May 2008
“If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you...”
– Oscar Wilde (via affremblequotes) (via kiku)
Irish Coffee
According to San Francisco history, this legendary drink was created in 1952 at the Buena Vista, the now landmark restaurant and bar. Apparently the owner, Jack Koeppler, read about a hot coffee and whiskey beverage that was tasted in Ireland by the travel columnist, Stanton Delaplane. Mr. Koeppler was so intent on making this drink perfectly he traveled to Ireland to confer with it’s...
USS Liberty Memorial →
On June 8, 1967, US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was suddenly and brutally attacked on the high seas in international waters by the air and naval forces of Israel. The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it. Survivors have been forbidden for 40 years to tell their story under oath to the American public. This USS Liberty Memorial web site...
“The Mexican state has re-activated paramilitary groups. They are doing what the...”
– Ernesto Ledesma, director of the Center for Political Analysis and Social and Economic Investigation, which is based in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas.
“An analysis of data from 50 states and the District of Columbia demonstrates...”
– Richard Nadler, president of the conservative Americas Majority Foundation in a report publlished in January 2008
Mexico’s Ghost Towns →
The explosion of emigration to the United States over the past 15 years has emptied much of central Mexico, even reaching into southernmost states like Chiapas and Yucatan. But it has simply devastated Zacatecas, a dry, rolling agricultural region located about 400 miles northwest of Mexico City. … Cerrito del Agua, population 3,000, has no paved roads — either leading to it or within it. No...
Interview: Why our brains are so clumsy →
An example I like is the “death tax” versus the “estate tax”. They are the same thing, but the death tax makes you think of death and “isn’t that a rotten thing, what a rip-off to be taxed on it”, whereas an estate tax makes you think of rich people, and that it’s fine to tax them. It’s the same underlying thing, but because they are described...
The Fading of the Mirage Economy →
Most of us understand that an overabundance of cheap, easy credit created a housing bubble that artificially inflated the price of land and housing, produced too many homes and homeowners, and persuaded too many Americans to dip into their home equity to support a lifestyle their income could not sustain. … But the thing to remember is that it’s not just residential real estate. The...
“One of the elders said: Either fly as far as you can from men, or else, laughing...”
– Thomas Merton
WatchBhutan measures success in terms of Gross National Happiness - but that may be changing as Western concepts gain a grip.
WatchUS war resister faces deportation.
Archiving: IT's Attempt to Stave Off Entropy →
There are efforts to create very long-term archives, say 100 or even 500 years, that involve saving the applications programs and drivers with the data and probably even multiple reader devices. With the 500-year archive you might even have to include analog optical pictures explaining how to build the reader, as well as any software required if this archive is to be used for a civilization reboot...
Minimally Invasive Education →
MIE’s uniqueness is its ability to attract children towards the Learning Station driven purely by their own interests.
“When you fall in love with clothing
it is like you ride a donkey
into deep mud...”
– Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks) - Green Writ
The permafrost won’t be perma for long →
The tundra is a carbon locker. We open it at our own risk. We now know the Arctic contains far more carbon than previously thought (Science, subs. req’d) — nearly 1000 billion metric tons of carbon (some 3600 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide). That exceeds all the carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere. The permafrost may contain more than a third of all carbon stored in soils globally,...
How Birthrate Is Turning Modern Conventional... →
For most people the real worry, if they were allowed to even say it out loud, is culture: if you’re French, you really don’t want Paris turning into Kinshasa, because let’s be honest, Kinshasa is a Hellhole. If you’re English, you don’t want London turning into Karachi, because Karachi is a nightmare. If you’re American, you don’t want Houston — oh Hell, ever been to Houston? If you have...
Vets for Peace Booted from National Memorial Day... →
The American Veterans Center, which runs the parade, told them “we cannot have elements in the parade that have any type of political message or wish to promote a point of view.”
Punk House →
The “punk house” may come in any number of forms. The most common type is often where a large group of like-minded punks cram into a house usually intended to accommodate two or three people, resulting in low rent and, thus, extended hours of leisure for the residents to pursue their true interests. Punk House features anarchist warehouses, feminist collectives, tree houses, workshops, artists’...
“The Huffington Post just appointed former RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen as its new...”
– Boing Boing
Clifton Hicks - Hustling Gamblers
$130 Oil: Is That a Tipping Point? →
”The economy sailed through $70 and $80 [a barrel] oil with almost no friction at all,” veteran energy analyst Daniel Yergin said. “But there’s a big difference between $80 and $120 or $130,” he said. “Now we have an oil shock on top of a credit crunch, a housing slump and a slowdown.”
The Last Bite: Is the World's Food System... →
As of 2006, there were eight hundred million people on the planet who were hungry, but they were outnumbered by the billion who were overweight. … Overeating makes us miserable, and ill, but medical advances mean that it takes a long time to kill us, so we keep on eating.
Maybe the USA has finally woken up. →
The Transportation Department reported Friday that in March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles than in March 2007, a decline of 4.3 percent. It is the first time since 1979 that traffic has dropped from one March to the next, and the month-on-month percentage decline is the largest since record keeping began in 1942.
“We vacillated on whether check cashing joints were really the devil in disguise....”
– From iNTERNETS CELEBRITIES - “Checks in Full Effects”
“Cuckoo” - Old English ballad (put to...
Have We Really Hit Peak Oil? →
The timing of the global peak may still be unclear. But surely we can’t afford, as a matter of national policy, to assume that it will be decades in the future — given that all of the symptoms are staring us in the face now.
(Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents: Just Being... →
When we read about the middle class squeeze, we tend to think blue collar — the machinist who used to make $25 an hour now making $15, the vocationally trained worker whose job just got cut. But what about the social worker who makes $30,000 a year, the environmental scientist who makes $40,000, the college professor who makes $50,000? The rules of the game have changed. The educated...
Iraq Vets Testify to War Atrocities, Vow to Fight... →
Veterans spoke firmly and eloquently before members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, telling stories that were just “the tip of the iceberg,” but which nevertheless offered a frightening range of accounts: violent house raids, the killings of innocent people, “drop weapons” used to make dead civilians look like insurgents, racism in the ranks, and their own process...
Markets Drop; Oil Continues Its Surge →
Oil prices continued to rise, closing at $129.07 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, an increase of $2.02 on the day.
“Our thesis is this: It is possible for a form of totalitarianism, different from...”
– Sheldon Wholin - Democacy Incorporated
It's Our Turn Now →
Whether it’s the economy, the environment, foreign policy, fiscal policy, government competency, judicial fairness… you name it… we’ve tried it their (the neocon’s) way, and it hasn’t worked.
“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the...”
– Lt. Gen. Sir William E. Butler