A great graph from my friend's status line

A graph of our national debt rate of increase.

It's amazing what we create

Japan: Suck It.

Japan is being a major douche bag lately, launching whaling vessels under the pretense of "scientific research" to slaughter 1,000 of the leviathans. The meat ends up on the douchebags plates, and they eat those beautiful beasts. Read this article about the heroics of these two gents in the face of their own safety and freedom. Go Sea Shepard and Greenpeace!

Utterly Insane and Stupid

Have you heard the news? Former Olympic champion Marion Jones was sentenced today to 6 months in prison for taking steroids. How much time will the Bush administration have to serve for lying on the record and taking us to war? And this lady gets six months. For this. Where are our priorities? What has our legal system come to?

Awesome new technology

So we all agree that the Aptera is awesome, but check this out! A car that runs on compressed air, and you can refill it at home or at special stations (which means almost anywhere). So cool!

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Air_car_runs_on_compressed_air_0104_af.html

http://www.theaircar.com/

What a scumbag

I just read an article about Ed Rollins who says "he loves to go negative." And that "South Carolina is a more negative place." In my experience the world is what we make it, so I would say to you Mr. Rollins get the hell out. And keep your negativity to yourself.

Online Calendars

I am sure most of you out there who read things on the web are already well familiar with online calendars, or a localized outlook or iCal electronic calendar. The whole world uses them to schedule their lives. It is enormously useful. I have been using them for years now, I used mine to organize my interview process including when to send a follow-up, thank you or reminder. I use them all the time to arrange dates, to mark social events, to track histories of any organization (including fictional!), and to remind myself of people's birthdays.

And this is where it gets interesting. Because all of them come equipped with a "recurring" date feature, by which you can tell your calendar to add the same event on a daily, weekly, monthly (including abstracts like the second Thursday at 5 pm) and annually. So, for all my dear friends, you are dates on my calendar, marking your birth date and in so being reminded, I remember your birthday, and usually make good on letting you know in some way I want you to be happy all day. This is easy, this is common sense.

But we cannot remark and remember birth without also marking death. I have not considered adding dates of people's deaths to my calendar, rather, I wonder only now how it will feel to have a birthday reminder pop up for someone who has passed.

Will I keep the annual event in my calendar as a means to always remember their life and my love, or will I instead remove their birthday as a way of absolving the past and moving on with my life? Has it become in fact that we will live on in dates and times recorded on pop up reminders that trigger cascading emotional response in our loved ones who succeed us? Is eternity a Google calendar blip, large for a day and small for the month, destined to disappear the following month, only to re-arise like some digital gizmodic phoenix year upon year till finally those calendars too pass into a world much less speculated, yet as poignant and particular as our own misty afters.

About the coolest thing ever

An online graphing website that documents trends in human populations and parameters.  Check it out.  It is mind boggling.

 

The Gap Minder

GRAVEL 2008! The only real candidate

Amazing how computers allow us to better visualize the universe.

My new favorite web site (thanks Jojo!)

http://www.thinkythings.org/odd-things/verbnames.html

This Man Died for our Sins

And I honor him.  What will become of his story?  Will his life and death be in vain?  I hope not.  He will serve as a reminder to me of why we fight.  I hope his memory lives on and that you click on this text and read his story.

What's wrong with Civilization?

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Santas_warned_ho_ho_ho_offensive_to_11142007_af.html

America the Beautiful

What can be said about America that speaks to the truth of this land more than this - America The Beautiful.  This country reaches across a great curve of our earth, it is merely a piece of an incredible globe and it is indeed beautiful.  And I ask you now dear reader, have we made it more or less beautiful? 

 

I know it is possible for humans to make the earth more beautiful, to work with her natural wonders.  Have you ever been to a small hillside town, or an ancient village in a magical agricultural land.  A city built with care and human conditions considered in every street?  Have you ever wandered in a wild area and seen the vastness of nature spread out beyond your horizons?  This is what I see for America.  Something better than what we have now.  Something cleaner, and richer, something greener and more robust.  A happy place where people love each other and shake each other's hands. 

 

I love America, and I want her to be better.

Green Living 01

Green Living tip of the day:  Garbage Resistance Front

 

Instead of paying to have your garbage picked up weekly, which requires generating huge amounts of garbage (garbage = waste) try not having a garbage pickup at all.  Institute a carry in carry out garbage policy for all your guests to drive home the waste impact they (and you) have!  Unfortunately recycling is generally grouped with garbage removal services so you have to do your recycling yourself.  I go to Far West Fibers about once a month with a whole bunch of recycling which is really fun and great because ...  drum roll please...  they accept a myriad of things that curbside recyclers do not!  From plastic clamshells (the remnants of most street cart vendor meals) to Styrofoam.  So I can recycle much more than I would ordinarily be able to.

 

On the flip side the garbage my household does generate amounts to about a plastic shopping bag's worth per month, which gets hand delivered to a can with some room to spare.  I mix it up around the neighborhood so as to spread out my impact.  No one suffers, and I pay less, and guess what?  I recycle more and more every time. 

 

NOTE:  To reduce your garbage this much you must also compost.  For a good resource on composting in Portland check this site.

Nothing is sacred in the Police State

Freedom.  It is my mantra and my guiding light.  Liberal is a word to describe someone who loves liberty and therefore freedom.  The cycle of a police state always begins in freedom.  The freedom allowed becomes a corrupting force for some, and a guiding light for others.  Corruption is a virulent psychosis of the human species and always leads to suffering.  And when the balance of power shifts to those corrupted by the desire for power the police state forms.  First to protect us all, second to protect our valued interests, and third to perpetrate a permanent grip on that power, thereby removing the original reason and mode that the power was available in the first place.  Yet the struggle for freedom will always remain, and I believe always prevail.  It is an endless pendulum of balance, and the ignorance and stupidity that blinds the greedy seems to always keep the pendulum swinging wildly, never settling for long in a peaceful balanced state.

 

So I submit to you this article about High School students in Chicago that performed a completely non-violent sit in for peace.  An act of blessing directly descended from the very idol of the Christian faith which is purported to be the dominant religion in this country.  Has our nation's faith flown so far from it's teachings that we can no longer recognize peace for what it is? 

 

In so defending liberty we destroy it!!!!

 

Acts against the constitution, acts against free speech.  McCarthy has returned as Homeland Security who's mission is noble but who's authority has corrupted even it's simple charge: defend us all from threat.  Our leaders have failed us in the glint of opportunity to power.  It is up to us, as citizens, as free people to remind the government of this.  I call for more non-violent protest, I call upon every citizen to take charge in this.  Police, Army, Navy, Government officers, you are citizens who have sworn your life's work to protect this nation and guide her, what does your heart tell you?  Is sacrifice of freedom any way to protect it?  Is freedom more safe if it is LOCKED UP in a cage?

 

We have come very close to the edge.  If we can turn back will we ever be able to recover what we have lost?  If we must, we shall plummet over the edge into a void of renewal and chaos.  Of course this is what the founding father's intended to a degree, that the tree of liberty be renewed with the blood of patriots.  That blood has already begun spilling;  our brave soldiers overseas, the victims of terror at home and abroad, the futures of the students in the article above, and the fear in the hearts of every red blooded American who knows what freedom should be.

 

Eli Green, LEED AP

 

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The beginning...

I am a serial optimist.  It is my mode of thought, and a way of life.  I will always be so, and I will always fight to thrive.  It is the nature of people to fight for survival, and this is what brings me to my point.  A town in Tennessee has run out of water.  They are making do, but the sheriff makes a great point at the end of the article: what happens when a town of 145 people runs of water is very different than when a city of 4.5 million people runs out of water.  It will be a riot, a fight for survival, a glimpse of what can happen if we find ourselves on a world out of balance.  We cannot rely on the good will of people to do make the transition smoothly, we must avoid that transition.  Incremental change is our only option.  Change now, from a centralized source, for the good of the people.  Because people have shown over and over that we cannot do it on our own.  That is not how survival works.  It is an every person for themselves mentality.  This is not the best way to survive!  We know that!  Yet fight or flight is not about knowing, it is about doing.  And what we do when the oceans rise, and the fresh water disappears will mark this era in human evolution more than anything we have ever done in the past.

 

Get ready.  The change is coming.

Blogger Buzz: Environmental Blog Roundup

Blogger Buzz: Environmental Blog Roundup
A very cool blog that links some environmental blogs that Trav.is sent me. ThanSave as Draftks Trav!

The world as we know it is over

Apocalypse is upon is.  No.  just kidding.  It's close though, especially when you understand that word to mean the end of the world as we know it.  Which it is.  People's lives are valued over the survival of the ecosystem, speciation, and a healthy globe.  And with that almighty constant reigning supreme in the equation we are unable to reach a balance.  Actually the word equation denotes equality, as both sides of the equals sign must be equal (that's why it's called an equals sign).  So when news like this reaches my brain I know that our growth means conflict and death for all other species.  Including our own.  We will evolve, we will struggle, and we might make it.  I give us 1/20 odds.  Not good.  But not altogether bad.  Problem is, we don't know how much we need every other species out there, or if there is a threshold where we have killed too many off.  Only one way to find out, right?  Cross the threshold, then we'll know.  And WE WILL ALL BE DEAD.  That is why we must be progressive, why we cannot wait!  Why we must start doing something NOW!  It's called being progressive and I know that scares the crap out of Republicans and Conservatives (and many Democrats and Liberals as well) but it's our only choice.... or Goodbye. 

 

So, knowing the track record of humanity.  This is an early goodbye.  I've loved you world, and I won't give up, but it's not going to last forever at this rate.  You don't give up either ok?  We can solve this.  Just don't hold your breath.

On old idea taking flight

Automated pods whizzing between destinations are an idea that has been around for a long time.  Imagined as a safer alternative to humans operating vehicles (an idea I heartily endorse) they have been attempted for decades and are rarely successful.  Well, this article from the guardian describes a new system going in at Heathrow Airport in London, England.  That's very shagadellic isn't it?  The article mentions a fee for the service, but it is unclear whether that is for the airport project or the proposed systems going into other cities.  Either way, the future is here, and robot pilots are awesome.  Give it a try next time you fly!