Burma(officially called “Union of Myanmar”) is in the process of crushing a popular democratic uprising led by the country’s Buddhist monks which was initially sparked by an increase in fuel prices and subsequent attack on monks protesting the drastic price increase. The military regime is Orwellianly known as the “State Peace and Development Council”.
I arrived in downtown D.C. in front of the White House about 30 minutes late for the protest. I was a little worried that the march would have already started but the speakers had only just started. The place was packed, it was an ocean of people. If I had to guess I’d say that there were 50-60,000 people (the organizers claimed 100,000) there when the march first started. However I think only about 20,000-30,000 ended up at Congress after the march.
My grandmother created and guards my family tree. It’s not very detailed, mainly names and dates, but it’s still intriguing. I suppose it’s human nature to want know when and where your ancestors lived. It’s integral in fact to answering the ego’s demand to know who it is. All of this in the hope of figuring out why you’re here and what your purpose is. Who, what, where, when and why. Life is really just one big question, but what if we don’t like the answers.